Samsung, LG Displays Bet On LED For iPads, Macbooks

South Korea's Samsung Electronics and LG Display are spending billions of dollars on new production capacity for midsize organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panels to secure business for Apple's iPads and MacBooks and to keep out Chinese rivals from this premium market, Kotoro Hosokawa reported for Nikkei Asia.

Photo Insert: LG's OLED setup at CES 2023

Samsung panel unit Samsung Display is investing 4.1 trillion won ($3.05 billion) to install OLED production lines at the company's main Tangjeong production campus in South Korea.

The move is part of its transition away from liquid crystal displays, with mass production slated to start in 2026.

Their actions come more than a month after Japanese display maker JOLED, a merger of the OLED businesses of Panasonic and Sony filed for bankruptcy with $250 million in liabilities after it failed to catch up with its South Korean rivals.

JOLED will close two plants in Japan and let go of around 280 employees as it withdraws from the OLED panel business.

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