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.
DRAMeXchange, a research division of TrendForce, indicates U.S. NAND flash vendors are being less aggressive on price since the financial quarter has come to a close. As module makers expect the price trend will continue declining and they have ample inventory, the majority are waiting until the end of the month to begin price negotiations.
The worldwide solar market demand in 2014 was approximately at 44GW, even though the China market did not perform as well as expectations, due to the continuous growth in Japan and the U.S. market, the supply and demand remained stable. At the end of 2014, the overall supply chain maintained a solid utilization rate, while China’s tier-one module manufacturers also continued to break shipment records.
