Blog from September 2021

Financial

Q2 2021 Was the Best Quarter Ever for Flat Panel Display Makers

September 7, 2021

Driven by robust pandemic-fed demand and supply shortages that led to increased prices, flat panel display makers had their best quarter in the history of the display industry in Q2 2021. With all panel makers reporting their Q2 2021 results, we can compile a full industry review for Q2, unquestionably the best quarter ever for panel makers, especially those oriented toward large-area LCD panels.
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TV

LCD TV Panel Prices Fall

September 7, 2021

After a full year of rising LCD TV panel prices, the natural effect of rising prices on both supply and demand has kicked in, and prices are starting to fall, based on our latest update and forecast of LCD TV prices. The demand surge, which resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic, has eased and industry supply has caught up to demand. Prices in August and September are falling faster than expected and we now forecast that year-end prices will be lower than they were in December 2020, but still substantially higher than their all-time lows.
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TV

Worldwide TV Shipments Continued Recovery in Q2, per DiScien Report

September 13, 2021

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused big shifts in TV shipments caused by supply and demand disruptions, but on a worldwide basis, the full year ended up about where it was expected to land, with TV shipments up 1% for the full year over 2019. TV shipments in the first half of 2021 have continued to recover past pre-pandemic levels on a worldwide basis, but with some great differences between regions, according to the latest update of the DiScien Major Global TV Shipments and Supply Chain Report, available to subscribers through DSCC. The report covers shipments of the top 15 global brands: Samsung, LGE, TCL, Hisense, Sony, Skyworth, TPV (Philips), Sharp, Xiaomi, Vizio, Haier, Panasonic, Changhong, Konka and Toshiba.
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Display Technology

Double-Digit Capacity Growth in 2022 Points to Continued Pricing Pressure

September 13, 2021

DSCC’s latest quarterly display capacity update should create a concern among large-area display suppliers and an opportunity for buyers. DSCC expects G7+ capacity to rise 10% in 2022 after a 13% increase in 2021. With LCD TV panel prices already falling rapidly, IT panel prices flattening, demand growth uncertain in 2022 and component shortages expected to ease next year, 2022 should increasingly become a buyer’s market. 2023 will depend on whether or not LGD takes more capacity offline or not. If it keeps all its LCD capacity online in 2023, the surplus will likely continue to widen. If it takes projected capacity offline, pricing will be stabilized with the potential to rise. The outlook for 2024 and 2025 currently shows less capacity growth at 6% - 7% which assumes BOE B17+ gets built as a G10.5 LCD fab. If BOE goes in a different direction such as acquiring a competitor or moving to G8.5 OLED for IT applications, it will create less pricing pressure. As prices come down in 2022 and beyond, we expect to see panel manufacturers increasingly shift their emphasis to miniLEDs which have significantly higher prices in order to keep their revenues up.
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Display Equipment

Display Equipment Suppliers Show Improved Financial Health on Semiconductor Surge, Display Eqpt. Bookings Surge

September 13, 2021

Display equipment suppliers continue to get healthy with all margins rising as revealed in DSCC’s latest Quarterly Display Supply Chain Financial Health Report. This is a result of the semiconductor side of the business enjoying record revenues and margins on strong demand from the semiconductor shortage with companies sold out and reporting extended leadtimes. In fact, some companies are reporting extended leadtimes for a number of components found in semiconductor and display equipment such as controller chips and materials such as quartz, ceramic and silicon carbide.
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Mobile

Apple Announces New Products Including the iPhone 13 Series with Higher Refresh Rates, Bigger Batteries, More Storage and Better Cameras

September 20, 2021

Apple announced several new products during their California Streaming event on Tuesday, September 14th. Apple announced a new iPad, iPad Mini, Apple Watch Series 7 and four new models of the iPhone 13 series. Let’s start with the iPad and iPad Mini. The iPad uses a 10.2” IPS LED display and uses the 7nm A13 Bionic chip (2020’s iPad used the 7nm A12 Bionic chip). Apple noted that the A13 Bionic chip brings a 20% speed improvement to the CPU, GPU and neural engine and is 3x faster than the top selling Chromebook and 6x faster than the top selling Android tablet. I have not seen actual test results and comparable products but will report on this claim when results become available. The iPad also has a 12MP ultrawide front camera with 122-degree field of view (similar to the front camera on iPad Pro). The feature named Center Stage that is in iPad Pro is now in the new iPad. The iPad starts at $329, with 64GB storage and for the education segment, the price starts at $299. A Wi-Fi + 5G option is also available that starts at $459.
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OLED

DSCC Releases Its Future of OLED Manufacturing Report, Reveals How OLED Technology, Manufacturing, Performance and Products Are Likely to Evolve

September 27, 2021

DSCC has released its 338-page report on The Future of OLED Manufacturing, which is really a look at how all aspects of OLEDs are likely to evolve with special attention paid to how OLED manufacturers are likely to address the IT display opportunity including the scale up of G6 FMM VTE-based RGB OLEDs to G8.5 and the migration from LTPS/LTPO to IGZO. This breakthrough report is divided into five sections: Commercial/Industrial History of OLEDs Historical and Current Technical Challenges Mobile OLED Manufacturing/Roadmap IT OLED Manufacturing/Roadmap OLED TV Manufacturing/Roadmap
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