Large-sized panel shipments grow sequentially by 6% to 38.7 million in May—strong growth seen in NB segment
According to WitsView’s survey, worldwide large-size panel shipments in May reached 38.7 million units, a 6% MoM increase and a 25.4% growth on year. Looking back at 2007, shipments began to notably increase in Mar07. Rising by a monthly average of 7%, growth only started to slow down in Nov07, as downstream vendors concluded their inventory preparations for the year-end Christmas sales. The same trend was witnessed in the panel price segment as well. Prices started to climb in Apr07, stabilized in Nov07 and started falling in Dec07. Due to last year’s market development, both the buyer and seller have adjusted their procurement and sales strategy in 2008. In 1H08, the demand and supply dynamics has been quite different when compared to 2007. Given the possibility of panel prices rising again in 2Q08, downstream vendors pulled in their orders earlier, resulting in a stronger than usual first quarter. Separately, panel makers maintained a near 100% production utilization rate. Unlike the capacity reduction seen during 1Q07, the output from the G6, G7, G7.5 and G8 continued to grow. Price-wise, panel makers raised the monitor price quotes in Apr08. Yet, the rise occurred at a time when prices were already at a relatively high base level. Coupled by the downstream vendors’ already sufficient inventory and weak market demand stemming from the traditional slow season, there was little momentum behind further price increases in May. Eventually, a 1~2% price increase was seen for some monitor sizes, while the remaining stood flat. Amid the weak price momentum, the global large-sized panel shipments still trended upwards during May. Notebooks jumped by 11% to 12.5 million units. TV and Monitor panels were respectively up 3.6% and 3.8% to 8.1 million and 18.2 million units.
Figure: TFT-LCD Panel Shipment (K units)
|
Application
|
Apr-08
|
May-08
|
MoM
|
|
TV
|
7,791
|
8,074
|
3.6%
|
|
Notebook
|
11,240
|
12,477
|
11.0%
|
|
Monitor
|
17,519
|
18,183
|
3.8%
|
|
TTL
|
36,550
|
38,734
|
6.0%
|
The aggregated large size panel area shipments in May reached 5.9 million square meters, up 5.5% MoM and 32.7% YoY. Notebook area shipments were up notably by 11.7% to 860K square meters. TVs were up 4.9% to 3 million square meters, contributed mainly by the 40” and 46”. Finally, monitors grew by 3.9% to 2.1 million square meters.
Figure: TFT-LCD Panel Area Shipment ( K square meter)
|
Application
|
Apr-08
|
May-08
|
MoM
|
|
TV
|
2,853
|
2,994
|
4.9%
|
|
Notebook
|
770
|
860
|
11.7%
|
|
Monitor
|
2,016
|
2,094
|
3.9%
|
|
TTL
|
5,640
|
5,949
|
5.5%
|
TV Panels
In May, TV panel shipments reached 8.1 million units, up by 3.6% MoM. Amid the weak seasonality, the overall TV panel demand was weak. Size-wise, a lot of the demand was concentrated on the 40” and 46”, where the shipment ratio of these two sizes rose respectively from 8.2% and 5% in April to 9.8% and 6% in May. The 40” class accounted for 30% of the TV aggregated shipments. For the 30” class, despite Sharp’s G8 output of the 32”, the capacity shift from the 32” to the 40” class by some panel makers resulted in the 32” to drop sequentially by 1%. The TV shipment screen size breakdown can be seen in the figure below.
Monitor panels
The aggregated monitor panel shipments in May reached 18.2 million units, up by 3.8% MoM and 18% YoY. As production of the 16:9 format continues to rise, the market share of current sizes is under increasing pressure, especially for monitors employing the 4:3 ratio. For the 15” class, the 15.0”W (16:9) and 15.6’W (16:9) is squeezing the share of the 15” (4:3). The market share of the 15.X”w (16:9) rose from 4.2% in April to 5.6% in May, while the 15” dropped from 4.2% to 3%. In addition, the 19”W and 22”W also experienced notable growth, rising by 4% and 11% MoM. This was even more evident for the 22”W, as shipments surpassed the 17” (4:3) for the first time, making it become the No. 2 shipment size. The monitor shipment screen size breakdown can be seen in the figure below.
NB Panels
In May, a huge growth in the NB shipments was seen, jumping by 11% MoM to 12.5 million units and 35.2% YoY. Given the sluggish demand in the small to medium-sized market and some of the monitor panel production moved to the G7 and above, there is sufficient production capacity from the G5, which is mainly responsible for rolling out NB panels. Meanwhile, due to improvements in the manufacturing efficiency, the 15.4”W reached a new shipment high in May08, where it surged by 16% MoM, taking up 56.1% of the aggregated NB shipments. The NB shipment screen size breakdown can be seen in the figure below.
Conclusion
At the moment, the TFT LCD industry is still being affected by the traditional weak seasonality. Separately, downstream vendors currently have sufficient inventory, due to the earlier pull-in. Thus, the seller side has little price negotiating room. According to WitsView 1HJun price survey, prices have slightly edged down. As June also marks the period for the mid-year inventory accounting, the buyer side will certainly make adjustments to their respective inventory. Whether in terms of the panel price or shipment, they will be under some pressure in June.
