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Japan Display Suffers 4th Consecutive Losing Quarter
February 19, 2018
 
Japan Display Inc. reported a fourth consecutive quarterly net loss, as LCD orders from its largest client, Apple Inc. continued to drop.  JDI posted a net loss of 32.6 billion yen ($304 million) for the October-December quarter, versus a net profit of 7.3 billion yen in the year-ago quarter. The company, money-losing for the past three years, has been getting half its revenue selling LCDs to Apple. JDI’s LTPS panel shipments for LTPS LCD displays were 160.6m in 2017 and should be less in 2018 as Apple updates the iPhone X and introduces a super-phablet sized 6.5 inch version of the iPhone X.  The provisionally named iPhone SE2 is expected to replace the 2 iPhone 8 smartphones and will sport a 6.1 inch screen with a similar design (and notch) to the iPhone X screen, the SE2 screen will be larger but use the cheaper LCD technology previously championed by the iPhone 8 and iPhone 7 family of devices.
 
Aiming to offset declining sales with cost cuts, Japan Display plans to streamline production lines and reduce 30 percent of its workforce, resulting in a special loss of 170 billion yen for the current year. As we discussed last week, the company having difficulty tapping new investors for capital for its OLED Fab, which it plans to start mass-producing for smartphones only in 2019.