Demand for displays still climbing

Shipments of small and medium displays continued to climb in Q2 10, with US$5.4 billion in revenue, up 31% Y/Y. According to the latest Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report, this segment is forecast to experience continued growth, reaching US$6.7 billion in Q3 10.

“Despite the state of the global economy, there is still a strong demand for small/medium displays,” noted Hiroshi Hayase, DisplaySearch director of Small/Medium Display Research.

“We forecast this segment will maintain stable growth, achieving around a 10% Y/Y growth in 2010, offsetting the economic downturn with growing demand and expansion in emerging countries such as China.”

Samsung Mobile Displays maintained its lead on both a shipment and revenue basis, with 11.8% and 16.4% shares. The company had high shipments in both TFT LCDs and AMOLEDs for mobile phones.

Sharp’s revenue fell sharply in Q2 10, as a result of the drop in demand for devices such as portable gaming in comparison to competition. Toshiba’s revenue didn’t fall as much as its competition due to increasing demand for high-resolution mobile phone and motor vehicle monitor displays.

Other key trends include:

• Mobile phone panel shipments, which form the core demand of the S/M FPD market, were 371 million units in Q1 10, down 10% Q/Q, but up 34% Y/Y;
• Digital still-camera panel shipments in Q1 10 were 41.0 million units, down 15% Q/Q but up 89% Y/Y;
• Motor vehicle-related FPDs are on a positive track, supported by incentives in several countries along with the global recovery trend in consumption. In particular, motor vehicle monitor panel shipments, including car navigation, were 6.86 million units, up 14% Q/Q, despite the slow season. Shipments of passive matrix indicator displays also increased by 96% Y/Y, indicating a considerable recovery from the first half of 2009 when motor vehicle production plunged;
• Shipments of panels for portable navigation devices, another motor vehicle-related application, also increased by 74% Y/Y;
• Applications with medium-sized FPDs (7-9″) have been growing steadily since the second half of last year. Panels for ebooks, including the Amazon Kindle, increased shipments to 1.77 million units, up 6% Q/Q and 240% Y/Y, proving an extremely rapid expansion of the market over the past year;
• Digital photo frames have become a major application for medium-sized panels. In Q1 10, panel shipments grew by 10% Q/Q and 311% Y/Y to 15.1 million units.

While many applications are recovering demand in sync with the economic rebound, single-purpose applications that have overlapped functions with other applications continue to stagnate.

Amusement and portable media player applications, including portable game devices, have overlapping functions with smartphones like the iPhone. Panel shipments in these applications are showing around 10-20% decrease Y/Y with no sign of recovery.

Also, portable DVD players, which was on a growth path as a low-priced amusement device, is suffering from the competition with notebook PCs and PMPs, which can be used for downloading movies on the internet.