[THE INVESTOR] LG Display vice chairman and president Han Sang-beom on July 12 dismissed the possibility that the company would withdraw any time soon from the liquid-crystal display business where Chinese rivals are fast securing a footing with cheaper panels.

“It is unavoidable for us to stick to LCD for now. We wouldn’t seek to withdraw from the market like our rival (Samsung Display),” Han told reporters at the company’s manufacturing plant in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. 

“Profits from LCD business are crucial for our future investments into OLED (organic light-emitting diode).”

His remarks comes after the company’s crosstown rival Samsung Display recently announced the suspension of another LCD production plant in Korea to replace it with a production line for OLEDs for mobile devices.

While Samsung is a dominant player in the mobile OLED with a whopping 97 percent market share, LG has focused more on larger OLED panels especially for TVs.

Han also hinted that the company will pour more resources into beefing up smaller OLEDs, for which market demand is expected to soar with the planned OLED adoption by Apple’s iPhone possibly from next year. 

“We still need desperate efforts to upgrade LCD technologies. That’s why we see more profits on LCDs compared to our competition. We have no plan to give up LCD (business) any time soon,” he added.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com">jylee@heraldcorp.com)