Joyce Lee and Heekyong Yan

SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s LG Display (NYSE) Co Ltd announced Wednesday a 93% decline in first quarter profits. The drop was much lower than estimates due to a sharp fall in panel prices and pandemic-driven consumer demand for televisions, laptops, and smartphones.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:) supplier’s operating profit fell to 38 billion won ($30m) from 523billion won one year ago.

It was also the lowest quarterly operating profit ever since 2020’s second quarter.

According to the company, revenue from the first quarter dropped 6% and reached 6.5 trillion won.

The company stated in a statement that panel production and shipment were affected by the unexpected supply chain issues caused by China’s COVID lockdowns.

According to TrendForce’s WitsView data, the prices for 55 inch liquid crystal display panels (LCDs) panels for TV sets dropped 16% between the prior quarter and their lowest level since the second quarter 2020.

WitsView data revealed that the prices of LCD panels for notebooks or monitors dropped by about 7% to 11% in the first quarter.

According to analysts, prices are expected to fall further as a result of lower demand from China for the devices due COVID-19 Lockdowns.

($1 = 1,263.0100 won)