(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.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Tom Litting