We reported yesterday that American makers of LCD monitors and TVs are puzzled at being told by flat panel manufacturers that in the teeth of a deep recession, there appeared to be a shortage of units. But there appears to be some light at the end of the TFT tunnel.
Now, the latest Displaysearch figures show that things were bad in the first calendar quarter of 2009, but there’s confidence that things are on the up.
The market research company released figures for the first quarter of 2009 which showed that, for example, large area TFT LCD revenues fell by 52 percent year on year, amounting to $10 billion worth of shipments. Slow demand, said Displaysearch, led to reduced capacity utilization.
The firm also said that it has surveyed the panel makers’ shipment targets for Q2 2009 through to the first calendar quarter of 2010. The manufacturers are increasing capacity and hoping for extra demand.
Displaysearch also gave the top three suppliers for the different applications in the first quarter of the year. Said David Hsieh, a VP at Displaysearch: “We are forecasting that industry utilization will be 80 percent in Q2 2009 due to growing orders. We expect that Q1 2009 represented the worst of this cycle as revenues and shipments reached recent lows. But just as spring has replaced winter, the outlook is improving and we will definitely see shipment and revenues grow by double digits in Q2 2009.”
The two Korean giants rule the roost in most of the different categories.
| No | Notebook | Mininote | Monitor | TV | Others |
| 1 | LG Display | Hannstarr | Samsung | LGD | Sharp |
| 2 | Samsung | AU Opto | LG Display | Samsung | AU Opto |
| 3 | AU Opto | CPT | CMO | CMO | LGD |
