Propelled by economic recovery of major markets such as North America and China, and the promotions for large-sized products, the 2014 all-year LCD TV shipment is projected to reach 215 million units, with an annual growth rate of 5.4%, which is more optimistic than the original forecasts.
2014 is undoubtedly a fruitful year for the panel industry. In addition to the overall increase in panel price, even though the industry has already entered the mature stage, the four major applications (TV, monitor, notebook and tablet) still reached a total panel shipment of 826.8 million units, showing a stellar performance of 2.2% annual growth rate. This is considered as a rare performance of increases in both price and shipments.
Panels were in uncharacteristically short supply in the LCD monitor market in 2014. As a result, panel manufacturers were unable to fully meet market demand. TrendForce forecasts that total LCD monitor shipments in 2014 including all-in-one (AIO) PCs will be 150 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 5.1%.
The major panel display manufacturers will continuously add low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) production lines from 2015 to 2016, focusing on the Generation 5.5 and Generation 6 lines, according to WitsView, a research division of TrendForce. “Total production capacity by area will more than double from 5.8 million square meters in 2013 to 11.7 million square meters in 2016,” said Boyce Fan, Senior Research Manager at WitsView.
Intense competition among TV panel brands buoyed global shipment growth in October, which increased at a 10.2% annual clip, according to WitsView, a division of the Taiwan-based market intelligence firm TrendForce. Monthly growth was still positive, but more modest. In October, TV panel shipments grew at 0.2% to 22.55 million units compared to September. Monitor panels rose 2.9% to 13.73 million units.