Pims

Founded in 2016, PIMS designs, manufactures, and sells metal masks (open metal masks, or OMM) used in the OLED display deposition process, with subsidiaries PIMS HK in Hong Kong and PIMS CHENGDU in China.

Its main products include Mask Frame, S-Mask, F-Mask, CVD Mask, and Stick, supplied across OLED deposition and encapsulation processes.

The company has internalized etching and frame-tensioning technology, the core processes of metal mask production, and brought frame manufacturing in-house, which is cited as strengthening positional precision and quality competitiveness.

Brokerages estimate that PIMS holds a high OMM supply share within a major domestic display maker. Starting in Q1 2026, the company began new supply to another major domestic panel maker, reportedly securing all of Korea's major OLED panel makers as customers.

It also generates revenue from Chinese panel makers, giving it a mixed domestic and overseas customer base.

End-market applications are gradually expanding from smartphones and tablets toward automotive displays, XR/VR devices, and foldable phones, with potential robotics OLED applications also being discussed recently.

Despite entering the market as a relative latecomer, PIMS has pursued both customer diversification and application expansion based on its proprietary process technology.

PIMS's annual revenue held at KRW 83.81bn in 2022 and KRW 85.26bn in 2023, then fell sharply to KRW 60.72bn in 2024 before a modest recovery to KRW 63.38bn in 2025. The bigger issue is profitability.

Operating profit was positive at KRW 1.12bn in 2022 and KRW 2.60bn in 2023, but the company swung to operating losses of -KRW 4.87bn in 2024 and -KRW 6.11bn in 2025, with the loss widening for a second consecutive year. The operating margin deteriorated from 3.0% in 2023 to -8.0% in 2024 and -9.6% in 2025.

Net income attributable to owners followed a similar path, from a profit of KRW 2.80bn in 2023 to losses of -KRW 5.65bn in 2024 and -KRW 8.22bn in 2025.

Quarterly results show significant volatility: Q2 2025 revenue of KRW 22.39bn produced an operating profit of KRW 1.49bn and net income of KRW 0.66bn, but revenue plunged to KRW 11.29bn in Q3, driving an operating loss of -KRW 3.04bn and a net loss of -KRW 2.88bn, with losses persisting into Q4 2025 (revenue KRW 14.00bn, operating loss -KRW 3.30bn, net loss -KRW 4.61bn).

Q1 2026 brought signs of improvement, with revenue of KRW 15.29bn, the operating loss narrowing to roughly -KRW 0.14bn, and net income turning positive at KRW 0.16bn, but Q2 2026 saw revenue recover to KRW 17.61bn while the company slipped back into an operating loss of -KRW 1.20bn and a net loss of -KRW 0.80bn.

Over the trailing four quarters (Q3 2025-Q2 2026), combined revenue was KRW 58.18bn, the operating loss totaled -KRW 7.67bn, and the net loss attributable to owners was roughly -KRW 8.14bn, indicating that revenue recovery and earnings improvement have not yet moved fully in tandem.

Operating cash flow also fell sharply from KRW 9.13bn in 2024 to KRW 1.73bn in 2025, suggesting cash-generating capacity weakened alongside the wider net loss.

The OLED market is diversifying beyond traditional smartphone and tablet demand into automotive displays, XR/VR devices, and foldable phones, with potential robotics display applications also being discussed.

In particular, as the software-defined vehicle (SDV) trend takes hold, in-vehicle displays are becoming more than simple screens, evolving into a factor that defines premium vehicle value, driving increased adoption of OLED for its color reproduction and curved-form advantages, especially in high-end vehicles.

Samsung Display is reported to maintain more than 70% share in the automotive OLED market, which could be viewed favorably for component and material suppliers within its supply chain, including PIMS. However, there are also mid- to long-term structural variables in the industry itself.

At the IMID 2026 display academic conference held in Busan in August 2026, LG Display unveiled the world's first technology to implement OLED pixels without a metal mask, alongside reports of a mask-free photolithography process designed to substantially raise aperture ratio for mid- to large-size panels.

While still in an early commercialization stage, this technology has been identified as a potential long-term substitute for fine metal mask (FMM)-based processes, a variable the entire metal mask industry needs to monitor.

On the competitive front, PIMS is viewed as having established itself within major domestic panel makers' supply chains through proprietary etching and frame technology despite being a late entrant, but Chinese panel makers' continued push to strengthen domestic supply chains means the global competitive landscape remains fluid.

No official company guidance has been confirmed, but brokerages have offered relatively optimistic estimates for 2026. In a report covered on April 30, 2026, Hanyang Securities analyst Lee Jun-seok estimated 2026 revenue at KRW 70.67bn (up 11.5% year-on-year) and operating profit at KRW 4.9bn (a swing to profit).

This is an individual analyst's estimate rather than official company disclosure, and as shown above, actual quarterly results remained in loss territory through Q2 2026, so whether this estimate is achieved will need to be confirmed by second-half results.

In the same report, the analyst cited the start of new supply to a domestic Panel Maker L, automotive OLED expansion, and potential robotics OLED applications as grounds for an earnings turnaround.

The report also noted recent insider share purchases by management, which is simply a fact of insiders buying with their own funds; whether that timing judgment is later validated by actual results requires separate confirmation.

Overall, the key things to watch for PIMS in the second half of 2026 will be how much new customer volume actually translates into revenue, and whether operating results can reproduce the improvement seen in Q1.