LG Display Vice Chairman Han Sang-beom deems the company’s rivalry with Samsung Display “constructive” and said the two shouldn’t resort to “slander,” having likened the comparisons between them to those of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. Mr. Han’s comments were made on the sidelines of the Korea Electronics Show (KES) which started yesterday in Seoul and will run until Friday, October 20th. Samsung Display opted for a relatively bold and aggressive approach to the event, having set up a booth where visitors can see its small and medium-sized OLED panels next to LCD panels of comparable sizes made by LG Display. Mr. Han visited Samsung’s booth but seemingly wasn’t appreciative of its efforts to advertise its offerings and claim they’re superior to those from his own company, with local media citing him as saying that the two technologies aren’t similar enough to warrant a “public comparison” as both have their own advantages and drawbacks.
Mr. Han was also witnessed as attending a KES presentation from Samsung Display where he heckled a representative from its rival while he was demonstrating Samsung’s latest 65-inch ultra-slim curved LCD and claimed it’s an industry first by replacing plastic light guide plates (LGPs) with glass ones. After Mr. Han publicly questioned that assertion, the Samsung official he called out corrected themself and said the panel is the first product to do so in the curved LCD category. Despite Mr. Han’s recent comments on the matter suggesting that the two should strive to maintain a courteous rivalry, some industry watchers aren’t convinced their public clashes will stop or even just lose intensity in the near future.
While LG Display remains committed to advancing and manufacturing LCD panels for the time being, the company hasn’t been ignoring the OLED technology, especially in the context of small modules for smartphones. Its latest Android flagship is equipped with a POLED display, as is the Pixel 2 XL which the firm produced for Google. LG’s OLED investments have been steadily rising in recent years, with latest reports suggesting that the South Korean original equipment manufacturer is close to securing a major supply deal with Apple for future iPhone models which would have it deliver tens or hundreds of millions of flexible OLED panels to the Cupertino, California-based tech giant on an annual basis, starting in 2020.