Yoshio Tamura

Smartphone Display Prices, Costs and Margins

This talk will feature a deep dive into smartphone display costs, prices and margins.

It will examine where prices, costs and margins are for current flagship smartphones and where they are going. It will also cover the incremental cost for advanced display features. In addition to bar type smartphones, it will also examine costs, prices and margins for foldable smartphones, both clamshells and book type. It will also cover how smartphone display costs differ by region of manufacture (Korea vs. China) and fab generation – (5.5 vs. 6 vs. 8+).

TV and the Display Supply/Demand Cycle

TV is by far the largest application for flat panel displays in area terms, and TV will make up most of the area growth of the industry for the next few years. This presentation will include DSCC’s forecast for flat panel displays by application, and matched against our outlook for industry capacity will describe the supply/demand balance.

Historically, in an oversupply panel prices have fallen to cash costs, so understanding the cost structure of the industry is critical to assess the likely direction of panel prices. This presentation will review historical panel prices in relation to costs and include insights from DSCC’s panel cost model to compare TV panel costs across technologies and across manufacturing regions.

Yoshio Tamura is Co-Founder and President of Asian Operations at DSCC, based in Tokyo, Japan. He is a 26-year veteran of liquid crystal display (LCD) market research and consulting and is one of the foremost authorities on the LCD market and its supply chain. He started covering this market in 1990 at Techno Systems Research (TSR) where he launched their LCD market research business and grew it rapidly.

After 10 years at TSR, he joined DisplaySearch in 2000 as Senior Vice President and Founder of DisplaySearch Asia where he played a critical role in launching a large number of highly popular LCD-related reports. Mr. Tamura developed or co-developed the company’s core reports on large-area LCD shipments and forecasts by application as well as reports on fab utilization, pricing, costs, cost models, margin models, glass substrates, color filters, backlights and driver ICs. Most of those reports are still in existence today.

After The NPD Group acquired DisplaySearch in 2005, Mr. Tamura acquired the title of SVP and Fellow to recognize the critical role he played in developing report methodologies. After IHS acquired DisplaySearch in 2014, he became a Senior Director and Advisor within the Display Technology Group.

Mr. Tamura joined DSCC to co-develop a growing number of reports on OLEDs and other advanced display-related technologies. His vast experience contributes to DSCC consulting and event services, and he is a frequent speaker at display industry functions and conferences. Mr. Tamura is a graduate of Chuo University where he majored in international economics. He can be reached at tamura@displaysupplychain.com.