Edge10

Lee Williamson from Enta celebrating another big deal.

Lee landed a great deal today for 180 hard glass LCD monitors and spent the evening relaxing with a pint (sic) of Guinness.

Shipments of top-five LCD TV vendors to account for 74% of global shipments in 2008

LCD TV shipments of the world's top-five vendors each are expected to top over 10 million units in 2008, with their combined shipments to account for 74% of the estimated global shipments of 100 million units for this year, according to estimates of sources at Taiwan LCD TV makers.

With the supply of LCD panels expected to become increasingly tight during this year, the ability of the top-five vendors to secure sufficient LCD panels will be crucial for them to reach their respective shipment goals, the sources said.

However, Taiwan's major LCD panel makers, especially AU Optronics (AUO), Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT), are expected to benefit from the tight supply situation, the sources noted.

AUO is expected to ship 21.8 million LCD TV panels in 2008, followed by CMO with 18 million units and CPT with 2.5-3.0 million units, estimated the sources.

The top-five LCD TV vendors are also expected to release more orders to LCD TV OEMs in order to help alleviate the pressure from the tight supply in panels, with Taiwan-based LCD TV makers, including TPV Technology, Wistron and Qisda, expected to benefit, the sources contended.

Top-five LCD TV vendors: Projected LCD TV shipments for 2008
Vendor	2008 shipments (f)
Samsung Electronics	Over 18 million units
Sony	Over 15 million units
LG Electronics	14 million units
Philips	14 million units
Sharp	13 million units

Digitimes Data

Matsushita are rumoured to be looking for buyer for JVC...

According to rumours on the internet in Japan.

Matsushita Electric Industrial and Kenwood Corp are discussing the potential  acquisition of JVC by Kenwood.

TV drives the LCD Monster claim ISuppli

It's getting harder and harder to see how any display technology can succeed in the face of competition from TFT LCDs. That said, there are opportunities to serve applications for which TFT LCD is not well suited.

TFT LCD has expanded its dominance by building on the notebook and monitor markets, using them as a launching pad for taking over the even larger market: TV. At the same time as the industry moves up in size, it is using older capacity and investing in new capacity to take over the mobile handset display market. Going forward, TFT LCD will become the dominant technology in digital signage and other public displays.

TFT LCD revenues passed US$70 billion in 2006, accounting for 73% of electronic display revenues, according to iSuppli. This is up from 52% in 2003.

iSuppli forecasts that by 2010, TFT LCD will account for 85% of display industry revenues. At the same time, increasing penetration in the main application areas and intense price competition means that the growth rate of TFT LCD will be slowing in the coming years. While the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for TFT LCD market revenue was a stunning 26% for the period 2003-2007, iSuppli forecasts that it will slow to 9% from 2007 to 2011.

Growth at the expense of others

The rapid growth of TFT LCD is coming partially at the expense of other technologies. In particular, CRT and passive matrix LCD revenues continue to decline, as TFT LCD has displaced them in the desktop monitor, TV and mobile handset markets. Other technologies are finding that their growth prospects limited by TFT LCD. PDP (plasma display panel) revenues are likely to peak in 2008; while unit growth is expected to be strong, rapidly falling prices will outpace it.

OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays will continue to grow rapidly, but not as fast as over the last few years, as TFT LCD continues to improve in terms of viewing angle, video performance and display thickness, all critical criteria for mobile displays.

As was the case with market development for notebook and monitor applications, the rapid growth of TFT LCD over the past several years has been due to a combination of suppliers pushing into new markets by building state-of-the-art fabs and markets opening up to TFT LCD. In this case, the fabs are in generations six, seven and eight, which are optimized for making 30-, 40- and 50-inch class panels, respectively, and the market is TV. Fueled by an impending cut-off of analog broadcasts, high penetration of DVD players, and the movement toward high-definition (HD) content in broadcast and recorded media, the TV market has been rejuvenated, with many customers replacing their TV sets earlier than they might have otherwise.

