WitsView: 4.9% MoM growth for August Large Panel Shipment

According to the survey on large-size panel shipment in August announced by WitsView, a research division of TrendForce, the large-size panel shipment in August 2011 reaches 59.21 million units with month-over-month (MoM) growth of 4.9% and year-over-year (YoY) growth of 14%.

From the perspective of five major applications, TV panel shipments for the China market has been driven by both Mid Autumn Festival and National Day Holidays demands: the total TV panel shipment in August reached 16.79 million units with a growth of 6.9% from last month. With tight control over inventories among downstream customers and no excess stocks, the seasonal demands in IT market have driven monitor panel shipment in August to 16.12 million units with MoM growth of 8.5%. The NB panel shipment has reached 16.43 million units with MoM growth of 5.1%, while the Tablet PC panel shipment has dropped to 7.06 million units with slight MoM regression of 0.5%. Netbook panel shipment has also dropped to 2.79 million units with MoM regression of 10.9%.
 
Chart 1: TFT-LCD Panel Shipment in Aug-11 (K units)

Source: WitsView

According to WitsView research manager, Jian-An Chen, when comparing the panel shipments for TV, monitor and NB in the first half of this year to those of the same period of last year, excluding applications with smaller ratio of panel production capacities such as Tablet PC and Netbook, the YoY variations of panel shipments of three major applications are 2%, 6% and 2% respectively. The weak global economy has significantly affected the end market demands, leading to depressed panel shipment momentum in the first half of the year.

However, in July and August, there have been two consecutive months with YoY growths of 15~20% of NB panel shipments due to gradual digestion of end market inventories and growing seasonal demands. Even though there has been YoY regressions of monthly monitor panels shipments for the first seven months of this year, this August we see the first YoY growth at 6% stimulated by seasonal demands. In contrast, due to the relatively sluggish panel shipments in the first half of this year, originally, TV panel demands were predicted to improve in the second half of this year with the regional hot season promotions. However, there were three consecutive months of YoY regressions at -1%, -9% and -7% in June, July and August, respectively. This is an indication that hot season demands in China have not been sufficient to fill the void created by sluggish European and US markets. The original hope for balanced market supply-demand status by Q3 with to production reductions among panel makers starting from July no longer applies, and the timing for TV panel price hitting rock bottom may have to be pushed further back.

Therefore, if the demands in Q4 were to shed any light at the end of the tunnel for the panel industry, the focus will be on the sales performances between Mid Autumn Festivals to National Day Holidays in China and on the Black Friday before Christmas in Europe and the US. If the sluggish market condition persists, WitsView indicates that panel makers may have to increase the production reduction scale and duration to alleviate the harsh environment of panel over-supply and for panel prices to have any chance to bounce back.