Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), the nation’s biggest LCD panel maker, was ranked in May as one of the top two suppliers of television screens in China, alongside LG Display Co of South Korea, a research report said yesterday.
According to the report released by Displaybank, a market research and consulting firm in South Korea, Chimei Innolux and LG Display each held about a 27 percent share of China’s TV panel market in May.
TV screen purchases from China’s top six home-appliance companies in May totaled 3.61 million units, up 24 percent from April and up 64 percent from a year earlier, according to the Displaybank report.
The top six Chinese TV panel buyers were Changhong Electric Co (長虹), Haier Co (海爾), Hisense Electric Co (海信), Konka Group Co (康佳), Skyworth Group Co (創惟) and TCL Group Co.
In addition to Chimei Innolux and LG Display, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co benefited from the increase in purchases from the six Chinese buyers, the research firm said without elaborating further.
Among the top six Chinese home-appliance makers, TCL’s TV panel purchases in May rose 54 percent from April, while sales to Skyworth grew 43 percent from a month earlier, the South Korean consulting firm said.
Displaybank said flat panels of 40 inches and above accounted for 44 percent of TCL’s total purchases, while LED backlight panels made up 52 percent of the company’s purchases.
The global flat-panel sector has been haunted by falling product prices on oversupply, with Goldman Sachs forecasting that Chimei Innolux and its local rival AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電) will continue to suffer losses into the second quarter of next year.
In the first quarter of this year, Chimei Innolux and AUO posted NT$13.8 billion (US$478 million) and NT$13.9 billion in net losses respectively.
Goldman Sachs said AUO could lose NT$32.2 billion and Chimei Innolux NT$38.2 billion this year.
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