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The global smartphone market is seeing slowing growth in the first half of 2017. Searching for ways to stimulate consumer demand, smartphone brands have put considerable efforts in improving displays of their devices. WitsView, a division of TrendForce, reports that increasing screen to body ratio and narrow bezel are two major trends in smartphone design for this year and are expected to drive changes in specifications of smartphone panels. Specifically, the display’s aspect ratio is moving from the mainstream 16:9 to 18:9 (2:1), which is also known as the full screen format. WitsView estimates that around 10% of smartphones shipped worldwide in 2017 will have displays with 18:9 or higher aspect ratios.
WitsView, a division of TrendForce, reports that quotes for medium-size LCD TV panels (the 40- to 43-inch bracket) are weakening, dropping by US$1 on average this May compared with the prior month. The LCD TV panel market has been a seller’s market for almost a year and prices have consistently gone up. The weakening of quotes for medium-size panels is a signal that the general price upswing may have reached a limit.
Global notebook shipments totaled around 37.81 million units for the first quarter of 2017, reports TrendForce. This figure represents a 15.6% decline from prior quarter’s result but also a 6.1% year-on-year increase. The first-quarter shipments were augmented by some unfulfilled demand left over from the previous quarter. There were also major deal opportunities related to bidding for business notebook contracts and releases of new product models. Furthermore, channel distributors also increased their stock-up of notebook products in anticipation of price hikes from brand vendors later on. As a result, notebook shipments were higher than expected for the traditional off season.
WitsView, a division of TrendForce, reports shipments of LCD TV sets for the first quarter of 2017 came to 44.05 million units, a decrease of 31% from the prior quarter and a year-on-year decline of 8.4%. Poor sales results in China during the Chinese New Year holiday period was a major factor behind the year-on-year shipment drop.
Though major LCD panel makers have reported strong earnings for the first quarter of 2017, there are concerns within the panel market that the general price increase across panel products has reached in its peak and this trend may start to turn in the near term. The latest analysis from WitsView, a division of TrendForce, indicates that TV panel quotes on the whole will stay relatively stable in the second quarter, with the exception being noisy price negotiations in the medium-size range or sizes 40 to 43 inches. As for prices for panels used in other applications, quotes for monitor panels are on a gradual monthly slide due the off-season effect. Meanwhile, quotes for notebook panels are also relatively stable this second quarter due to returning demand resulting from earlier purchase adjustments made by notebook brands.
