Market Status

According to WitsView’s survey, worldwide large-size panel shipments in May reached 38.7 million units, a 6% MoM increase and a 25.4% growth on year. Looking back at 2007, shipments began to notably increase in Mar07. Rising by a monthly average of 7%, growth only started to slow down in Nov07, as downstream vendors concluded their inventory preparations for the year-end Christmas sales. The same trend was witnessed in the panel price segment as well. Prices started to climb in Apr07, stabilized in Nov07 and started falling in Dec07. Due to last year’s market development, both the buyer and seller have adjusted their procurement and sales strategy in 2008. In 1H08, the demand and supply dynamics has been quite different when compared to 2007. Given the possibility of panel prices rising again in 2Q08, downstream vendors pulled in their orders earlier, resulting in a stronger than usual first quarter. Separately, panel makers maintained a near 100% production utilization rate. Unlike the capacity reduction seen during 1Q07, the output from the G6, G7, G7.5 and G8 continued to grow. Price-wise, panel makers raised the monitor price quotes in Apr08. Yet, the rise occurred at a time when prices were already at a relatively high base level. Coupled by the downstream vendors’ already sufficient inventory and weak market demand stemming from the traditional slow season, there was little momentum behind further price increases in May. Eventually, a 1~2% price increase was seen for some monitor sizes, while the remaining stood flat. Amid the weak price momentum, the global large-sized panel shipments still trended upwards during May. Notebooks jumped by 11% to 12.5 million units. TV and Monitor panels were respectively up 3.6% and 3.8% to 8.1 million and 18.2 million units.

In April, global aggregated large-sized panel shipments reached 36.6 million units, dropping slightly by 1.6% MoM, but equivalent to an annual increase of 29.7%. In March, given the smaller shipment base level in the preceding month, the monthly shipment growth still grew by 12%. The increase was mainly contributed by the IT panel segment. For April, the shipment performance was seen to be roughly the same as in March. Aside from the IT panel sales growth in the emerging markets, the overall market demand has become a bit more subdued. Coupled by the fact that the TV panel segment is still being affected by the slow season, its overall demand remains weak. In the 3 main applications, NBs inched up by a mere 0.2% to 11.2 million. As for the TV and monitor panels, they dropped respectively by 2.9% and 2.1% to 7.8 million and 17.5 million units.