Taiwanese Touch Panel Makers Pin Recovery Hopes on Wearable Electronic Devices

Beset by underselling rivals from China to suffer serious downturns last year, Taiwanese touch panel manufacturers are generally pinning hopes of turnaround on the emergence of wearable electronic devices, hence actively developing SNW (silver nano wire) and MM (metal mesh) models to divert customers from smartphones to wearables devices.

Over the past few years, Chinese touch panel producers have surged ahead in the global market, primarily by dumping low-cost models built with ITO (indium tin and oxide)-coated glass to customers of low and mid-segment smartphones and tablets, therefore weighing on Taiwanese suppliers, whose fate looks more promising with the emergence of wearable electronic devices.

Among them, TPK Holding Co., Ltd., which saw consolidated revenue drop around 8.4% yearly to NT$159 billion (US$5.03 billion) and EPS (earnings per share) plummet by 30-40% to NT$23-25 (about US$0.8) last year, is increasingly focused on developing SNW touch panels, also reportedly having had its model certified by Apple Inc. for use in iWatch.

TPK plans to kick off mass production of SNW panels in the second quarter of this year, preparing for launch of iWatch in the third quarter, which will be built with an OLED (organic light emitting diode) panel from LG Display of South Korea, and an SNW touchscreen from TPK, if reports are true.

Coincidentally, JTouch Corporation, which has likely finished last year with losses, is going to start massively turning out its MM touch panels in the second quarter, which, mostly 5, 7 and 10 inches in size, will be initially shipped to customers of tablets and smartphones in Taiwan, Japan, Korea and China. As one of Samsung's suppliers of touch panels, the Taiwanese manufacturer is trying to supply Gear Fit, a smart watch built with curved touchscreens.

Institutional investors opine that to win back market shares snapped up by Chinese rivals and develop sustainably in the future, Taiwanese suppliers should focus on new technologies as SNW and MM to cut production costs and penetrate the potentially promising segment for wearables.

Apparently, SNW and MM have emerged as trendsetting technologies for touch panels for now. NPD DisplaySearch, a Japanese market research firm, reported that touch panels produced with the two technologies feature better performance and flexibility than conventional models with ITO glass, ideal for use in wearable devices with curved touchscreens.

Further proof of the promising future of the two technologies is that Samsung has worked out a foldable 5.68-inch smartphone highlighted with an AMOLED (active matrix OLED) panel and MM touchscreen. (SC)