As customers have started looking for a new TV, they have often found themselves purchasing a bigger set than they had planned. The availability of 40-inch-plus flat-panel TVs has brought many consumers into a segment that has historically been limited to rear-projection technology. iSuppli expects that 29% of TVs sold in 2010 will be 40 inches or larger, up from 6% in 2005. In 2006, LCDs passed microdisplay-based rear-projection TVs (RPTVs) in the 40-inch-and-larger category, and will pass PDP in the same category this year.

The TV boom

The TV boom has significant implications for TFT LCD panel suppliers, most importantly in terms of the expansion of area production. The area of TV panels produced this year will be more than for all the TFT LCDs produced in 2005. However, the capacity expansion required for this production and the price wars that were the result of a market share battle have caused financial difficulties for some of the largest panel makers.

The increasing dominance of-and aggressive pricing moves by-TFT LCD panel makers continue to create a barrier to entry for new technologies. However, this does not stop companies from developing and attempting to commercialize new technologies. The lure of the TV market is so great that several technologies are attempting to enter it. Most of these are emissive technologies, for example field emission displays (FEDs) and OLEDs.

In both of these cases, there have been many announcements and much activity recently. These and other approaches face significant hurdles, first in terms of manufacturing: Full-color FEDs have never been manufactured in volume, and active-matrix (AM) OLEDs for mobile devices are just entering into production and need to be scaled up 10 to 20 times larger to compete in the most lucrative part of the TV market. But they also will face intense market competition, because TFT LCDs can demonstrate rapid cost declines once new fab generations are introduced, which is amplified by rivalry in the marketplace.

Making an impact

So where can new technologies make an impact on the market? One way is by playing a supporting role for existing technologies. The most important example of this is the developments in solid state and other alternative forms of display lighting. Backlighting of LCDs is the most active area, with new forms of fluorescent lamps – such as external electrode lamps and flat fluorescent plates-exemplifying medium-term transitional technologies. Longer-term, it is clear that LEDs and other forms of solid-state light sources will play a key role in increasing efficiency and lowering costs for large LCD panels.

New light sources also are having an impact on the projection market, with electrode-less high-intensity discharge lamps coming into the market this year. Again, in the long term, there is great potential for LEDs as well as semiconductor lasers to play a role. It is also possible that new forms of miniaturized projectors could be developed as peripheral devices and even embedded into computers, handsets, and other mobile devices.

Another point of entry for new technologies is to avoid direct competition with TFT LCDs. Low-power applications are an interesting market application in this regard. Not only are users demanding better battery life on mobile devices, but there are some applications where it is impossible to have a standard display. Smart cards, removable storage devices and electronic shelf labels are applications that are being created by new forms of displays, including electrophoretic and electrochromic, as well as bistable forms of LCD and direct-view MEMS displays.

TFT LCD is set to continue its relentless takeover of the display market, with digital signage the next likely candidate for large area demand, after TV. It will be difficult for other technologies to compete directly with TFT LCD in the TV market, as well as in other products. However, by supporting and improving TFT LCD performance/cost, or by creating new applications not available to TFT LCD, there will be opportunities for alternative technologies.

42" LCD TV Sets hit USD999 price point to End User in the USA

Prices for most 42-inch LCD TVs now have fallen to around US$1,000, with several brands such as Vizio and Sanyo already pushing their 42-inch models at less than US$999, according to the price list of Wal-Mart.

Panel makers, including AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) are ramping up capacity at their 7.5-generation (7.5G) plants, which supplies 42-, 46- and 47-inch panels, while branded makers, channel distributors and white-brand companies are setting an more aggressive pricing to expand the market scale for 40-inch-class TVs, sources said.

With a closer price gap between 40-inch-clss and 32-inch LCD TVs, the mainstream demand might shift from 32-inch to 40-inch-class ones, the sources noted.

After falling to US$300, prices for 32-inch panels started rebounding in May due to a tight capacity, branded makers revealed.

Meanwhile, it is not easy for TV makers to raise their prices for 32-inch models while their profitability has already been seriously constrained after prices for the segment fell to around NT$20,000 (US$600). As a result, the makers will strengthen their focus on the 40-inch-and-above models this year, the sources explained. - Source Digitimes.

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