EL SEGUNDO, CA – Contract manufacturers are getting into the LCD-TV market in a big way, with global production of such sets expected to rise by more than a factor of five by 2011, iSuppli Corp. predicts.  ODMs and EMS providers together are expected to produce 61.8 million LCD-TVs in 2011, up almost 80% from 2006, the research firm says. By 2011, these contract manufacturers will produce more than one of every three LCD-TVs made worldwide, says the firm.

ODMs and EMS providers have been lured to the LCD-TV market by its triple-digit increases in shipments during the last few years, continues iSuppli. LCD-TV unit shipments expanded by 103.9% in 2006 and will rise at a CAGR of 31.7% through 2011.

LCD-TV outsourcing generated $8.9 billion in revenue last year and is projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, a CAGR of 23.2%, according to iSuppli.

This huge revenue growth outlook has attracted the attention of a number of Asian ODMs. More than 20 such ODMs serve LCD-TV OEMs, including global brands, regional brands and retail brands. EMS providers, on the other hand, are just beginning to penetrate the market.

iSuppli estimates that for final-assembly shipments, of all LCD TVs outsourced in 2006, only 6.8% were produced by EMS providers, the remainder by ODMs.

During the past few years, leading EMS providers, including Celestica, Elcoteq, Flextronics, Hon Hai and Jabil have invested significant resources in improving their competitive positions in LCD-TV manufacturing to undertake tasks including providing board-level assembly services; using facilities in emerging markets such as Mexico and Eastern Europe; investing in the LCD panel business; developing reference-design capabilities, and forming joint ventures with OEMs to build LCD TVs, says iSuppli.

While these investments are paying off gradually, EMS providers still lag far behind their ODM peers in terms of LCD-TV shipments. Further, a number of critical challenges face EMS providers, adding uncertainty to their endeavors in LCD-TV manufacturing, including:

• Pricing pressure from OEMs and eroding margins (gross margins are in the 8% range) at the ODM imply limited margin lift for EMS providers.
• Pricing fluctuations for LCD panels; panels account for more than 60% of the total bill-of-materials costs of LCD TVs.
• Limited potential to leverage the vertically integrated supply chain because of tight control of material supply chains by a number of Japanese OEMs.
• Barriers to entry built by ODMs in the form of footprint expansions and product design and production knowledge accumulated through the learning curve.

iSuppli predicts that while EMS providers increasingly will catch up to ODMs in the LCD-TV market, ODMs will dominate the space for the next few years.