Circuits Assembly Online Magazine - Large-Area TFT LCDs Reach Record Q2 Shipments of 130M Units

AUSTIN – Large-area (10" and larger) TFT LCD shipments reached 130 million units in the second quarter, up 10% year-over-year and 42% sequentially, says DisplaySearch.

Because of the increase in prices, large-area TFT LCD revenues of $15 billion grew 51% sequentially, but were still down 29% compared to the second quarter last year.

Strong market demand in the quarter led to a recovery in capacity utilization across all applications, says the research firm.

Also, panel makers are increasing capacity utilization to respond to growing demand and targeting third-quarter shipments of large-area TFT LCD panels of 152.8 million, up 18% compared to the second quarter. If panel makers reach their unit shipment targets, revenue growth is expected to be 32%, says DisplaySearch.

In the second quarter, Samsung Electronics led in large-area TFT LCD panel revenues, with sales of $4.2 billion, a 27.8% revenue share. LG Display was second, with $3.7 billion in revenues and a 25% sales share. AUO was third at $2.3 billion, with a 15.7% share, with CMO closely behind at 15.3% share.

LG Display took first place in unit shipments, but Samsung shipped the most by area, says DisplaySearch.

On a unit basis, Korea was the largest supplier of large-area TFT LCD panels with a 49.8% share, but was down from 52.2% in the first quarter because of strong shipment growth of Taiwanese panel suppliers. Taiwan's share increased from 38.4% in the previous period to 41.2% in this quarter.

"We are forecasting that industry utilization will be 87% in the third quarter, due to growing orders. In the second quarter, the industry experienced a strong recovery, and shipments reached record highs. We expect that strong demand will push panel shipments to another record high in the third quarter. However, strong panel shipments in some cases are due to downstream players piling up inventory, so we believe it will be necessary to watch the supply chain inventory situation closely at the end of the third quarter," said David Hsieh, vice president of DisplaySearch.