14 DAY TRIAL // Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd of Japan, also known for its most famous brand Panasonic, maintained the leadership in the Plasma Display Panels (PDPs) business in the fourth quarter of 2006. Not a bad thing taking into account that LCD panels have a much more interested audience.
Riddhi Patel, principal analyst for television systems at iSuppli said: "The Korean players not only have lost market share, but they also suffered a slowdown in their shipments in the fourth quarter due to intense competition from LCDs. This competitive pressure will only intensify as consumer acceptance of LCD-TVs increases."
LG Electronics managed to take the second place after Matsushita taking 24.2% of the revenue for the fourth quarter of 2006. Samsung took the 3rd place with 21.1% of the market and the last two places in the top were taken by Fujitsu Hitachi Plasma with 10.7% and Pioneer with 6.8%.
The prediction for the Compound Annual Growth Rate in 2007 for PDPs is said to hit 13.4 million units in 2007, and worldwide production should reach 22.7 million in 2011. Now how realistic these numbers are due to the LCD market growth is hard to say, and iSuppli's predictions are based on the figures obtained in past years, with a probability factor included into their calculations. However, a lot of big companies rely on their forecasts, being compared to the weathermen of computing technology.
Based on current numbers and some important factors, even iSuppli believes it would be hard to keep this type of technology on its feet because of the increased competition from LCD panel manufacturers, improved manufacturing processes, decreasing costs of the materials used to make the displays, such as electronics and glass.