With many vendors suffering from a lack of LCD TV stock, manufacturers in Asia have warned that the drought in LCD panels is far from over. According to the latest GFK research plasma and LCD TV panels are making up 42% of all CE sales in Australia with LCD TV grabbing 75% of the total TV display market .
With many vendors suffering from a lack of LCD TV stock, manufacturers in Asia have warned that the drought in LCD panels is far from over. According to the latest GFK research plasma and LCD TV panels are making up 42% of all CE sales in Australia with LCD TV grabbing 75% of the total TV display market . Now LCD panel industry claim that shortages will get worse from the middle of the second quarter of 2008 with the LCD monitor panel segment experiencing the most intensive shortages among all applications, according to panel makers.
Although the LCD monitor and notebook market continues growing, panel makers’ intentions to expand capacity at their fifth-generation (5G) and 6G plants is slowing down. Most panel makers are focusing on 7G/ 7.5G and above plants next year.
If Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) passes the governmental environmental assessment at its 6G plant, the new plant will enter mass production in early 2008, at the soonest. China’s Shen-Chao Optronics (transliterated from Chinese) will start its 5G plant as early as August 2008 while China-based panel maker Shanghai SVA-NEC Liquid Crystal Display (SVA-NEC) is expected to build a 6G plant next year also, indicated sources.
Meanwhile, as demand for medium-size is picking up, panel makers are shifting their capacity for medium-size panels production to 4G plants while allocating notebook panels to 5G plants from 4G plants. This will make the supply for LCD monitor panels from 5G and 6G plants less steady next year.
Moreover, LCD panel makers are using more LCD monitor panels for smaller-size LCD TV applications. This, in some way, will also affect monitor panel supply, said the makers.
Prices for OA panels will stabilize starting in November 2007. By the second quarter of 2008, the shortage of monitor panels will take place again.
