China Resources has received an approval from China's market regulation administrator to acquire a stake in Konka Group. The financial details were not disclosed.
Konka is facing financial difficulties, its revenues in 2024 declined almost 40% and it posted a loss of $450 million. China Resource aims to assist Konka and as it has its own semiconductor business, it may find alignment with Konka's microLED and mini-LED business. It will be interesting to see how this will effect Konka's microLED R&D and commercialization projects.
Konka has been developing microLED technologies for many years, and it has vertically integrated its supply chain to produce its own microLED chips (using Aixtron's MOCVD systems). Back in 2019, Konka announced it is building a $365 million micro-LED R&D center in Chongqing, as the company believes that Micro-LED will become the leading technology for ultra-high quality consumer TVs.
Earlier that year, Konka launched tiled large micro-LED displays called APHAEA brand. Konka demonstrated several possible configurations - including 118" 4K and 236" 8K. The price of a 118" 4K display was around $240,000 while the 236" 8K TV had a price tag of $1.25 million. Click here for more information on Konka's APHAEA micro-LED TVs. In 2023, Konka demonstrated a massive 310-inch microLED display.
In 2023, Konka showed a 59" tiled microLED TV prototype screen, one of the smallest microLED TV shown to date - which seemed to be an early prototype. The company also launched a microLED smartwatch, but that never saw the light of day.
