The domestic display equipment industry is entering the battery business. This is to overcome the lack of orders due to deterioration of the display industry business conditions.
According to the industry on the 9th, the SNU Precision AP System decided to enter the battery equipment business. An aggressive investment plan and a designated team are ready for an early settlement. Jusung Engineering, System RND, DE&T, and Viatron also reviewing the option internally. Some of them have been confirmed to be in discussions with battery companies. It is expected that equipment orders will be made this year.
DIT and Top Engineering are working on the test equipment and battery protection circuit board business. However, this is the first time that display companies are directly entering the battery production process on a large scale.
The reason they are interested in the battery equipment business is due to the poor display industry conditions. The display investment has fallen sharply, considerably hurting sales. In particular, equipment makers with a high portion of Samsung Display's sales have suffered a decline in earnings. Samsung Display has completed the installation of equipment for its new factory 'A4' long time ago only to start a part of the operation recently.
The similarity of the battery and display production process also accelerated the market entry. The processes of cutting, drying, and coating of materials overlap. The automation system required for post-processing is not so different. Although it depends on the process, it is easy to make as many battery devices as a company would like to.
This is not a bad change for LG Chem, Samsung SDI, and SK Innovation, the top 3 battery makers. This is because they feel the limit of cost reduction per energy density. Production process innovations or new equipment can lower battery costs.
An industry official said, "The display equipment makers must be interested in the battery industry where massive investments are being made because the order amounts are lacking for their own industry. They would have to compete with existing battery equipment companies such as DA Technology, mPLUS, NS, and PNT."