(Yicai) Dec. 14 -- Samsung Electronics and other leading South Korean producers of display panels have maintained wider profit margins than their Chinese rivals in recent years thanks to a monopoly on high-end products.

The gross profit margin of South Korean panel makers stood at 22 percent in 2020, 27 percent in 2021, 25 percent last year, and 14.7 percent in the first half of this year, according to data from the China Optics and Optoelectronics Manufacturers' Association. By comparison, that of Chinese firms in the industry was 15 percent, 24 percent, 4.2 percent, and 5.6 percent, respectively.

The gap widened this year mainly because the prices of LCD panels, which are mainly supplied by Chinese firms, stayed low while those of high-end organic light-emitting diode panels, a niche market whose main producers are South Korean, varied little, Hu added.

But China's display panel giants are speeding up the layout of high-value products. BOE Technology Group plans to invest CNY63 billion (USD8.8 billion) to build an 8.6th-generation OLED panel production line in Chengdu, Sichuan province for use in the information technology market, the Beijing-based firm said on Nov. 28.

Global panel makers have been actively controlling production this year because of insufficient demand, Rong Chaoping, senior research manager at AVC Revo, told Yicai. The utilization rate of global LCD panel production capacity was about 70 percent this quarter, according to semiconductor industry research firm Cinno Research.

Still, leading Chinese and Korean makers are emerging from a sluggish period. Samsung Display had a third-quarter operating profit of KRW1.9 trillion (USD1.5 billion), with earnings from small panels up sharply on the prior quarter and the loss from large panels shrinking amid higher output. Meanwhile, TCL China Star Optoelectronics Technology swung into the black with a net profit of CNY1.8 billion (USD252.3 million).

Editor: Martin Kadiev