South Korea’s LG Display has announced plans to sell its majority stake in a large liquid crystal display (LCD) plant in Guangzhou, China, to TCL’s LCD unit, CSOT, for 10.8 billion yuan ($1.54 billion).
The sale will include LG Display’s 80% stake in the LCD panel plant and 100% ownership of its LCD module facility, with the transaction expected to close by March 2025.
LG Display arrived at this decision due to its aims to focus more on its more competitive organic light-emitting diode (OLED) business, as the LCD market becomes increasingly saturated. The company plans to use the capital from the sale to bolster its financial stability and enhance its competitiveness in the OLED sector.
“We plan to focus more on the OLED business to enhance our business competitiveness and build stable profit bases. Also, we expect capital from the (plant) sale to help strengthen our financial stability,” LG Display said in a statement.
With this sale, LG Display will cease LCD panel production in China but will continue to produce higher-margin large-sized OLED panels in the region. The sale is expected to help improve LG Display’s financial structure following several consecutive quarterly losses due to weaker demand for devices using display panels.
