LX Semicon Posts First Quarterly Loss Since 2010 Listing, Names Na Joon-ho CEO

LX Semicon recorded an operating loss of 15.56 billion won in the third quarter, its first quarterly loss since the company went public in 2010. The Korean display driver IC maker disclosed the figure in a preliminary consolidated earnings filing on Nov. 3, alongside a change in its chief executive.

Third-quarter revenue totaled 336.02 billion won, down 14.8% from a year earlier. Operating profit swung to a loss, and the company posted a net loss of 11.17 billion won. The quarter marks a break in a record that had held for more than fourteen years as a listed company.

Why did the quarter turn negative?

LX Semicon attributed the decline in revenue and operating profit to three pressures: weak end-market demand, price cuts demanded by customers, and foreign exchange effects. The price pressure has a specific mechanism behind it. Rising memory chip costs have squeezed device manufacturers, and those manufacturers have responded by demanding lower prices for other components, including display driver ICs (DDIs).

In plain terms, when memory gets more expensive, panel and device makers look for savings elsewhere, and DDIs are one of the places they look. The takeaway: LX Semicon's loss is partly a downstream effect of the memory pricing cycle, not only a demand problem of its own making.

Securities analysts also point to a customer shift. They believe LX Semicon's shipments declined after Apple diversified its DDI sourcing to include Taiwan's Novatek. Losing share at a single large buyer can move quarterly volumes enough to turn a thin operating margin negative.

How long has the decline run?

The third-quarter loss extends a multi-year slide. LX Semicon's annual revenue has fallen for three consecutive years:

• 2.1193 trillion won in 2022
• 1.9014 trillion won in 2023
• 1.8656 trillion won in 2024
• 1.6391 trillion won last year

That is a cumulative decline of roughly 22.7% from the 2022 peak. The pattern shows a company facing structural pricing and share pressure rather than a single weak quarter. The takeaway: the Q3 loss is the sharpest symptom of a downturn that has been building since 2022.

Who takes over as CEO?

LX Semicon named Na Joon-ho, executive vice president and head of its Strategic Marketing Division, as its next CEO. His appointment will be formally approved at next year's shareholders' meeting and board meeting.

Na joined LX Semicon in 2001 after working at LG Semiconductor. His career at the company spans the full product chain:

• Head of the Driver IC Development Department
• Head of the Large Display Development Group
• Head of the TV & IT Business Division
• Head of the Strategic Marketing Division since 2024

The choice of a marketing-division veteran signals that pricing strategy and customer relationships sit at the center of the turnaround task. The takeaway: the board has handed the job to an insider who knows both the product roadmap and the commercial pressures behind the losses.

The new CEO's first task will be defending DDI pricing and shipment volumes in a market where memory cost inflation keeps pushing customers to squeeze component suppliers.