Seoul Semiconductor met the sales guidance of KRW 310 billion and KRW 330 billion suggested in 3Q through continuous customer diversification and solid performance in the automobile sector. In 4Q 2021, aside from the usual seasonal factors, production decreased due to unstable supply of raw materials and semiconductors, and overall global IT demand for TVs and monitors weakened as LCD panel selling prices rose by 40% level compared to the same period of the previous year. Overcoming these difficulties, Seoul Semiconductor achieved quarterly earnings, up slightly from a year earlier.
Fueled by Seoul Semiconductor’s many future innovative technologies, its annual sales is expected to keep growing in 2022.
On the 5th, Seoul Semiconductor participated in CES 2022, the world’s largest IT and home appliance fair, and introduced a large number of future innovative technologies. The technologies presented were LED technologies in the automobile sector that is expected to be a high value-added market, and the introduced technologies were: WICOP mc, a core display technology for autonomous vehicles to communicate with other vehicles, WICOP ADB (Adaptive Driving Beam), and Violeds UV LED sterilization technology for vehicles.
LBL (Low Blue Light) technology, a new technology in the display sector, was also presented for the first time at CES. LBL is a display technology that implements the best image quality and blocks blue light in consideration of the user’s eye health. As a Seoul Semiconductor’s patented technology, unlike conventional blue light block-filtering, it is differentiated by minimizing only harmful wavelengths (415 to 455 nm) among blue light wavelengths to realize clear image quality without color distortion.
In addition, mini/micro LED, which is scheduled to be mass-produced in 2022, was also introduced. Seoul Semiconductor has been mass-producing mini LEDs since 2021, and in August 2021, it succeeded in developing an LED with a diameter of 1㎛ (micrometer, 1 millionth of a meter) for blue and green lights among the three primary color (RGB) light sources, which were soon applied to premium products of global top tier TV makers. As such, Seoul Semiconductor is becoming a leader in the micro LED market.
As people spend more time indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing interest in indoor high-quality lighting. Seoul Semiconductor’s SunLike is a lighting technology optimized for human circadian rhythm by realizing natural light and wavelengths by time. Unlike conventional lighting, the lighting equipped with SunLike technology helps improve students’ working memory and learning ability as well as eye health. Sunlike’s excellence has already been proven by research teams at Seoul National University in Korea, Basel University in Germany, and Harvard University’s medical school, and market reactions and customers are also positive.
Detailed sales, profit and loss in the 4Q of 2021, and sales forecasts in the 1Q of 2022 will be announced in detail in early February.
