Sharp OLED self-production will stop providing LCD panels for Hisense next year

At present, the LCD panel market has seen a global price increase. According to the latest report of the Nikkei News on Wednesday, Sharp is likely to stop supplying LCD TV panels to China Hisense Group (microblogging) next year.

According to reports, SDP (Boundary Display Company), a joint venture between Sharp and Foxconn Group, currently supplies LCD panels to Hisense, but this supply relationship may end next year.

The two companies failed to agree on the panel purchase price, and Sharp hopes to improve the company's profits through price adjustment.

Earlier, it was reported that Sharp and Foxconn had already decided to stop supplying LCD TV panels to Samsung Electronics from next year.

It is reported that in addition to the price factor, SDP will supply more LCD panels to Sharp's own TV business in the future.

After the acquisition of Sharp by Foxconn Group, the company has made major adjustments to its business. Among them, Sharp's original TV business will be revived. The production scale of Aquos brand LCD TVs will double to the current level, reaching an annual output of 10 million units. Naturally, Sharp first needs to make its own LCD panel to meet its own needs.

A few years ago, Sharp's business was in a difficult position. It withdrew from the TV market in many regions around the world and licensed the brand to overseas manufacturers. For example, in the Americas market, China Hisense Group obtained the Sharp brand license and directly produced and sold Sharp. TV set.

Previously, Foxconn had asked Sharp to negotiate with a number of brand-licensing partners, hoping to recoup the brand in advance, but Hisense Group rejected Sharp's request and believed that it should comply with the contract.

According to market research firm IHS, in 2015, Hisense Group had a 5.9% share in the global flat-panel TV market and ranked fourth in the world.

According to reports, in the second half of this year, the global LCD TV panel showed a trend of in short supply and sharp price hikes. The price increase of some varieties was even as high as half. According to analysis, some TV sets of certain sizes have seen sales peaks, and some other LCD panel manufacturers have transformed OLED panels, resulting in a tight supply of LCD screens.

Taking Samsung Electronics as an example, the company is phasing out LCD panel production lines and paying full attention to OLED panels. Samsung has already received an order to supply 100 million OLED screens to Apple's smartphones next year, and Samsung is also preparing to produce large-size OLED panels for TVs.

In order to grab Apple's orders, LG Display, Japan Display and Sharp are investing heavily in the OLED field. Sharp, a Foxconn company, is considering building an OLED panel factory in mainland China.

According to industry analysts, LCD panel prices are expected to decline by the end of this year or before March next year.

Although OLEDs are replacing LCDs as an industry trend, LCD TVs and panels are far from disappearing. According to reports, Foxconn and Sharp are preparing to invest $7 billion to build the most advanced LCD panel factory in Guangzhou, China, and some products may be supplied to Sharp brand TV sets.