LITTLETON, MA – Bureau Veritas Consumer Products Services will relocate to a new facility here in late March.
 
The 60,000 sq. ft. test center is three times the size of its existing building, and reportedly the largest comparable electronics test laboratory in the eastern US.
 
It is outfitted with test equipment for assessing and certifying virtually all electronics, such as wireless devices, telecommunications equipment, computers, servers, laboratory instruments, medical devices and consumer electronics.
 
The company employs 60 workers in Littleton.
 
 

CARLSBAD, CA – YesTech, a supplier of automated optical and x-ray inspection systems, has moved into Asymtek’s site in Carlsbad, CA.
 
Both companies are subsidiaries of Nordson Corp.
 
The 123,000 sq. ft. facility serves as both companies’ corporate headquarters and main manufacturing site, offering technical services, sales and customer support, dem labs and customer training.
 

EL SEGUNDO, CA – Global shipments of displays for mobile handsets are expected to decline more than 6% in 2009 and remain flat in 2010, as worsening economic conditions continue to impact the wireless industry, says iSuppli Corp.
 
iSuppli forecasts the mobile handset display market will decline to 1.5 billion units in 2009, down 6.2% year-over-year. Shipments will rise by a marginal 0.3% in 2010. The market won’t recover to exceed the 2008 level until 2011, when shipments will reach 1.65 billion units.
 
“The handset display market already was struggling in 2008 due to declining average selling prices and dwindling margins,” said Vinita Jakhanwal, principal analyst for mobile displays at iSuppli. “However, the downturn now is beginning to impact unit shipments, leading to revenue declines for the industry this year and next.
 
“The decreasing replacement rate for handsets due to deteriorating economic conditions will be the main cause for the market downturn. New handset demand from the emerging countries will not be sufficient to offset this decline.”
 
Beyond the slowdown, a major buildup in inventories of finished handsets will make the decline more severe in the beginning, says the firm. Indications of an inventory correction already had a major impact on the industry in the fourth quarter.
 
In response to this, handset display shipments from the top suppliers declined more than 40% sequentially in the fourth quarter.
 
During the current quarter, demand is expected to shore up slightly because of demand associated with the Chinese New Year, driven by domestic Chinese handset makers and the top-tier cellphone brands, according to iSuppli.
 
The mobile handset market has been characterized by declining display prices over the last few years. This mainly has been a result of the expansion of TFT-LCD capacity, as new investment has enabled newer generation fabs to meet the expanding demand for monitors, notebooks and LCD TVs.
 
Despite the economic slowdown, mobile-display panel pricing for all screen sizes and technologies is expected to maintain its historical annual decline rate of 15% to 20% this year. iSuppli believes the ASP decline in 2009 won’t be as severe as it was in 2008 for some specific panel types. Most suppliers have implemented capacity cuts and reduced their fab utilization rates in response to the slowing demand. This will help mitigate some of the more precipitous declines in prices, says the firm.
 
Despite decreases in pricing and declines in shipments, it is unlikely that top-tier customers will have difficulties procuring panels in 2009. With the current cuts in capacity utilization, the level of oversupply in the small/medium TFT-LCD industry may shrink, but it is doubtful any shortages will occur. When suppliers see orders increasing, they can ramp up production again easily.