Foxconn recently acquired Sharp and reports are now suggesting that the Chinese giant is going to invest nearly $2 billion in setting up a plant for production of OLED panels in China. You'd think that this would concern the current market leader Samsung Display which accounts for 95 percent of the small and mid-size OLED market but that doesn't appear to be the case.
According to reports, Foxconn and Sharp's new plant will begin mass production of small and mid-size OLED panels by 2019. Sharp has already invested $550 million for prototype OLED production at its Sakai plant in Japan. This latest effort in collaboration with Foxconn appears to be an attempt to challenge Korean conglomerates Samsung and LG in the OLED market. A Samsung Display official brushes off the reports and says that there's nothing new about hearing that Chinese firms are investing in OLED production.
Analysts already believe that Chinese OLED suppliers are unlikely to challenge Samsung Display for a couple of years so the company has a considerable margin to further improve its yields and increase market share before their capacity starts coming online in a few years and even then the difference in technology might skew things in Samsung's favor.
