According to the latest surveys conducted by WitsView, a subsidiary of TrendForce, large-sized panel shipment surged by 21% MoM to 57.57 million units in March.

 

The shortage of working days and manpower in February due to the Chinese New Year holiday led to some shipment delay to March. On the other hand, downstream brands and SI makers increased their shipment in overall sales & operation planning by over 20% compared to February after they digested the excess inventory in January and February and as they anticipate the demand for inventory replenishment and launch of new products before the 5.1 labor day in China. All these factors are reflected in the increased shipment by panel makers. In addition, WitsView also finds that compared to same period last year, although overall panel shipment maintains a MoM growth of 21% in March, the growth more pronounced in TV and tablet PC panel shipment while shipment growth for notebook, netbook and monitor panels are following a downward trend.

 

In terms of application, although the first quarter is traditionally a low season in the US-Europe TV market, due to the replenishment demand in Asia for the 5.1 labor day in China, TV panel shipment jumped by 16.9% MoM to 17.04 million units; monitor panel shipment grown by 23.5% MoM to 17.87 million units; notebook panel shipment increased by 20.3% MoM to 15.36 million units. Following the popularity of the iPad, major brands such as HTC, MOTO, Acer, Samsung, LG, Asus, Lenovo, Dell and ViewSonic, etc introduced their versions of tablet  PC running on Google’s Android OS, thereby announcing the era of tablet PC. Pushed by the trend, shipment of tablet PC panel surged 57.7% MoM to 4.24 million. Contrasted with the growing popul rity of tablet PC, netbooks gradually lost their luster in the market. Following the downward trend in February, netbook panel shipment in March dropped by 1.8% to 3.04 million units.

 

As Korean panel makers completed their production line procedure upgrade and launch new capacities from the end of March, the benefits move order by customers Taiwanese panel makers have been enjoying will drastically decrease in second quarter. A substantial change in client structure is also inevitable. In addition, as Japan’s top panel maker Sharp announced earlier that it plans to halt two TFT-LCD production lines (G8, G10) for about one month as it anticipated drastic sales drop of its own TV sales amid sluggish consumer climate domestically in Japan after the March 11 earthquake. It is certainly a worrying prospect that led by Sony, major Japanese TV makers such as Sharp, Toshiba and Panasonic will see another impact to their sales upon the already anticipated sales growth hurdle in 2011 after the Eco-Point subsidy policy expires. After the March 11 quake, many raised the concern of LCD panel supply chain disruption. Investigations by WitsView, however, found that there should be no supply chain gap in the short term since panel makers all have a certain level of cell, module, materials and they are also actively searching from alternative suppliers and plans. Therefore, looking forward to the second quarter, panel prices and panel makers’ performance in terms of shipment are still linked directly to the strength of demand in the terminal market. Panel makers have to be prudent in allocating production capacity to prevent losing clients and the panel quoted price pressure due to the inventory increase as clients pull in units conservatively.