LG Display Co. reported fifth consecutive quarterly losses Wednesday as sluggish demand for smartphones, TVs and computers took a toll on its bottom line.
The major panel maker reported an operating loss of 881.5 billion (US$689 million) for the April-June period, compared with a loss of 488.3 billion won a year earlier, with high inflation and rate hikes significantly dampening consumers' appetite for tech gadgets.
It logged a net loss of 698.8 billion won. Revenue fell 15.5 percent to 4.73 trillion won over the cited period.
LG Display went into a deficit in the second quarter of last year, for the first time in two years, as a pandemic-driven boom in IT devices ended amid rising prices and interest rates.
Demand has been falling rapidly over the past year for LCD and premium organic light-emitting diode panels (OLED). Poor macroeconomic conditions have also caused businesses to cut orders in order to deplete their excessive inventories.
But the panel maker sees inventory levels of its customers improving and demand picking up. It also attributed a drop in losses from the first quarter to efforts to reduce costs and higher operation efficiency. In the first three months of the year, the company reported an operating loss of 1.09 trillion won.
In the second quarter, panels for laptops and tablet PCs took up the biggest portion of LG Display's sales at 42 percent, followed by TV panels at 24 percent, panels for mobile devices at 23 percent, and panels for automobiles at 11 percent.
LG Display said it aims to make a turnaround in the second half by expanding premium OLED panels for mobile devices and TVs and automotive display business and continuing its efforts to reduce costs.
Source: Yonhap News Agency