14 DAY TRIAL // Some market segments saw general pricing schemes falling over the course of last year and the beginning of 2011, and it seems that the market for large-sized liquid crystal displays is among them.
Those end-users that are interested in the finances of companies and entire market segments will know that 2010 wasn't as friendly to some product types as it was to others.
While a decline in prices is, understandably, greeted well by consumers, it also signals a lower than usual demand for them, usually at least.
DRAM chips were among the worst hit, and it seems that the market for large-sized LCDs didn't get away unscathed either.
According to iSuppli, LCDs with diagonals of 10 to 55 inches ended up in higher supply than expected for both buyers and suppliers.
Prices have actually been dropping by 1% during the last four months, with only monitor and notebook panels seeing any sort of increase, and only in October and November.
For February, the research firm has predicted a further drop of roughly 1.2% on average for screens used in TVs, monitors and notebooks.
In other words, the situation is the opposite, so to speak, of the one in February, 2010, when prices were increasing because of glass and component shortages, plus labor issues.
As for the next few months, things will heavily depend on final sales figures from the Chinese New Year holidays and upcoming launches of TVs in Europe and the US.
Provided sales are strong enough in both areas, inventories should stabilize by April.
When speaking of each LCD segment in particular, monitor panels will get 1.2% cheaper overall, while notebook screens will only drop by 0.9%, leaving TVs somewhere n between.
“Among large-sized LCD TV panels, prices in February are expected to tumble 1.2 percent. Nonetheless, the decline in prices has been slowing since October, and the February contraction is the smallest since June 2010,” says the announcement.