Large-sized panel shipments fall by 23.7% in November on weaker demand and supply

According to WitsView’s survey, worldwide large-size panel shipments in November reached 25.83 million units, a 23.7% MoM and 26.4% YoY decline. The shipment drop during the traditional strong season stemmed from the brand vendors’ cut back in orders, as the persisting macroeconomic woes weighed on the end market demand. In the NB segment, only 7.86 million 12.1” and above panels were shipped. This was equivalent to a staggering drop of 28.4%. Aside from the sluggish end market demand, the sales momentum of such products were also affected by the growing popularity of the below 11” netbooks. Meanwhile, monitor panels fell by 23% to 10.46 million units, an indication of the continued difficulty in effectively clearing away the accumulated inventory. Finally, TV panels fell to 7.51 million units, down by 19.3% MoM. In contrast to the monthly change during the same period of last year, shipments fell by a mere 2%. Despite the arrival of the year-end Christmas sales, it can be seen that the market environment remains in a slowdown.

Figure: TFT-LCD Panel Shipment (K units)

The aggregated large-sized panel area shipments slipped from 5.99 million square meters in October to 4.72 million square meters in November, down by 21% MoM and 19% YoY. In the NB segment, they fell by 29.5% MoM to 530 thousand square meters. Meanwhile, the area shipments of TVs and monitors dropped respectively by 19.3% and 21.3% MoM to 2.92 million and 1.27 million square meters. In general, due to the weakness in the larger-sized panel shipments, which can more effectively consume the glass substrate input, along with the panel makers’ utilization cutbacks, the aggregated panel shipments in Q4 continued to fall.

Figure: TFT-LCD Panel Area Shipment ( K square meter)

TV Panels

After TV panel shipments peaked in September and October, due to preparations for the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years sales promotions, the limited market visibility into 2009 resulted in shipments falling by 19.3% MoM to 7.51 million units. On a YoY basis, this amounted to a 16.5% decline. As the price of the mainstream 32” panel continued to fall, shipments instead rose by 3.3 percentage points over October. But for the other sizes, they all experienced a decline.

NB Panels

In the wake of the global downturn, as consumers become more attracted to the cheaper netbook segment, it is starting to erode the market share of the original larger-sized NBs. Thus, during November NB panel shipments fell to 7.86 million units, down by 28% MoM and 24.3% YoY. Looking at the market share changes of the various sizes, the 3 percentage point increase of the mainstream 14.1”W was the most eye-catching. Meanwhile, the other two sizes that saw a market share increase were the 15.4”W and 15.6”W (16:9). The former was up by 0.1 percentage point, while the latter grew by 0.5 percentage points.

Monitor panels

The aggregated monitor panel shipments in November reached 10.46 million units, down by 23% MoM and 10.2% YoY. Since 2H08, due to inventory buildups, a weaker pull-in, downstream vendors’ price negotiations and their growing interest of the newer 16:9 sizes, monitor panel prices have continued to fall. Based on WitsView’s November survey, the 19”W, 21.5”W and 24”W experienced a market share increase over October, as their strong price competitiveness stimulated more consumer interest.


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