SK Materials Enters OLED Material Industry

Establishing 'SK JNC (tentative name)' Joint Venture with Japan's JNC to Enter OLED Material Industry
SK Materials Holds 51%, Japan JNC 49% Shares, Initial Capital of 48 Billion KRW

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] SK Materials is establishing a joint venture with Japan's JNC Corporation and aims to leap forward as a global top-tier materials platform company by entering the organic light-emitting diode (OLED) materials industry.

SK Materials, a semiconductor and display materials specialist, announced on the 25th that it will establish a joint venture company, 'SK JNC (joint venture),' with Japan's comprehensive chemical company JNC Corporation.

The joint venture's shareholding ratio will be 51% for SK Materials and 49% for Japan's JNC, with initial capital of approximately 48 billion KRW, and the headquarters will be located in Korea. Through the joint venture, SK Materials expects to diversify its business portfolio by newly entering the OLED materials industry in addition to its existing semiconductor and display materials. In particular, the synergy effect is expected to be high as the OLED-related core patents secured from JNC will be combined with SK Materials' production capacity and sales network.

OLED refers to a self-luminous organic light-emitting device that emits light by utilizing the electroluminescence phenomenon when current flows through fluorescent or phosphorescent organic compounds. Compared to LCDs, OLEDs offer superior image quality, thickness, and power consumption, and are used in various devices such as mobile phones and TVs. They are also recognized as next-generation displays applicable to various applications such as automobiles and wearable devices because they can be bent or curved without shape restrictions.

With the rapid increase in OLED demand, the related materials market is also growing quickly. According to market research firm IHS Markit, the global OLED materials market size is expected to grow from about 2.6 trillion KRW (approximately 1.97 billion USD) in 2020 to about 5.5 trillion KRW (approximately 4.93 billion USD) by 2025.

With the establishment of this joint venture, SK Materials has become capable of internalizing OLED light-emitting materials technologies such as 'dopants.' This will solve past issues that relied on imports due to technological barriers and difficulties in in-house production by domesticating materials, while also enabling rapid customer response to help major domestic OLED companies widen their competitive edge.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.