Global flat panel sales are forecast to grow at a slower pace from this year through 2015 as retail and corporate buyers cut back on spending amid the worldwide economic gloom, market researcher DisplaySearch said in its latest report.
In its latest forecast, the Austin, Texas-based researcher said global flat panel revenues may reach US$124 billion in 2014 — instead of this year as it had projected in the third quarter of 2007.
Since the third quarter of last year, panel pricing, which has already been hit with a supply glut because of overcapacity, fell further as consumer behavior changed in response to the economic crisis, DisplaySearch said in the report dated Jan. 27.
Consumer surveys and retail data compiled by NPD, DisplaySearch’s parent company, showed that such behavioral changes may persist. Moreover, the behavior change is spreading to areas outside of Europe and North America.
With panel prices falling at a faster rate amid weakening demand, DisplaySearch cut its forecast for flat panel revenues between this year and 2015 by 15 percent from the projections it made in the final quarter of 2007. It did not provide detailed figures.
“Reduced price expectations create most of this difference,” David Barnes, DisplaySearch’s vice president of strategic analysis, said in the report.
Over the seven-year period, the average price of flat panels may drop 9 percent faster than its previous forecast, the report said.
The average price fell to about US$29 last year and could drop about 2 percent a year to US$25 in 2015, DisplaySearch said.
In a separate report, DisplaySearch said computer and TV revenues plunged 57 percent year-on-year to US$3 billion last month, marking the lowest level since July 2006.
DisplaySearch also found that panel demand weakened significantly in all three of the major applications for thin-film-transitor liquid-crytal displays (LCD) — notebook PCs, monitors and televisions — and panel suppliers had reduced capacity utilization.
Monitor panel shipments posted the largest fall, by 31 percent year-on-year to 10.7 million units last month, which is the lowest level since June 2006.
A combination of slow demand, leading brands relying more on in-house production and the sharp depreciation of the Korean won adversely affected Taiwanese panel suppliers, leading to loss of market share.
At the end of last year, Taiwanese LCD panel makers held about 35 percent of the market, down from 43 percent last July, while South Korean makers gained market share to 52.1 percent from 43.9 percent, DisplaySearch’s tally showed.
HORMUZ ISSUE: The US president said he expected crude prices to drop at the end of the war, which he called a ‘minor excursion’ that could continue ‘for a little while’ The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait started reducing oil production, as the near-closure of the crucial Strait of Hormuz ripples through energy markets and affects global supply. Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is “managing offshore production levels to address storage requirements,” the company said in a statement, without giving details. Kuwait Petroleum Corp said it was lowering production at its oil fields and refineries after “Iranian threats against safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz.” The war in the Middle East has all but closed Hormuz, the narrow waterway linking the Persian Gulf to the open seas,
Apple Inc increased iPhone production in India by about 53 percent last year and now makes a quarter of its marquee devices there, reflecting the US company’s efforts to avoid tariffs on China. The company assembled about 55 million iPhones in India last year, up from 36 million a year earlier, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be named because the numbers aren’t public. Apple makes about 220 million to 230 million iPhones a year globally, with India’s share of the total increasing rapidly. Apple has accelerated its expansion in the world’s most populous country in recent years, bolstered
HEADWINDS: The company said it expects its computer business, as well as consumer electronics and communications segments to see revenue declines due to seasonality Pegatron Corp (和碩) yesterday said it aims to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) server revenue more than 10-fold this year from last year, driven by orders from neocloud solutions clients and large cloud service providers. The electronics manufacturing service provider said AI server revenue growth would be driven primarily by the Nvidia Corp GB300 server platform. Server shipments are expected to increase each quarter this year, with the second half likely to outperform the first half, it said. The AI server market is expected to broaden this year as more inference applications emerge, which would drive demand for system-on-chip, application-specific integrated circuits
PROJECTION: TSMC said it expects strong growth this year, with revenue in US dollars projected to grow by about 30 percent, outperforming the industry Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reported consolidated sales last month reached NT$317.66 billion (US$9.98 billion), the highest ever for the month of February, driven by robust demand for chips built using the company’s advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process. Last month’s figure was up 22.2 percent from a year earlier, but fell 20.8 percent from January, the world’s largest contract chipmaker said in a statement. For the first two months of the year, TSMC posted cumulative sales of NT$718.91 billion, up 29.9 percent from a year earlier. Analysts attributed the growth to sustained global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products
RSS