14 DAY TRIAL // As time goes by and the end of the year 2010 has almost come, market watchers are, of course, looking back and trying to see just how things look like, and the situation on the LCD TV market is one that seems poised to finally rebound.
Like multiple other segments of the IT industry, the LCD TV market has not been going through its best three month period.
In fact, the prices of liquid crystal TV panels have been dropping because of low demand and, consequently, higher-than-usual inventories.
After Black Friday failed to bring about the demand surge that suppliers expected, prices fell even lower.
Fortunately, the holiday shopping season is said to have managed to trim inventories enough for supply to go back to normal.
Demand for the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday also played a part in this balancing of the supply-demand ratio.
Nevertheless, a report made by Digitimes still says that the declining price trend held out long enough for LCD TV prices to hit a veritable bottom during the soon-to-be-over fourth quarter of 2010,
As far as shipments go, CCFL (cold cathode fluorescent lights) -backlit models should be exhausted soon enough.
Meanwhile, LED-backlit TVs should build up their own inventory levels in time to hit the next wave of mass production in early 2011.
Furthermore, panel makers supposedly expect large-size panel shipments to stay flat in December compared to November, when arguably record shipments were scored.
Basically, prices will be rising again (though users may be less enthusiastic about this than product vendors) and the supply and demand should be more stable in Q1, 2011.
In fact, the whole year of 2011 is seen as a probably good year, even though some panel makers (AU Optronics (AUO), Chimei Innolux (CMI) and LG Display) fear shortages will appear in the second and third quarters.