Market Trend

Based on the latest survey by WitsView, a research division of TrendForce, the MCI index plummeted by 233 points to 5909.8 from January 24, 2011 to February 14, 2011. Over the past two weeks, in light of the growing market pessimism, the MCI index declined more sharply, falling past the 5000 mark. Specifically, the latest large-sized panel shipment survey by WitsView shows that in Jan11 they fell by 8.2% MoM to 52.23 million units. In the TV, NB and monitor segments, they respectively dropped by 11.3%, 7.1% and 3.3% over Dec10. The declines show that after the aggressive inventory replenishments by downstream clients over concerns of a labor and raw material shortage created by the Chinese Lunar New Year, demand has notably begun to weaken. The slackened demand is also attributed to the arrival of the traditional slow seasonality. Separately, panel makers are facing heavy financial pressure, due to the weak panel prices, and a possible inventory buildup. These aforementioned factors have brought many uncertainties to the TFT-LCD market, thereby negatively impacting the panel makers’ stock prices and sharply dragging down the MCI index.