이 기사는 2021년 10월 01일 08시04분 thebell에 표출된 기사입니다

Samsung Display, South Korea’s leading display maker, will begin mass production of quantum-dot (QD) panels in the fourth quarter. Its capital expenditure (CAPEX), which hovered around 3.5 trillion won ($2.95 billion) over the last three years after peaking at 13 trillion won in 2017, is expected to increase again.

“We plan to mass produce QD displays in the fourth quarter, but it can be November or December as the timeline may change,” said an official at Samsung Display. “Whether to increase CAPEX depends on an yield stabilization issue and market conditions."

Industry insiders expect the company to gradually increase its CAPEX as it enters the large-sized display panel business. Samsung Display is the world’s top small and medium-sized organic light emitting diode (OLED) maker, but large-sized OLED panels are only produced by LG Display.

In October 2019, Samsung announced its plan to invest around 13 trillion won in QD-OLED and quantum-dot nano-emitting diode (QNED) panels by 2025, meaning it will invest around 2.7 trillion won in the QD business a year. Some of the amount was used to swift its liquid crystal display (LCD)-focused display production line at its Asan 1 campus to the world’s first QD-OLED production line.

Samsung Display, which was spun off from Samsung Electronics in 2012, sharply increased its CAPEX in 2016 and 2017. Its annual CAPEX was slightly over 4 trillion won on average from 2012 to 2015, but grew to 9.44 trillion won in 2016 and 13.9 trillion won in 2017.

The display maker aggressively expanded its production line for flexible OLED panels used for smartphones in 2016, which it mass-produced since the end of 2013. The company built a separate production line to produce OLED displays exclusively for Apple’s iPhone.

The company made aggressive investments in 2016 and 2017 amid booming display business, but showed a conservative stance since 2018. Its CAPEX dropped to around 4 trillion won in 2018 and 2.16 trillion won in 2019, its lowest since 2012.

Samsung Display has boosted its CAPEX again since last year. It reportedly plans to invest 3 trillion won in a production line for mid-sized OLED panels alongside large-sized ones this year to meet growing demand for mid-sized OLEDs.

Analysts expect Samsung Display’s total CAPEX to reach 9 trillion won this year and the amount may further increase if the company accelerates its production of QD displays next year.

“An expansion of CAPEX may be a burden, but it is meaningful because the company will be able to secure a new source of revenue through the large-sized OLED panel business,” said an industry source. (Reporting by Hye-ran Kim)