Disappointing demand for flat-panel televisions for the World Cup soccer tournament has driven up inventory in Europe over the past three months, but the pressure may ease in summer on inventory buildup for the peak season at year's end, market researcher iSuppli Corp said on Wednesday.
In the first quarter, inventory was about six to eight weeks, compared with the normal four-to-six weeks in North America, which has high demand for flat-panel TVs, said Eric Wu (
"TV vendors have high expectations for the soccer World Cup, but the demand has just been disappointing," Wu said.
Weaker demand caused oversupply and brought down prices for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels used in the popular 32-inch, 37-inch and 42-inch TVs by 7 percent last month from March, Wu said.
Wu predicted prices for TV panels overall to drop another 8.6 percent next quarter.
A 32-inch LCD panel for TVs is priced at US$485 per unit, down 3 percent from US$500 per unit during the second half of April, according to market researcher DisplaySearch.
However, Wu said he held a bullish view about the slim-screen TV sector. He expected inventory pressure would ease later this or next month, when TV manufacturers start placing orders for peak season in the second half of the year.
He also expected prices for TV sets to drop further as vendors hope to spur demand and digest inventory.
To stimulate demand in Taiwan, vendors have axed prices primarily for mainstream 32-inch LCD TVs. LG Electronics Co, which ranks No. 1 in plasma-display-panel (PDP) TV sales in Taiwan, made the latest move.
LG said it would lower prices for mainstream sized LCD TVs and PDP TVs ranging between NT$10,000 and NT$59,000 per unit, following rivals Sony Corp and Matsushita Electric Industrial, which sells consumer electronics under the Panasonic brand.
LG said the price cuts followed a belief that growth for slim-screen TVs next month and in July would be significant.
A 42-inch LCD TV, which has suffered the biggest drop, now costs only NT$129,000 (US$4070), compared to NT$188,000 before the price adjustment.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to