LG Display will invest 706.3 billion won ($655 million) to add a new production line for large-sized organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, panels for televisions, the company said on Monday in a corporate filing.

The new line, called the M2 line, is located in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, and will have a monthly production capacity of 26,000 units.

LG Display said it would aim for mass production during the first half of next year, as part of its plans to dominate the OLED TV market over the next several years.

The Seoul-based company successfully unveiled a 55-inch OLED TV panel in January this year, and has started to supply the panels to LG Electronics as of last month.

LG Display also has been leading the market with cutting-edge OLED products, such as curved and Ultra High Definition displays that it introduced to both rivals and consumers at the Consumer Electronics Show last month.

OLED panels differ from LCD displays in that they do not require backlighting. This enables manufacturers to make the displays slimmer while improving energy efficiency.

Displays made with OLED panels are currently being used for smaller devices such as smartphones, but commercialization for larger displays, such as for televisions, is delayed due to difficulties in implementing mass production.

To address this problem, LG Display said it has developed WRGB OLED technology, which will help accelerate commercialization.

“We will continue to secure new sources of competitiveness to set up entry barriers that our competitors will not be able to break through,” company officials said.

The OLED TV panel market is expected to grow to around $3 billion in 2015, according to market research institute Display Search.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)