SK Materials established a joint venture with Japan's JNC to enter the OLED material business. JNC is a company with the core technology of blue OLED materials, and JNC has transferred the patent to a joint venture. The joint venture will become an important turning point for Korea to get rid of Japan's dependence on OLED materials.
SK Materials decided to establish a joint venture company "SK JNC" (tentative name) with JNC. SK Materials and JNC held a board meeting on the same day and passed a resolution to establish a joint venture. SK holds 51% and JNC holds 49%. Headquartered in South Korea. The initial capital is known to be 45 to 50 billion won. Not only will the headquarters be established in South Korea, but also R&D centers and production plants will be established.
SK Materials will enter the OLED materials business in the form of a joint venture. This is the first time that SK, which provides special gases for semiconductors and displays, has entered the OLED material market. Some people say that they have confirmed supply contracts with major domestic OLED display companies.
SK entered the OLED materials business because of its growth potential. Compared with liquid crystal display (LCD), OLED has superior image quality, thickness and power consumption, so it is becoming the next generation display. It is a flexible display that can be bent or folded, which is essential for device innovations such as foldable and rollable mobile phones. According to data from the market research company DSCC, the OLED material market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 23%, from US$950 million last year to US$2.688 billion in 2024
The joint venture is expected to become an important milestone in the Korean materials industry. This is because the JNC technology known to have key patents on blue OLED materials has been transferred to the joint venture. Among OLED materials, blue development is the most difficult. In red and green, high-efficiency phosphorescent materials are used, and in blue, low-efficiency fluorescent materials are used. In addition, for blue materials, Japanese companies such as Idemitsu Kosan have established very high patent barriers, even unable to enter the Korean market.
SK accelerated the promotion of internalization and localization after winning the blue OLED technology. In particular, JNC has the core boron patent as a next-generation material, which can become an important foundation for the company to seize the future market. The joint venture plans to target the market based on the production capacity and sales network owned by SK Materials and the patents transferred by JNC. Starting from blue OLED materials, the company plans to develop materials for red and green light-emitting layers in the future, and expand its business to all areas of OLED materials, such as electron transport layer (ETL) and main transport layer (HTL).