WitsView: Monitor shipments in April demonstrated the “wait-and-see” sentiment; European market took the brunt of the impact with the depreciation of the Euro
According to WitsView’s top 10 monitor brand survey, total monitor shipments reduced by 2.6% MoM to 11.22 million units in April 2010. The main reason is the potential losses from panel price decline of inventory on hand. Additionally, the depreciation of the Euro against the dollar, triggered by the debt crisis, led to increase in procurement costs for retailers; further, as end-market purchase momentum stagnated, inventory levels are bound to increase. Hence, inventory adjustment is a priority for brand vendors in May/June. Evident from of brand vendors’ performance, LGE, Acer, and BenQ, which focus more on the consumer market, were affected by weaker demand, their shipments fell by 15.8%, 12%, and 16.2% respectively. Samsung’s shipments grew by 19% MoM as its total number of shipping days in April is calculated based on five weeks. Meanwhile, AOC’s shipments increased by 18.3% MoM; after its inventory clearing in the China market in 1Q10, AOC began restocking in 2Q10. Demand from the commercial market recovered substantially, due to improvements in the global economy.
Top 10 monitor SI shipments declined by 3.6% MoM to 13.33 million units in April 2010. This is mainly due to weaker-than-expected sales performance of downstream customers, heavy pressure from rising end-market inventory, as well as a sharp 8~10% monitor panel price increase in 1Q10, which continued to elevate brand customers’ set costs, making conditions unfavorable for product sales. However, after panel prices began to fall in April, the risk of losses in inventory value of panels and sets has been rising. Hence, brand customers will tend to focus on selling their inventory in 2Q10, and reduce the volume of their product pull-in from SIs. Impacted by decline in demand, shipments of TPV, Innolux, and LGE fell by 4.2%, 14.9%, and 16.7% respectively. In contrast, Samsung’s shipments grew by 14.2% MoM as its total number of shipping days in April is calculated based on five weeks.
