LG Display (034220.KS), the LG Group panel affiliate that supplies OLED screens to Apple and LG Electronics, is on track to swing back to an operating loss in the second quarter of 2026 — yet Samsung Securities (016360.KS), one of Korea's largest brokerages, used the same preview note to raise its target price on the stock to ₩17,000 ($12.41). Against the ₩13,570 ($9.91) close on June 19, that target implies roughly 25% upside, according to the Samsung Securities report cited by Asia Business Daily.
The immediate question for anyone reading that headline is why a broker would lift its target into a fresh quarterly loss. The answer the note offers is that the loss is largely self-inflicted and one-time.
How bad is the quarter
Samsung Securities analyst Jang Jung-hoon estimates Q2 2026 revenue of ₩5.7 trillion ($4.16 billion) and an operating loss of ₩118.6 billion ($86.6 million), a swing back into the red. That is slightly worse than the market consensus of a ₩102 billion ($74.5 million) operating loss, per the report. Jang attributes the shortfall to workforce-efficiency (restructuring) charges that ran ahead of expectations; stripping out those one-time costs, he argues LG Display could have posted more than ₩100 billion ($73 million) in operating profit for the quarter.
That distinction is the entire basis for the more constructive full-year view. Samsung Securities models 2026 revenue of ₩25.3 trillion ($18.5 billion) and a full-year operating profit of ₩1.2 trillion ($876 million) — a result that depends on the back half of the year carrying the company past the first-half restructuring drag.
What the recovery rests on
The bull case is volume-led. Mobile panel shipments are projected to reach a record quarterly high of about 28 million units in the fourth quarter, according to the note — the seasonal ramp tied to LG Display's strategic smartphone customers. In large-area OLED, the brokerage sees shipments rising from the low-6-million-unit range in 2025 to the low-7-million-unit range in 2026, with gaming-monitor panels cited as the main lever for margin improvement.
On valuation, Jang notes LG Display trades at about 0.9x its 2026 estimated book value, below display peers — China's BOE at 1.7x and Taiwan's AUO at 1.4x and Innolux at 2.3x, per the report. The ₩17,000 target is not an outlier among Korean houses: KB Securities has carried the same ₩17,000 target with a Buy rating since its April 30, 2026 note (KB Securities).
Why the market may stay skeptical
LG Display has tested optimistic recovery calls before. As recently as the first quarter of 2026, the company reported a steep loss — earnings per share of -0.3854 against a forecast near breakeven — and the U.S.-listed shares fell about 22% on the print, according to the company's Q1 2026 earnings-call coverage. The company is also still spending through the downturn, guiding to roughly ₩2 trillion ($1.46 billion) of 2026 capital expenditure, including about ₩1.1 trillion ($803 million) earmarked for new OLED capacity, per that same coverage.
That is the tension the ₩17,000 target asks investors to look past: a business that is still loss-making and still investing heavily, on the bet that the Q2 charges are the trough rather than the trend.
The cleanest test arrives with LG Display's Q2 2026 results, typically released in late July. Two figures will confirm or refute the thesis — whether the operating loss lands near the modeled ₩118.6 billion (rather than deeper), and whether management reaffirms the second-half mobile and large-OLED ramp that the full-year ₩1.2 trillion profit estimate depends on.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Figures are drawn from a Samsung Securities preview note as reported by Asia Business Daily and from public earnings coverage; estimates are the analyst's and may differ from actual results. Won-to-dollar conversions use an approximate rate of 1 USD = 1,370 KRW.
