LEDinside: Demand of Tablet PCs to Improve LED Specification; LED Shipment in 2011 Show Aggressive Growth

Demand of Tablet PCs to Improve LED Specification; LED Shipment in 2011 Show Aggressive Growth  

Since iPad, Apple’s best selling product, led a trend of Tablet PCs, other manufacturers have accelerated the development and launch of Tablet PCs. LEDinside, a research division under TrendForce, indicated that LED application requirement for Tablet PC has improved, and average brightness specification has increased by over 20 percent compared to before. Additionally, LED shipment grew, too. It is estimated that LED shipment will rise to 1.3 billion in 2011 from 380 million in 2010, around 3.5 times in growth rate. 

Exceptional Growth Momentum in Tablet PCs 

Since iPad led a trend of Tablet PCs, various PC manufacturers and mobile phone vendors accelerated Tablet PCs development and launch in the latter half of 2010. In order to compete with iPad, Tablet PCs designed by other vendors are much more focused on more powerful CPU, larger disk storage space, more compatible hardware and software supports, such as USB port, Flash display support and so on. Additionally, a variety of vendors successfully collaborated with Google Android operating system to create their own “Blue Ocean Strategy”

In addition, Samsung integrated its group resource to launch “Galaxy Tab.”  Moreover, due to a good relationship with telecom channels, Samsung had an outstanding performance among the existing Android series. Furthermore, Canadian manufacturer RIM, known for its BlackBerry, also released its latest Tablet PC, “Playbook”, whose target market is the same as Blackberry, in the commercial area, and it is forecasted to launch in the second quarter of 2011. Moreover, PC vendor, Acer has displayed their Tablet PC with Android operating system in New York in November 2010, and will launch in March or April 2011.

Based on the analysis of TrendForce, during 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), there is a wide range of Tablet PCs with Android operating system and smart phones released in market, creating new changes and demand of portable device in 2011. TrendForce indicated that worldwide Tablet PCs shipment in 2010 was around 15 million units. In terms of worldwide Tablet PCs shipment in 2011, it is expected that as Android becomes much developed and its market acceptance increases, worldwide Tablet PCs shipment will increase to around 50 million units and bring 3 times of growth momentum.  

Furthermore, Touch panel is mostly used in most Tablet PCs, which has lower transmissivity. However, overall requirement for backlight brightness increases, hence, brightness specification of LEDs has to increase in order to meet the market demand. In terms of LED specification requirement, according to LEDinside, LED luminous intensity should be over 2,400 mcd to be adopted in Tablet PCs, which means average brightness specification should be 20 percent higher than before. 

In terms of LED shipment, around 20-28 LED units are used in a Tablet PC (Tablet PCs with Android and iPad). LEDinside indicated that LED shipment (applied in Tablet PCs) in 2010 was around 380 million. As this market continues to grow, LEDinside estimated that LED shipment will rise to 1300 million in 2011, and growth rate will reach 3.5 times. This will certainly benefit the upstream and downstream of the LED industry in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea. Although LED specification improves, there is a close relation between the LED backlight supply chain for the Tablet PCs and the NB industries. It would not be difficult for Taiwanese plants to enter into this field of business.