Panel shipments fall by 23.9% YoY in December 2008, says WitsView

Taipei, January 16, 2009---According to WitsView’s survey, worldwide large-size panel shipments reached 25.15 million units in December 2008, down slightly by 2.6% MoM. On a YoY basis, they slumped by 23.9%. Although the general end market demand remained uncertain, a stronger pull-in effect occurred during December. This stemmed from the fewer working days in Jan09 and downstream vendors’ preparations for the upcoming Chinese Lunar New Year sales promotions. Coupled by the year-end inventory accounting, panel suppliers aggressively tried to clear away their unsold inventory in minimizing their losses. These factors led to a better-than-expected shipment performance during Dec08.

NB (12.1” and above) panel shipments reached 7.94 million units in December. As a NB panel inventory built-up occurred, due to weak end market sales in 4Q08, the Korean players aggressively tried to reduce their stock by securing more panel orders. This resulted in a small 1.0% MoM NB panel increase in December. In the monitor segment, shipments were down by a mere 0.1% MoM to 10.45 million units. As mentioned above, shipments were underpinned by the panel makers’ inventory clearing. Finally, TV panels experienced the biggest drop among the 3 main applications, where it fell 10% MoM to 6.76 million units. The fall was mainly attributed to the persisting macroeconomic woes and sluggish sales of higher-end TV sets.

TFT-LCD Panel Shipment in Dec-08 (K units)

The aggregated large size panel area shipments in December dropped from November’s 4.72 million square meters to 4.28 million square meters, down 9.2% MoM. On a yearly basis, a double digit decline continued, tumbling by 20.8%. NBs increased by 2.1% MoM to 544K square meters, due mainly to the panel makers’ inventory clearing. TV and monitors were down respectively by 14.8% and 1.2% to 2.48 million and 1.25 million square meters. Generally speaking, in the wake of the deteriorating global economy, the smaller and cheaper TV products have become a popular choice among price-conscious consumers. Falling demand of the more expensive bigger-sized TV sets has thus led to a lower consumption of large-sized glass substrates.

TFT-LCD Panel Area Shipment in Dec-08 (K square meter)

About WitsView

Founded in the year 2004, WitsView, a subsidiary brand of DRAMeXchange, is composed of a team of TFT-LCD industry experts. The research field covers the development and market trend of upstream components, mid stream panels and downstream system integrators and retailers.

For more about WitsView, please visit www.witsview.com