Blog from April 2018

Financial

US – China Trade War Could Slam Display Industry

April 2, 2018

In the latest round of an emerging trade conflict between the world’s two largest economies, China initiated tariffs on specific US goods, in retaliation to the US imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum products from China. While these moves have not yet affected display products, the potential impact of a trade dispute could be a huge disruption in the display industry value chain and has caused the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) to mobilize its members to lobby the US government to try to avert a trade war.
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TV

US Tariffs on TVs from China Will Disrupt Display Supply Chain

April 9, 2018

Last week, I gave an outline of the possible impact that Trump administration actions on US-China trade could have on the display industry, and on Tuesday, April 3rd, the Trump administration released the list of products subject to a new 25% tariff. Of the 1,333 different product categories included in the trade action, the single largest category by value is TVs. The new tariffs on TVs will have companies on both sides of the Pacific scrambling to redirect the display supply chain.
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Financial

Key Takeaways from 6 Leading Panel Suppliers' Q1’18 Results

April 30, 2018

Last week we saw 6 different display suppliers release their earnings results. In general, we saw Chinese suppliers outperform Taiwan and Korean suppliers helped by government subsidies, lower labor and fab costs and the exclusion of interest payments in odd quarters. We saw flexible OLED smartphone panel shipments drop rapidly and LTPS LCDs take share from OLEDs. Smartphone panel volumes were weak, especially at the high end, which boosted blended unit ASPs and reduced area ASPs as smartphone panels carry higher prices on an area basis. While OLED volumes fell faster than LTPS volumes, OLED margins continued to outperform LCD margins. Panel makers are optimistic about TV volumes in the rest of 2018 despite experiencing above average channel inventories in Q1’18. We did see LG reporting OLED TVs in shortage and reveal they may convert even more LCD capacity to OLED TV capacity. Let’s start with some comparisons.
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