TrendForce：November LCD TV panel shipment continued to reach new high at 22 million units

According to WitsView, the display research division of TrendForce, the global LCD TV panel shipment has set the record to surpass 20 million units for four consecutive months since August, and the November shipment has topped 22 million units at once, continuously setting the historical shipment record. The TV panel shipment till November was comparable to the shipment of entire 2011. The 2012 LCD TV panel market has been boosted by China’s energy saving subsidy policy and the year-end low priced promotions on large-sized TVs in the U.S. and Europe, showing a yearly shipment forecast of 230 million units, growing 10% YoY.    

Based on WitsView’s latest large-sized panel shipment survey for November 2012, the large-sized panel shipment amounted to 71.33 million units in November, climbing 0.1% QoQ and 12.6% YoY.

Thanks to Black Friday and Thanksgiving promotional periods in North America, the LCD TV sales saw ideal performance, along with Chinese brands being aggressive on Chinese New Year promotion that lifts demand momentum, leading to a TV panel shipment increase of 2.6% MoM and a 22.09 million unit shipment volume. Monitor panel shipment attained 14.76 million units, dropping 4.4% MoM. For the regular NB panels, affected by the large inventory adjustment by brands in October and after the low shipment basis period, the brand vendors were stimulated by win8 new models and touch NBs and restored normal procurement momentum, seeing the above 12.1” regular NB panel shipment volume to climb to 16.85 million units, growing 18.6% MoM.

For tablets, since the New iPad launch, the sales haven’t surged on the lack of Retina panel, consumers turned to iPad2 that cut the price. Apple was aware that the demand was lower than expected and largely revised down the orders in November on inventory risk concern. In addition, iPad mini panel supply was constrained by low yield, causing the overall panel shipment to decline 13% MoM to 15.39 million units. The Netbook panel shipment volume was 2.01 million units, dropping 7.3% MoM.

WitsView’s research manager Jeffy Chen indicates that, global panel makers’ market share changes in November were quite intriguing. Benefiting from increases of TV panels and regular NB panels, Korean makers’ combined market share climbed to 51.7% from 50% in October. Among them, the two Korean makers’ combined regular NB panel shipment for November climbed 23% MoM mainly because their Q3 IT capacity was squeezed by tablet products, the limited regular NB panel production prompted NB clients to transfer orders to Taiwanese makers. But along with main tablet clients’ procurement coming to the end, in Q4 Korean makers started to boost NB panel business, and the quotation is not as hard as Q3, supporting market share to climb. Taiwanese panel makers’ market share dropped slightly to 32.1% from 32.3% in the previous month. Chinese panel makers were continuously benefiting from TV panel demand surge, seeing their shipment market share climbing to 11.9% from 11.5% in the previous month. Japanese makers’ combined market share largely dropped to 4.3% from 6.2% mainly because Apple has revised 9.7” New iPad orders, and Sharp has reduced panel production to avoid inventory accumulation, leading to a significant decline in the combined market share.       

Looking ahead to December panel shipment, panel demands for all applications would weaken significantly, the overall large-sized panel shipment dropped MoM 5%-10%.

Chart 1: TFT-LCD Panel Shipment in Nov-12 (K units)