LG is reported to be making substantial investments into improving and upgrading its OLED manufacturing facilities in South Korea - last month we found out about a similar effort underway at Samsung (courtesy of Reuters). Nikkei Asia has today published an article that explores this situation plus a wider context - their findings reaffirm existing claims that Samsung Display has spent $3+ billion on the sprucing up of its Tangjeong factory. LG's modernization bill is smaller at a mere $2.5 billion - this will be spent on creating additional production lines at the company's mainline Paju plant. LG is aiming to increase factory output of medium-sized OLED panels using sixth generation technology.

According to last month's report, industry insiders have suggested that Samsung was ramping up its high end OLED production lines in order to secure substantial component orders from a key client, Apple, with premium display panels destined for fitting on next generation iPad and MacBook products. Reuters posited that LG was not able to fulfil any new requests from Apple at the time - due to its display factories being fully booked and operating at maximum capacity. It seems that LG is now addressing this problem by making necessary and essential upgrades at its Paju P10 OLED facility. A domestic rivalry is only part of the problem, both giant South Korean electronics firms are also keeping a collective eye on other rival manufacturers (operating out of nearby nations).Nikkei Asia thinks that Samsung and LG are fighting hard by making big investments into OLED manufacturing in order to stave off any emerging competition from China - most of all from manufacturers such as BOE, Visionox and Everdisplay Optronics. The South Korean giants are reported to have secured about 80 percent of the worldwide OLED market, but Chinese factories are catching up thanks to government subsidies. The Beijing-based BOE Technology Group is currently the world leader in LCD panel production, and has so far outmuscled the competition in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. Apple has partnered with BOE in order to make small OLED screens for a few iPhone models, but the latter's production facility is apparently not advanced enough to produce anything large enough to fit on tablets or laptops. OLED panels are notoriously difficult to manufacture at greater sizes, and Nikkei Asia states that Samsung and LG are hoping to stay on top of that process thanks to very sophisticated and expensive new factory tech.