Prices for liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panels used in monitors may begin to fall by as much as 3.4 percent in the second half of this month, ending a six-month uptrend as supply and demand reach parity, market researcher DisplaySearch said in its latest report.
Pricing pressure is expected come into play through next month, the Austin, Texas-based research house said in a biweekly report released on Saturday.
The price weakness could be an early sign of a new slowdown, which was originally expected in the final month of next quarter, HSBC Securities projections showed.
Prices for monitor panels are expected to drop the fastest as “monitor panels with 16:9 aspect ratio are reversing to oversupply,” DisplaySearch said. “Monitor brands and original electronics manufacturers are becoming cautious about inventories on concerns about price erosion next quarter.”
A 20-inch LCD monitor with 16:9 aspect ratio may drop US$3, or 3.4 percent, to US$85 per unit in the second half of this month, from US$88 in the first half, DisplaySearch’s statistics showed.
The “slow season for the LCD sector [is] kicking in one to two months earlier, driven by continued negative newsflow on a hard landing for the LCD sector in the fourth quarter,” HSBC Securities analyst Frank Su (蘇�? said in a report issued last week.
The speculation may push panel buyers to trim orders before visibility of sell-though improves, Su said. He originally expected the slow season to begin in December.
The report said panel makers are managing to hold their price quotes for TV screens steady for the next two weeks as they “are seeing increasing demand from Europe,” the world’s biggest LCD TV market, the report said.
Some Chinese TV makers have wrapped up their inventory for the upcoming shopping season, the researcher said.
“Panel price negotiations are expected to be tough for some panel makers,” it said.
The Chinese market was a major export destination for local panel makers over the past two quarters, as demand in the world’s major TV markets, the US and Europe, were sluggish because of the economic turbulence.
The price of a 32-inch LCD panel may remain unchanged at US$215 for the second half of this month, DisplaySearch said.
HSBC retained an “overweight” rating on the nation’s top LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), South Korean LG Display Co Ltd and Taiwan’s Innolux Display Inc (群創光電).
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained