Supply chain disorder leads to monthly regression of 8.9% of large-sized panel shipment in February
According to the latest surveys conducted by WitsView, a subsidiary of Trendforce, large-sized panel shipments fell by 8.9% MoM to 47.59 million units in Feb11.
Due to Chinese Lunar New Year, there are only two and a half weeks of working days in February. Besides, as usual there have been labor shortages before and after Lunar New Year in Mainland China. In addition, this Lunar New Year came earlier on the calendar than last year; therefore stock preparation among downstream customers took place in advance in January such that the shipment of large-sized panel is greatly reduced in February. On the other hand, the introduction of Apple iPad products have been well received by consumers prompting all major brands to jump into Tablet PC market leading to continuous growth of shipment of Tablet PC panels.
Application-wise, the shipment of TV panels is around 14.57 million units with the MoM regression of 5.1%; the shipment of monitor panels is around 14.46 million units with the MoM regression of 15.7%; the shipment of Notebook panels is around 12.75 million units with the MoM regression of 7.3%; the shipment of Netbook panels below 12.1” is around 3.10 million units with the MoM regression of 15.3%. Only the shipment of Tablet PC panels remains strong at 2.69 million units with the MoM growth of 19%.
Table 1: TFT-LCD Panel Shipment in Feb-11 (K units)
Area-wise, the total shipment area in February reaches 8.11 million m2 with the MoM regression of 6.7%. From the perspective of shipment area by application, the shipment area of Tablet PC panels reaches 79 thousand m2 with the MoM growth of 19.2%; the shipment area of Netbook panels below 12.1” reaches 990 thousand m2 with the MoM regression of 17.4%; the shipment area of TV panels reaches 5.31 million m2 with the MoM regression of 3.2%; the shipment area of Notebook panels above 12.1” reaches 838 thousand m2 with the MoM regression of 7.3%; the shipment area of monitor panels reaches 1.78 million m2 with the MoM regression of 15.7%.
Table 2: TFT-LCD Panel Area Shipment in Feb-11 (K square meter)
Size Wise
TV panel: The shipment ratio of small-sized TV panels (below 26”) drops from 21.4% in previous month to 20.1%. The decline is the most significant for 26” panels from 6.8% to 6.2%. The shipment ratio of 32” panels drops from 44.2% in previous month by 0.9% to 43.3% this month; the shipment ratio of 37” panels grows slightly from 4.2% to 4.3%; the shipment ratio of panels above 40” grows by 2.1%, where the shipment ratios of 42” and 55” panels enjoy the largest growths by 8.6% and 2.8%, respectively.
Notebook PC panel(including Tablet PC): The shipment ratio grows significantly from 9.2% to 11.7% due to the official volumetric production of iPad2 9.7” panels. The shipment ratio of Tablet PC panels also grows by 3% from 11.5% to 14.5%. The shipment ratio of Netbook panels suffers from market penetration of Tablet PC and drops from 18.6% to 16.7%. The shipment ratio of panels above 12.1” drops from 69.9% to 68.8% among which only the shipment ratio of 14.0”W panel remains strong growing from 19.2% to 20.5%; in contrary, the shipment ratio of 13.3”W(16:10) panel drops from 4.5% to 3.6%; the shipment ratio of 15.6”W drops from 32.6% to 30.7% by 1.9%.
Monitor panel: The shipment ratio of panels under 20”W remains similar to previous month where only the shipment ratios of 18.5”W and 15.6” panels grow from 22.5% and 2.5% to 23.9% and 3.9% respectively. Among the shipment ratios of panels above 20”W, the shipment ratio of 27”W panel has the most significant growth from 1.9% to 3.0% while all other sizes have been showing trends of regression.
Conclusion
The world has been under the effect of the trend of political revolution in Mid East since the first quarter of 2011. Surging price of petroleum and all kinds of daily necessities have gradually brought global inflation to the surface. There seems to be never ending wars of exchange rates among all currencies in US, Europe and Asia. New products such as 3D panels and panels with LED backlight have been developing and the significant growth of market penetration of TV and monitor panels utilizing LED backlight this year have been widely predicted. Although the new models for this spring from all brand name producers have been put on shelves, the end market demand is still in ambiguous atmosphere with all kinds of environmental uncertainties. Therefore, all brand name producers must be much more careful with their supply chain management. Currently the capacity utilization rates among panel makers remain relatively high. Considering the production line renovation among some makers have come to an end and newly added panel production line in the second quarter, panel price and supply-demand mechanism will face significant pressure if panel makers do not pay enough attention to allocation of production capacities.
