With four new next-generation production lines scheduled to begin operation this year, the panel industry will continue to face oversupply challenges, the Photonics Industry & Technology Development Association (PIDA, 光電科技工業協進會) said on Thursday.
In the first quarter, supply is estimated to exceed demand by 125.5 percent for the panel industry. Although demand is expected to pick up in the third quarter and reduce the oversupply level to 109.7 percent, the oversupply situation will continue, Taipei-based PIDA said.
PIDA analyst Karen Ho (何孟穎) said the South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co would start two eighth-generation (8G) production lines this year, increasing its capacity by 28 percent.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), the world’s No. 3 liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel supplier, is to begin test production on its 8.5G line in the third quarter, increasing its capacity by around 9 percent. South Korea’s LG Philips LCD Co, the world’s second-largest LCD maker after Samsung Electronics, planned to start mass production at an 8G line in the first half of this year, Ho said.
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s second-largest maker of LCDs, which originally planned to begin production at its 8.5G plant this year, is to stop mass production temporarily after being hit by the global economic downturn.
“Even though the recent influx of rush orders could help boost shipments, as panel prices are still low, panel makers may continue to operate at a loss for the whole year,” Ho said.
Ho said panel prices had fallen between 40 percent and 50 percent from last July. Although panel prices have stabilized recently and some have increased, they have only been able to rise above cash costs, she said, adding that the rebound was weak.
PIDA said that global LCD TV shipments would amount to some 115 million units this year, an increase of 14 percent from last year, but this is well below the long-term average growth rate of 20 percent.
“Sales of LCD TVs are the major indicator of when the panel industry will recover this year,” Ho said.
PIDA said that global LCD panel shipments would reach around 170 million units this year, down 5 percent from last year, while global notebook shipments are forecast to reach around 145 million units this year, an increase of 7 percent from last year.
Ho said the most popular notebooks this year would still be 14 and 15-inch models. Light-emitting diode (LED) notebooks accounted for about 10 percent of the entire notebook market last year and this number is expected to grow to 36 percent this year.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS