LG Display, Apple Effect... IT Panel Share Exceeds 40% in First Half Sales

This year in the first half, the proportion of IT panels such as tablets and laptops in LG Display's sales exceeded 40%.

LG (left) and Apple logos

According to LG Display's semi-annual report on the 15th, IT panels accounted for 42.3% of the company's sales in the first half of the year. This is a 5.5 percentage point increase compared to the end of last year (36.8%). Compared to the first half of last year (40.1%), it is 2.2 percentage points higher.

In terms of amount, the sales revenue in the first half of this year (5.0589 trillion KRW) is about 1.4 trillion KRW more than the first half of last year. Compared to the end of last year, LG Display has already earned an amount equivalent to 64% of last year's total sales (7.853 trillion KRW) in the first half of this year.

This achievement was made possible as mass production of IT OLED panels began in earnest. The new iPad Pro models (11-inch and 13-inch) released by Apple in May this year were equipped with OLED panels for the first time. These products adopted the 'Two Stack Tandem OLED,' which stacks two OLED emitting layers.

LG Display, which was quick to develop tandem technology and apply it to products, supplies its OLED panels to both the 11-inch and 13-inch iPad Pro models. Because of this, it is known to have a larger supply volume than Samsung Display, which supplies OLED only to the 11-inch model.

Kim Sung-hyun, LG Display's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Vice President, stated during the Q2 earnings conference call last month, "We have stably started mass production based on tandem technology leadership in the IT OLED sector and expanded shipments in the second quarter."

The auto sector, responsible for vehicle display panels, accounted for '0%' of total sales at the end of last year. However, it rapidly increased to 9.3% (1.107848 trillion KRW) in the first half of this year. LG Display provides vehicle OLEDs and software-centric vehicle (SDV) optimized display solutions to global automakers.

However, the sales proportion of mobile panels decreased from 42.9% (9.1463 trillion KRW) at the end of last year to 25.7% (3.0828 trillion KRW) in the first half of this year. LG Display is known to supply OLED panels to two pro lineup models, including the iPhone 16 Pro and Pro Max, scheduled for release in the second half of this year.