14 DAY TRIAL // It appears that, even in spite of all the media coverage on the global economy and how seriously difficult a time it is going through, the IT industry seems to be recovering. Not only are companies making profits, but even entire segments are surging on-year. The Flat panel Display market, according to DisplaySearch, is one of those that is growing best this year. In fact, during the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2010, the FPD market grew by more than 30% compared to the same period of the previous year.
Samsung mobile Display kept the lead on shipment and revenue basis, with 11.8% and 16.4% shares, respectively. It achieved this thanks to high shipments of AMOLED and TFT-LCDs. Sharp's revenues fell by quite a margin, however, because portable gaming devices, among other things, did not sell very well. Toshiba managed to drop by somewhat less than Sharp, thanks to its high-resolution handset and automotive monitor display sales. All in all, however, revenues grew by 31% and should reach about US$6.7 billion during the third quarter.
"Despite the state of the global economy, there is still a strong demand for small- to medium-size displays," noted Hiroshi Hayase, DisplaySearch director of small- to medium-size displays research. "We forecast this segment will maintain stable growth, achieving around a 10% on year growth in 2010, offsetting the economic downturn with growing demand and expansion in emerging countries such as China."
Many applications are recovering along with the general economic rebound, but single-purpose applications stagnate because they have overlapped functions with others. PMPs (portable media players), for instance, have overlapping applications with smartphones. As such, shipments of FPD panels for such devices dropped 10-20% on year and don't look like they will recover very soon. On the other hand, panels for portable navigation devices, like other things used in automobiles grew significantly (74% Y/Y). All in all, the chemistry of the market seems to be changing but is expected to perform favorably overall.