Display maker BOE Technology Group plans to invest a large sum of money to build two factories in Vietnam, with the total investment likely to be as much as $400 million (currently about 2.712 billion yuan), people familiar with the matter said. BOE is a supplier to both Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics.
Sources close to the matter said BOE is in talks to lease hundreds of hectares of land in northern Vietnam to expand its relatively small factory in southern Vietnam. The plant mainly supplies TV screens to South Korea’s Samsung and LG Electronics. Samsung, the world’s largest smartphone maker, makes half of its phones in Vietnam, while LG also has a large presence in the country and plans to make new investments.
In recent years, northern Vietnam has attracted significant investment from electronics giants, becoming a major production center for smartphones, computers and cameras, including flagship products from Apple and Samsung. Apple OEMs Foxconn Precision and Lixin Precision also produce or plan to assemble a range of Apple laptops, tablets and other products here.
BOE plans to lease up to 100 hectares of land, 20 percent of which will be used to build a $150 million factory to produce remote control systems, people familiar with the matter said. The rest of the land will be used to build a display factory. BOE will spend $250 million to build a factory on 50 hectares of land, and the remaining 30 hectares will be used by suppliers. All of this will be completed by 2025.
BOE plans to produce more sophisticated OLED screens at the plant, rather than LCDs. Apple has added BOE to its list of manufacturing partners for 2021, and its latest iPhone smartphones use OLED screens. But the latest reports say Apple plans to use its own microLED screen design on the Apple Watch starting in 2024, and eventually expand to the iPhone. Sources close to the matter said BOE’s plans for its Vietnam factory are not exclusively for Apple’s screens.
BOE and Apple had no comment.
