Taiwanese liquid-crystal-display (LCD) television makers, including Wistron Corp (緯創), could see a 27 percent increase in shipments next year amid growing demand for slim-screen TVs, mainly from emerging markets such as China and the Middle East, a Taipei-based research house said.
Globally, LCD TV shipments could rise 25 percent to 126 million units next year from 101 million this year as falling TV prices spur demand, Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業) forecast in its latest report.
Flat-panel TV prices could drop by between 15 percent and 20 percent next year, it said.
“The driving force will mainly come from rising demand in emerging markets such as China, which has a low LCD TV penetration rate of 30 percent,” Topology LCD TV analyst Maxwell Cheng (張乘維) said.
Annual shipment growth in emerging markets is expected to reach 42 percent next year, Topology said.
“We believe the economic slowdown may have a relatively milder impact on LCD TV sales compared with other sectors,” Cheng said.
Topology originally projected that LCD TV shipments could grow to 130 million next year, 3 percent higher than its latest forecast.
Benefiting from the growing replacement demand for flat-panel TVs, Taiwanese manufacturers that supply TVs to other companies could ship 25.9 million units next year, up 27 percent from the 20.44 million units estimated for this year, Topology said.
The forecast annual growth rate is slower than the 36 percent growth Topology estimated for this year.
“Taiwanese companies may see a pullback in orders as most of their customers are second-tier TV brands, which are losing market share in the price war triggered by big brands such as Sony Corp and Samsung Electronics Co,” Cheng said.
Some local companies such as Amtran Technology Co Ltd (瑞軒科技) may see their orders cut because of the intensifying price war, Cheng said.
Amtran makes flat-panel TVs for the US’ third-largest TV vendor, Vizio Inc.
“We expect Amtran’s LCD TV shipments to hold steady at this year’s level, as Vizio could lose market share to bigger rivals,” Cheng said.
In September, Amtran projected that LCD TV shipments would grow 30 percent to 5.2 million units next year, compared with the 4 million units estimated for this year.
South Korean TV vendors, including LG Electronics Inc, may not farm out as much production to local TV manufacturers as expected, Cheng said.
Amtran shares rose 1.13 percent to NT$9.82 yesterday. Wistron was down 2.76 percent to NT$28.2 and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), the world’s second-largest notebook computer maker and also a LCD TV maker, dropped 0.4 percent to NT$24.95.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
New vehicle sales in Taiwan plunged about 37 percent sequentially last month as the long Lunar New Year holiday and 228 Peace Memorial Day holiday cut short the number of working days, along with the lingering uncertainty over import tax cuts on US vehicles, market researcher U-Car said in a report yesterday. New car sales last month totaled 22,043, slumping from 35,073 units in January and down 19.89 percent from 37,515 in February last year, U-Car data showed. Sales of imported luxury cars, led by Mercedes-Benz, plummeted about 45 percent to 3,109 units last month from 5,663 units in the previous month,
RSS