News reports out of Korea suggest that Samsung has decided to suspend operations in another LCD plant and that it's replacing the production line with that for LED panels. Apparently, Samsung Display is going to cease LCD production at its facility in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, by the end of this year. It's reportedly going to sell the LCD production equipment to a third party.
Samsung has made a strategic shift towards OLED over the past few years so it's gradually shutting down LCD production lines and replacing them with OLED lines. It was operating eight LCD plants in Korea until 2008 and up till now, it has closed five of those plants. This particular plant – Asan “L7” – came online in 2005 and it had a monthly capacity of 320,000 seventh-generation LCD panels that were primarily used for 40-inch TVs. Demand for these panels has been slowing recently due to cheaper panels coming out of China so Samsung has decided to shut it down and replace it with an OLED production line to improve yields ahead of the much-rumored Apple contract for the next iPhone's OLED displays.
