Corning Inc. is thinking of building a third factory in South Korea to handle rising demand for flat screen glass substrates, a senior company executive said on 28 February 2006.
Chief Operating Offi…
Corning Inc. is thinking of building a third factory in South Korea to handle rising demand for flat screen glass substrates, a senior company executive said on 28 February 2006. Chief Operating Officer Peter Volanakis said one of Corning“s South Korean facilities is already working at full output and the other is close to capacity. “We“ll probably think of a third site in Korea,” Volanakis said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York. He did not give a schedule for a new factory. A company spokeswoman said a new plant would be needed for further growth in the South Korean market, but that Corning has no concrete plans for a third plant at this time. Earlier in February 2006, Corning forecast 40% growth in 2006 in the market for liquid crystal displays (LCDs), down from more than 60% growth in 2005. Glass is Corning“s largest source of revenue, especially as demand rises from consumer electronics makers. South Korea“s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., the world“s second-largest maker of LCD panels, said in February 2006 it would invest KRW 229.4 billion (USD 236.7 million) to increase production of small- and medium-sized panels to meet growing demand. Volanakis also said Corning has spoken to customers about the roll-out of facilities to manufacture LCD television panels from so called “ninth-generation” substrates, but commercial output is two-and-a-half to three years away. Ninth-generation substrates, which measure 2.4-by-2.8 meters, allow LCD makers to get more panels from one piece, increasing productivity and cutting manufacturing costs. Corning expected to start production of eighth-generation substrates, which measure 2.16-by-2.46 meters, near Sharp Corp.“s LCD panel factory in Japan in the week commencing 27 February 2006. Volanakis said flat screen televisions tend to attract more buyers when their prices come down to about 2.5 times the price of the CRT models they are succeeding, as is happening with some 32-inch high-definition LCD televisions, which cost about USD 1,000, he said. “Once you hit a number of around 2.5 times the price of the incumbent technology, you start to get significant penetration, and that“s happened,” he said. Industry research group DisplaySearch forecasts global shipments of LCD panels for televisions would grow to 42 million units in 2006, up 55% from 2005.