hkc lcd panel brands

China-based LCD panel maker HKC is applying for listing on ChiNext market under the Shenzhen Stock Exchange to raise CNY9.5 billion (US$1.42 billion), according to industry sources.

HKC invested CNY24 billion to set up its first 8.6G LCD line in Chongqing, China in 2015, and has since built another three 8.6G lines, with the one in Changsha coming into operation in April 2022.

The funds to be raised via IPO will be used to enhance R&D of medium- to large-size OLED panels and expand production capacity for miniLED fine-pitch displays and miniLED-backlit LCD panels for smartphones, notebooks and TVs at the Changsha plant, integrate R&D with production for oxide TFT technology at its Mianyang plant, and develop IoT-based smart display solutions.

China-based panel maker BOE Technology in June 2021 acquired a 2% stake in HKC for strategic partnership in assembly of LCD displays and TVs. BOE has three flexible OLED panel production lines and has fully utilized production capacities at two of them and is undertaking trial production at the third.

BOE shipped about 60 million flexible OLED panels in 2021, hiking nearly 60% on year. According to forecast by Omdia, BOE will ship 100 million flexible OLED panels in 2022. Besides, BOE has begun production of miniLED-backlit panels for AOC, Skyworth and Konka.

China-based panel maker CSOT has fully utilized first-phase production capacity for flexible OLED panels at a factory in central China and is expanding the capacity in the second phase with operation to begin by the end of 2022.

(Yicai Global) June 7 -- HKC Optoelectronics Technology has completed its pre-listing tutoring and is ready for an initial public offering, sources at China"s third-largest maker of liquid crystal display panels told Yicai Global.

HKC has LCD panel production bases in Chongqing and Mianyang in southwest China and Chuzhou in the east, and has formed a vertical industrial chain including LCD panels, light-emitting diode backlights, LCD modules and whole machine production.

The Shenzhen-based firm ranked third among Chinese companies for global display panel shipments last year, after BOE Technology Group and TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology, according to data from Sigmaintell Consulting. HKC also accounted for 10.1 percent of the global television screen market, and 6.5 percent of the global display panel market.

As a relative latecomer to the industry, HKC initially offered low-priced products. As its position in the market stabilized in recent years, it has gradually raised prices and prepared to go public.

But global LCD panel prices have been falling, posing a challenge for HKC"s short-term business outlook. According to research firm Omdia, since last September the average price of 43-inch LCD panels has dropped 46 percent, and for 55- and 65-inch panels prices are down 34 percent.

“Current prices pose a big challenge for all panel makers,” Zhang Hong, director of TV research at Sigmaintell, told Yicai Global, adding that losses are growing at some manufacturers of LCD TV panels.

Cinno Research’s Chief Analyst Zhou Hua told Yicai Global that HKC"s LCD panel production line has had a lot of support from the local government, but in the current economic environment it is harder to secure such high subsidies.

HKC is more vulnerable to market cycles than BOE or TCL CSOT and is has less business flexibility than smaller producers, Zhou said, which is why the firm needs new sources of financing by going public.

Flat-panel displays are thin panels of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying text, images, or video. Liquid crystal displays (LCD), OLED (organic light emitting diode) and microLED displays are not quite the same; since LCD uses a liquid crystal that reacts to an electric current blocking light or allowing it to pass through the panel, whereas OLED/microLED displays consist of electroluminescent organic/inorganic materials that generate light when a current is passed through the material. LCD, OLED and microLED displays are driven using LTPS, IGZO, LTPO, and A-Si TFT transistor technologies as their backplane using ITO to supply current to the transistors and in turn to the liquid crystal or electroluminescent material. Segment and passive OLED and LCD displays do not use a backplane but use indium tin oxide (ITO), a transparent conductive material, to pass current to the electroluminescent material or liquid crystal. In LCDs, there is an even layer of liquid crystal throughout the panel whereas an OLED display has the electroluminescent material only where it is meant to light up. OLEDs, LCDs and microLEDs can be made flexible and transparent, but LCDs require a backlight because they cannot emit light on their own like OLEDs and microLEDs.

Liquid-crystal display (or LCD) is a thin, flat panel used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. They are usually made of glass but they can also be made out of plastic. Some manufacturers make transparent LCD panels and special sequential color segment LCDs that have higher than usual refresh rates and an RGB backlight. The backlight is synchronized with the display so that the colors will show up as needed. The list of LCD manufacturers:

Organic light emitting diode (or OLED displays) is a thin, flat panel made of glass or plastic used for electronically displaying information such as text, images, and moving pictures. OLED panels can also take the shape of a light panel, where red, green and blue light emitting materials are stacked to create a white light panel. OLED displays can also be made transparent and/or flexible and these transparent panels are available on the market and are widely used in smartphones with under-display optical fingerprint sensors. LCD and OLED displays are available in different shapes, the most prominent of which is a circular display, which is used in smartwatches. The list of OLED display manufacturers:

MicroLED displays is an emerging flat-panel display technology consisting of arrays of microscopic LEDs forming the individual pixel elements. Like OLED, microLED offers infinite contrast ratio, but unlike OLED, microLED is immune to screen burn-in, and consumes less power while having higher light output, as it uses LEDs instead of organic electroluminescent materials, The list of MicroLED display manufacturers:

LCDs are made in a glass substrate. For OLED, the substrate can also be plastic. The size of the substrates are specified in generations, with each generation using a larger substrate. For example, a 4th generation substrate is larger in size than a 3rd generation substrate. A larger substrate allows for more panels to be cut from a single substrate, or for larger panels to be made, akin to increasing wafer sizes in the semiconductor industry.

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