LG Display reclaims global top spot in Q4 2021

South Korea’s LG Display Co. regained the top spot in the global display market for TVs in the fourth quarter of 2021, according to tech industry research firm Omdia on March 21. The unit of LG Electronics Inc., the world's largest organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV maker, took 23.8% market share worldwide. China’s BOE Technology Group Co., which topped the market from the first through the third quarter of last year, ranked second with 20.6%.

LG Display’s comeback is based on surged sales of premium TVs and other OLED products. The company sold 2.3 million units of OLED TV panels in the last quarter, a quarterly record high and surpassing 200 million units in quarterly sales for the first time. The OLED TV panel sales were $1.45 billion during the fourth quarter, up 28% from the same quarter of 2020.  

In January, the display maker announced it swung to an operating profit last year after two consecutive years of shortfalls, led by a sharp rebound in LCD panel prices and increasing shipments of OLED TV panels. The company's full-year operating profit came in at 2.2 trillion won in 2021 on a consolidated basis, despite a 30% on-year decline in fourth-quarter earnings. 

The Korean display manufacturer is set to secure the top spot this year with a 23.9% market share and selling a total of 10.01 million OLED TVs, Omdia said.  

The global OLED TV market is rapidly growing. In the market of premium TVs, priced more than $1,500 per unit, the portion of OLED TVs soared from 26% in 2019 to 41% in the fourth quarter of 2021, Omdia said. This is set to rise to 42.1%, the research firm added.

LG Display plans to expand its presence with the next-generation TV panel OLED.EX, which increases screen brightness by 30% from existing OLED products. The company will also add the smallest and largest OLED TV panels to the lineup, 42-inch and 97-inch screens, respectively. The display maker operates 8.5-generation OLED panel plants in Guangzhou, China, and Paju, Korea, producing a total of 170,000 OLED glass sheets per month.

Write to Sin-Young Park at nyusos@hankyung.com
Jihyun Kim edited this article.