Shipments of LCD TV sets worldwide are projected to reach 219 million units in 2016, representing a year-on-year growth of about 1.5%, according to the latest report from WitsView, a division of TrendForce. Combined shipments from South Korean brands will be around the same level as last year’s at 77 million units, while the combined shipments from the top six Chinese brands will register a year-on-year growth rate of 6.2%.
The first quarter conventionally is when the LCD panel market has abundant supply. However, the February earthquake in southern Taiwan and Samsung Display (SDC) having problems with transitioning to a new manufacturing process resulted in some loss of the panel industry’s overall capacity during the period. Furthermore, panel makers gained confidence in the market as the efforts to consume excess TV panel inventories were more efficient than anticipated.
The latest LCD panel shipment report from WitsView, a division of TrendForce, finds large-size panel shipments totaled 60.25 million units in May, up 6.5% from the prior month. The strong monthly shipments across all applications were attributed to the anticipation of rising prices and increased inventory-replenishment efforts. Among the applications, the notebook panel market had the best shipment performance.
The size category that currently makes up the largest share of the LCD TV panel shipments is the 32 inches. Since the second half of 2015, quotes for this size have been on a slide due to a generally weak market. Furthermore, the price decline of the 32-inch TV panels has put pressure on prices and margins for panels of other sizes, thus becoming a heavy burden on the suppliers.
According to the latest large-size panel report by WitsView, a division of TrendForce, TV panel shipments arrived at 20.82 million units in April, translating to a 7.2% drop from March and 5% drop from a year ago. Branded TV set vendors began to replenish their inventories for the Chinese Labor Day sales earlier in March. This resulted in weaker panel shipments for April, when vendors had just about completed this phase of inventory activities.
