Innolux of Taiwan Leads Global TV-panel Shipments in Aug.
2014/10/03 | By Quincy Liang
Innolux Display Corp. of Taiwan, a major TFT-LCD panel maker on the island, shipped more than five million TV panels in August, making it the world's No. 1 TV-panel supplier of the month.
WitsView forecasts that overall monthly global shipments of large-sized panels may peak to a new yearly-high in September, with an estimated MoM increase of 3% to 5%, thanks to increasing demand for also tablet PC and notebook PC panels. However, shipments of TV and monitor panels are expected to decline a tad to see downtrend as downstream inventory has reached high levels.
A senior researcher of WitsView says some 21.8 million TV panels were shipped in August, up 4.5% MoM, in which some TV-panel suppliers registered double-digit shipment MoM growths such as Innolux (59%), BOE Co., Ltd. (China, 39.89%) and Shenzhen Huaxing Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd. (China, 13.3%). Driven by big demand from Mexican government's tender for LCD TVs, Innolux's shipments of 23.6%-inch TV panels increased 54% in August, while that of its 39.5-inch panels for the first time outstripped one-million in the month. BOE's TV-panel shipments surpassed one million units in August, while Huaxing, a joint venture between Shenzhen Century Science & Technology Investment Corp. and Chinese home-appliance vendor TCL Corp., reported eye-catching shipments in 48-, 49- and 55-inch categories.
Global shipments of monitor panels topped 13.34 million units in August, up 4.8% MoM. Chinese panel makers BOE and Nanjing CEC-PANDA LCD Technology Co., Ltd. both reported double-digit MoM growths of 21.5% and 33.3%, respectively. BOE's 23.8% new-spec monitor-panel shipments outstripped 100,000 units.
In August, global shipments of notebook PC panels climbed 8.9% MoM to 16.72 million units, thanks to Microsoft's promotion of low-priced notebook PC models and expanding sales of Chromebook models. In the first eight months this year, notebook PC panel shipments grew 2.9% YoY, WitsView says, indicative of recovering demand for notebook PCs. Panel suppliers enjoying double-digit MoM increases in August notebook-PC panel shipments include Samsung (S. Korea), BOE, AU Optronics Corp. (AUO, Taiwan), and Sharp (Japan). Samsung registered MoM increase of 28%, while BOE 27%. In shipments of 15.6-inch panels, BOE reported 600%-plus MoM increase, compared to Samsung's 48.1%.
Tablet-PC panel shipments in August declined 2.5% MoM, or 6.6% YoY, to 18.79 million units. WitsView says the tablet PC market development has reached plateau, and shipments of such product are being compressed by large-sized smartphones and low-priced notebook PCs. Apple is focusing on the new iPhone 6 smartphone this year, WitsView says, without launching new, killer-grade tablet PC products.