14 DAY TRIAL // Demand may be strong on the semiconductor market, since so many new GPUs, CPUs and memory products have been unveiled recently, but the same cannot be said about the rest of the IT industry. In fact, at least on the display-solution market, companies are once again getting acquainted with the reason why the first two quarters are known as the slow season. LG Display, in particular, seems to have been caught at a disadvantage.
It appears that demand for electronic products, in Europe, is lower than PC makers expected. Because of this, PC makers have canceled part of their LCD panel orders, in order to avoid being overstocked. Such a move is understandable, since Europe accounts for 30% of the global notebook market. On the other hand, this development, in turn, impacted upon the amount of shipments that TFT-LCD manufacturers hoped for. LG Display, in particular, appears to have been affected.
During March, LG shipped about 5.1 million notebook panels. In the same period, Samsung sold approximately four million, while AU Optronics (AUO) and Chimei Innolux (CMI) shipped three million and 1.8 million, respectively. During April, however, LG Display only managed to send out 4.2 million, almost one million less on-month. For comparison, Samsung's and AUO's sales remained flat, while Chimei's shipments dropped by only 200,000, to 1.6 million.
“LG Display (LGD) saw its notebook panel shipments drop by almost one million units to 4.2 million in April, as clients canceled orders amid weakening demand from Europe, which accounts for about 30% of the global notebook market, according to sources with Taiwan-based TFT-LCD panel makers,” a Digitmes website report states.
News is not completely dismal, however. Though notebook-panel shipments fell, LGD sales of 9.7-inch panels for Apple's iPad grew to over 700,000, a significant jump compared with the 470,000 in March and 300,000 in February.