WitsView: Marathon of Multiple Pulls and Pushes Terminated Decline in Panel Price and Spurred an 8.2% Increase in Panel Shipments in May

In terms of the application categories, even though the Labor Day sales in China were optimal and stimulated the China brands’ willingness for restock, other major global consumer markets’ demands still remained low in the second quarter, causing a minor 2.1% increase in the TV panel shipment as compared to April. The total shipment volume in May reached 16.72 million units. The MNT panel shipment was 17.38 million units, with a monthly increase of 2.9%. The regular notebook panel shipment was 16.41 million units, with a monthly increase of 11.6%. The shipment performance for the panels used by the standard tablet PCs still maintained a growing trend, with an increase of 27.4% as compared to the previous month and a shipment volume of 6.34 million units. The panels used by the netbooks, as impacted by the second-tier, generic manufacturers’ adoption of mounting it on the quasi tablet PCs, also continuously drove the total May shipment volume to reach 4.11 million units, with an increase of 21.1% as compared to April.

As the panel market was challenged by the labor and material shortages, Japanese earthquakes, and less-than-expected global economic recovery performance in the first and second quarters, the panel shipment in the first half of the year experienced a relative degree of pressure, which had also improved the circumstances where the supply was greater than the demand. However, the panel makers wished to increase the utilization rate in the second quarter to improve the production costs and increase the panel prices in order to achieve a financial breakeven in this quarter or to reduce the loss. As succeeded closely by the peak demand season in the third quarter, the panel price can move upward. In the long term, however, the supply still remains greater than the demand for the panels. If the peak season demands in the third quarter are not as strong as expected, the gradually increasing cell and module inventories, whether in the hands of the panel makers or downstream brands, may emerge to prevent the panel price in the third quarter from moving upward.