Prices of flat-panel displays used in personal computers and mobile phones will fall less this year than last year and sales will rise about 14 percent, market researcher DisplaySearch forecast.
Global sales of screens, made by companies such as South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, will grow to US$33 billion from US$29 billion last year, said Ross Young, president of Austin, Texas-based DisplaySearch.
Price drops will slow, he predicted.
"Companies don't want to see last year's price declines," Young said in an interview. "Prices should be relatively stable."
The average price of a 15-inch display fell by a third in the second half of last year, resulting in losses for most suppliers, whose higher output wasn't accompanied by a rebound in demand for personal computers. Sales of PCs haven't recovered from 2001, when they fell by about a third globally.
Manufacturers such as Samsung, the world's largest display maker, will shift more production to 17-inch screens, on which they can make more profit, Young said. Consumers are buying more such displays to replace desktop vacuum-tube monitors.
Prices of 17-inch screens may fall to about US$220 by year-end from US$230 now, while prices for 15-inch displays will stabilize at about US$170-US$180, Young said.
Samsung sells 17-inch screens, measured diagonally, for about US$270 each, compared with US$230 at a Taiwan supplier that Young declined to identify. The biggest suppliers of 17-inch screens can make profit at a price of about US$220, he said.
Samsung, which has the lowest production cost, can demand higher prices than smaller rivals because it can supply screens in the volumes that PC makers such as Hewlett-Packard Co require, Young said.
Samsung and rivals in South Korea and Taiwan have missed targets to expand capacity in their newest factories because of problems with production equipment used to make the glass sheets from which screens are cut, said Young. That may help reduce oversupply and stabilize prices, he said.
Indirectly, the South Korean company, which Young visited two weeks ago, may have benefited its competitors because it was the first to experience, and resolve, the equipment problems. That's made things easier for other companies buying the same gear.
AU Optronics Corp (
"The Taiwanese owe Samsung a big `thank you,'" he said.
AU Optronics said earlier this week it will start production at the factory in March, a month earlier than planned.
Shipments of color screens for mobile phones will almost double this year, DisplaySearch forecasts. The company estimates that about 40 percent of all handsets sold this year will have color displays.
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