Leadership Meeting After 4 Months
Consecutive Chinese LCD Panel Price Hikes
Negotiations Expected With President Roh Tae-moon
Chen Yanshun, chairman of BOE, will visit South Korea this month to meet with Roh Tae-moon, president at Samsung Electronics. This marks a top leadership meeting between the two companies after four months. As Chinese panel companies have recently raised prices for television liquid crystal display (LCD) panels all at once, negotiations on expanding LCD panel supply and pricing are expected to take place during this meeting.
According to the display industry on the 5th, Chairman Chen plans to visit South Korea next week to meet with President Roh of Samsung Electronics.
President Roh is the chief executive officer of Samsung Electronics' TV and smartphone business divisions. Chairman Chen is the head of China's largest display panel company. Their meeting comes four months after President Roh's visit to China in June, showing a shortening interval following their previous meeting in December last year. It is reported that both sides have implicitly regularized such meetings.
Whether BOE will expand the supply of LCD panels to Samsung Electronics and price negotiations are expected to be key discussion topics of this meeting.
Recently, Chinese panel companies including BOE, CSOT, and HKC have simultaneously raised LCD panel prices. TV LCDs, from which domestic panel manufacturers have all withdrawn, are an area with high dependence on China, excluding some Taiwanese panels. Samsung Electronics, which receives these panels to manufacture TVs, considers it essential to secure supply stably and at an appropriate price.
For this reason, the relationship between Samsung Electronics and BOE, which was once virtually severed due to patent disputes between Samsung Display and BOE, is interpreted to be rapidly drawing closer.
BOE is the world's largest TV LCD panel manufacturer. It used to be the largest LCD supplier for Samsung Electronics' TVs, but transactions with Samsung Electronics significantly decreased as Samsung Display and BOE engaged in a patent dispute for more than three years starting in 2023.
As the dispute between the two companies was settled in November last year, the relationship entered a recovery phase. According to market research firm Omdia, Samsung Electronics is projected to procure 4.4m units (about 12.3%) out of approximately 35.8m TV LCD panels this year from BOE. This is double the level of 2.2m units last year.
An industry official anticipated, “Samsung Electronics is the world's largest TV manufacturer, and BOE is the world's largest LCD panel manufacturer, so their interests align,” adding, “Samsung Electronics will reduce the proportion of CSOT, which accounts for 30% of its LCD supply, diversify supply lines, and respond to recent price increases by Chinese companies through this meeting.”
