Sony will go ahead with plans to invest approximately 22 billion yen (US$210 million) to strengthen its lead in the production of medium- to large-size OLED panels in the second half of 2008, according to Yoshito Shiraishi, general manager, e-products and business development department of TV business group, Sony.

The company will expand its capacity at Sony Mobile Display, enabling the plant to turn out even larger size OLED panels in fiscal 2009 (April 2009-March 2010), Shiraishi said in a keynote speech delivered at the Society for Information Display (SID) 2008 electronic display trade show in Los Angeles.

Sony expects its shipments of LCD TVs to top 17 million units in 2008 compared to 10.6 million units shipped in 2007, Shiraishi said.