Blog

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

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.
Read More

Foldable

Samsung Announces Strong Foldable Smartphone Pre-Order Growth, DSCC Expects Samsung 2021 Foldable Smartphone Production to Rise Over 250% to >7.0M Units

August 30, 2021

A Samsung Electronics spokesperson told Bloomberg’s Sohee Kim that domestic pre-orders for its new foldable smartphones, the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3, reached 920K units in its first seven days of availability from August 17th to August 23rd. As expected, the $999 Z Flip 3 accounted for the majority of the pre-orders at around 70%. The pre-orders are impressive for Korea as they are 30% higher than Samsung’s Note 20 launch last year and 80% higher than the 2021 S21 launched this year. Samsung’s foldables have historically done well in Korea, accounting for a 52% share of 2020 shipments of the Z Flip and Z Flip 5G and a 33% share of last year’s Z Fold 2 volumes.
Read More

Financial

Best Buy Beats Forecast, Loads Up on Inventory

August 30, 2021

Riding the wave of pandemic-fed demand for consumer electronics, US retailer Best Buy reported better-than-expected earnings in its most recent quarter. It raised its outlook for the second half of the year, a good sign for continued strong demand for display products. Best Buy reported net income of $734M on revenues of $11.8B, beating consensus expectations for its second quarter of fiscal 2022, which ended August 1st, 2021.
Read More

Augmented and Virtual Reality

Last Chance to Register for the AR/VR Display Forum Before Price Increase

August 30, 2021

Super Early Bird pricing for the AR/VR Display Forum will end on August 31st (Tuesday). Register now to save $100 from the full price ticket. This virtual event, the first conference and expo fully dedicated to the emerging display technologies for Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, will take place on November 3-4.
Read More

OLED

OLED Shipments Expected to Increase 12% Y/Y in 2H 2021

August 30, 2021

OLED panel shipments will increase by 12% Y/Y in the second half of 2021, according to the flash update of the DSCC Quarterly OLED Shipment Report, as increased panel shipments for smartphones combined with growth in IT applications drives the technology toward the mainstream. Starting in Q2’21, we introduced an expedited “flash” deliverable in advance of the full report file. This flash edition analyzes quarterly and annual units through 2022 by application, panel supplier, brand and form factor.
Read More

Foldable

DSCC Upgrades Foldable Forecast as Chip Shortage Causes Brands and Panel Suppliers to Emphasize More Expensive Devices

August 23, 2021

DSCC released a flash report last week as part of its Quarterly Foldable/Rollable Display Shipment and Technology Report. The flash report features a pivot table with monthly foldable smartphone panel procurement by brand, panel supplier, size, resolution, cover material, refresh rate, backplane, chipset supplier and other features by month through 2021 and by year for 2022. A few developments have caused us to upgrade our foldable smartphone panel shipment/procurement numbers by 14% in 2021 to 10.4M and by 16% to 18.7M in 2022 as shown below. As a result, we now see foldable smartphone panels up 220% in 2021 and 80% in 2022.
Read More

TV

Advanced TV Market to Exceed $50 Billion in 2026

August 23, 2021

Advanced TV shipments are expected to grow by 46% Y/Y in 2021, and by a 22% CAGR through 2026 to 43.1M units generating $52B in revenue, according to the latest update to DSCC’s Quarterly Advanced TV Shipment and Forecast Report, now available to subscribers. This report covers the worldwide premium TV market, including the most advanced TV technologies: WOLED, QD Display, QDEF, Dual Cell LCD and MiniLED with 4K and 8K resolution. The report looks at current and future TV shipments and revenues by technology, region, brand, resolution and size, and forecasts the growth of all these technologies. Last week we covered the most recent historical results and this week, we will cover our updated forecast. In this report, we define an “Advanced TV” (capitalized) as any TV with an advanced display technology feature, including all OLED TVs, 8K LCD TVs and all LCD TVs with quantum dot technology.
Read More