OEM’s Expand Q3 LCD TV Role

by Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 12/5/2007

Austin, Texas — Approximately 23 percent of the 20.1 million LCD TVs shipped worldwide in the third quarter of 2007 were manufactured by external OEMs, according to a new report from The NPD Group’s DisplaySearch company.

The report, entitled the Q3'07 LCD TV Value Chain Report, stated the largest OEMs to produce LCD TVs in the period included TPV, Jabil, AmTRAN, Quanta, Proview, Vestel and Wistron.

“Many LCD TV brands outsourced 100 percent of their LCD TV set manufacturing, such as Grundig, HP, Polaroid, Vizio, ViewSonic and Westinghouse,” DisplaySearch said. “Philips outsourced more than 60 percent of its LCD TVs shipped in [the third quarter] to OEM makers.”

Going forward, the level of OEM activity will be a mixed bag, the market research firm said. Some brands intend to increase their outsourcing share for certain regions and products as the market expands, while other brands intend to bring more volume in-house as they expand into new regions.

During the quarter, more than 2 million LCD monitor panels shipped were used for LCD TVs, which DisplaySearch called “a big leap from the 900,000 units” in the second quarter of the year. The adapted LCD monitor panels include the 15-inch, 17-inch, 19W-inch, 20W-inch and 22W-inch screen sizes.

DisplaySearch said due to costs, the use of adapted monitor panels “will occur more frequently.”

LCD TVs smaller than 26 inches will increasingly use LCD monitor panels, especially for wide products such as 19W, 20W and 22W inches.

Approximately 23.7 million LCD TV modules were shipped globally from TFT LCD makers in the quarter, while LCD TV manufacturers shipped 20.1 million units. The difference between panel volume and finished goods was mainly due to supply chain, assembly lead time, buffer stocks and channel inventory, DisplaySearch said.

China-based TPV led the TV set subcontract manufacturing market with a 19.9 percent share in the third quarter of 2007, followed by Proview, Jabil and AmTRAN, according to the report.

TPV’s largest customer is Philips, while AmTRAN’s largest customer is Vizio. The main customer of Proview is Polaroid, and the main customer of Jabil is Philips, DisplaySearch said.

For LCD TV module shipments, Philips was the top customer of LG.Philips LCD, while Samsung LCD TV was the top customer of CMO and CPT in the period, according to DisplaySearch findings.

Sony was the top customer of AUO and Samsung (including the joint Sony/Samsung operation S-LCD). Each of the top five suppliers looked to their top five customers for at least 50 percent of their volume, with the exception of CMO, according to the study.