The prices of NOR Flash will go up sequentially by at least 5% on average for every quarter in 2017 as its market benefits from the abundant releases of smartphones featuring AMOLED display during the year, TrendForce reports. Besides the general adoption of AMOLED in the smartphone market, the expansion in the production of ICs for Touch with Display Driver Integration (TDDI) is driving the need for NOR Flash as well. From the supply side, major manufacturers such as Micron and GigaDevice have reduced their NOR Flash production. Tight supply and rising demand therefore will keep prices of NOR Flash on an uptrend to the end of this year.
WitsView, a division of the market intelligence firm TrendForce, estimates that worldwide shipments of LCD TV panels for 2017 will total 255.6 million units, down 1.8% in unit volume from 2016. This year’s increase in the average size of TV panels, however, will lead to an annual growth of 7.3% in total shipment area.
A total of 18.71 million units of large-size LCD panels were shipped worldwide this February, according to WitsView, a division of TrendForce. Fewer work days in February delayed some shipment deliveries to March. Furthermore, shipments of panels belonging to the medium-to-small sections of the size spectrum have been constrained by the general price upswing. Set against the prior month, large-size panel shipments declined by 5.8% in February. A year-on-year comparison on the other hand shows a 4.6% increase.
Samsung at this year’s CES officially changed the name of its high-end TV lineup from “SUHD” to “QLED,” thus creating market interest on the development of the Quantum Dot (QD) display. WitsView, a division of market intelligence firm TrendForce, expects TV sets with self-emitting QD displays will arrive on the market after 2020 because of technological hurdles and environmental problems related to the recycling of the QD material. WitsView further points out that Samsung’s current QLED TVs represents just the beginning in the development of QD displays.
The markets for key components used in smartphones have experienced rising prices since the second half of 2016 because of tightening supply. TrendForce’s latest analyses indicate that prices of mobile DRAM, mobile NAND Flash products and AMOLED panels will continue to climb through 2017. As smartphone brands will be raising hardware specifications of their products, they are also revealing their intentions to build up their inventories in advance. High prices of AMOLED panels and memory components during this entire year will constrain smartphone makers’ ability to attain greater profits.