The decline in the prices of LCD panels used in computers and TVs will accelerate this month after slower-than-expected TV and notebook computer sales caused excess inventories, a market researcher said on Friday.
DisplaySearch said in its latest report that it expected prices for mainstream 32-inch LCD panels to suffer the brunt by falling 5.1 percent from the second half of last month to US$186 per unit in the first half of this month, faster than a 1.5-percent decline two weeks earlier.
AU Optronics Corp (友達光電), Taiwan’s No. 2 LCD panel manufacturer, recently told investors in Taipei that that slower-than-expected TV sales in China during the Labor Day holiday in May has caused two weeks worth of inventories more than is usual at Chinese TV brands such as Haier Group (海爾), TCL and Skyworth Group (創惟).
For this reason, TV brands and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have continued to negotiate for better panel prices in order to stimulate demand with substantial retail price reductions in the promotional season, DisplaySearch said in the report.
According to the researcher’s estimate, prices of 40-inch and 42-inch LED-backlight panels would drop 1 percent to US$460 per unit in the first two weeks of this month from the second half of last month, as consumers shun LED TVs because of high price tags. In the first two weeks of this month, prices for monitor panels would see the biggest drop, with a more than 4 percent drop in prices for the mainstream 19-inch panels to around US$71 per unit from two weeks ago, the Austin, Texas-based researcher’s report showed.
“The demand for monitor panels in August is down. To stimulate demand and secure volumes, some panel makers are proposing strategic promotional prices for some brands and OEMs,” the report said.
Notebook computer sales felt short of expectations last moth, leading to a pile up in inventories and lower panel prices, DisplaySearch said, adding that it would take the next few months to digest excess inventories.
DisplaySearch predicted demand for notebook computer panels would pick up this month.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts