[New Year's Message] Jung Cheol-dong, LGD President: "Let's Lay the Foundation for Business Normalization Beyond Turning a Profit This Year"

Emphasizing Customer Trust Recovery Through Rapid Execution

Jung Cheol-dong, CEO of LG Display, encouraged employees to make this year a foundation for management normalization beyond just turning a profit. With the possibility of returning to profitability after four quarters since the fourth quarter of 2023, he emphasized not only increasing profits but also fully regaining customer trust and restoring the company's fundamentals.

Jung Cheol-dong, CEO of LG Display. Provided by LG Display

LG Display announced that CEO Jung delivered a New Year's message containing these points to domestic and international employees on the 2nd. Jung emphasized, "Let's enhance the execution power of internal innovation and become a company that earns full trust from customers."

He first stated, "This year should be one where all ongoing business tasks bear more tangible results," and urged, "We must arm ourselves with swift execution to create genuine change and once again become a company that receives full trust from customers."

He then presented three practical directions: strengthening quality and cost innovation, providing differentiated value unique to LG Display, and fostering an organizational culture focused on performance creation.

Jung defined, "Quality and cost competitiveness are the basics to becoming a business partner that customers can trust." He said, "We should thoroughly review the quality management entities and processes, inspect the fundamental response system to raise the quality level perceived by customers, and minimize quality costs. We must innovate costs across all business areas including products, technology, and processes to optimize resource input such as material costs, and align infrastructure and operational structures with business strategy directions."

He also presented business-specific tasks for providing differentiated value. For small and medium-sized organic light-emitting diode (OLED), he ordered timely development and mass production of new models scheduled for this year and securing differentiated technologies linked to customer roadmaps in advance. For large-sized displays, he encouraged improving timely responsiveness to demand fluctuations, cost innovation, and core performance enhancement. For medium-sized and automotive displays, he urged enhancing cost competitiveness and strengthening LG Display’s unique technological leadership.

To improve organizational culture, he said, "Let's develop expertise to the extent that we are recognized as the best in our respective fields." He announced plans to accelerate digital transformation (DX). He stated, "We will expand AI and virtual design (VD)-based DX, which have mainly been applied in manufacturing and research and development (R&D) areas, to general business areas to improve work efficiency." He added, "Everyone should have a sense of ownership and pride as key players in performance creation and enhance the execution power of internal innovation."

Jung emphasized increasing company profitability and accelerating management normalization. Over the past year, he said, "We redefined the essence of business as creating customer value and securing profitability, focusing on strengthening capabilities in development, production, quality, and cost, which are fundamental competitive advantages of display companies."

He said, "Let's aim to become a company that customers can trust and that lasts, a partner that grows together with customers, and a company that presents differentiated value and vision to our society. This year, let's demonstrate more persistent execution power to make it a year that lays the foundation for management normalization beyond turnaround (profitability)."

LG Display posted losses for six consecutive quarters from the second quarter of 2022 to the third quarter of 2023, then returned to profitability in the fourth quarter, but recorded losses again in the first to third quarters of last year. The fourth quarter is expected to record a profit of around 200 billion KRW. The consensus operating profit estimate for the fourth quarter from financial information firm FnGuide is 276.7 billion KRW.