Display Industry Poised For Recovery

Greg Tarr On Oct 16 2012 - 10:54am

Santa Clara, Calif. — The shift to larger screen sizes and commercialization of advanced display technologies has put the flat panel display industry on the road to recovery, according to a new research from NPD DisplaySearch.

DisplaySearch said that despite excess capacity and resulting erosion in prices and profitability the flat-panel industry is seeing a renewal of sales and profit growth.

“The average diagonal sizes of key flat panel display applications have increased over the past three years, and every inch of growth in flat panel display applications results in growth in area demand and thus capacity utilization,” said David Hsieh, NPD DisplaySearch greater China market research VP. “Once consumers adopt larger panel sizes, it’s difficult for them to revert to smaller displays and lower resolution. As a result, the increase in average diagonal sizes will accelerate in 2013 as well as long-term growth for the flat panel display industry.”

 In addition to consumers wanting larger and larger screen sizes for TVs and other display devices, growth is is also being fostered by a move toward higher resolution levels, wider viewing angles, integrated touch functionality, and slimmer and lighter form factors.

Key display product growth areas include:

• Desktop monitors, where DisplaySearch anticipates challenges in desktop monitor panel demand especially in 2012 and 2013 resulting from the maturity of desktop PC bundles and stagnant replacement in the stand-alone PCs. Consumers are buying larger-sized LCD monitors such as 23-inches, 24-inches, and 27-inches, so average monitor diagonal size is increasing from 19.9 inches in 2010 to 20.9 inches in 2013, DisplaySearch said.
• LCD TVs, where significant growth for LCD TV panel sizes are forecast, with the adoption of new LCD TV panel sizes replacing smaller sizes: 28/29 inches replacing 26 inches; 39 inches replacing 37 inches; 50 inches replacing 46/47 inches, and 60 inches replacing 55 inches.
• Mobile PCs, which is the only key segment where average screen size is falling as smaller-sized tablet PCs take share and the ultra-portable segment grows within notebook PCs.
• Mobile phones, where phone display sizes are increasing from 2.4 inches in 2010 to 3.3 inches in 2013, driven by the larger, higher resolution screens for smart phones.
• OLED TVs, where panels are the fastest-growing segment in terms of average size from 2010 to 2013, with the average size increasing from 15 inches in 2010 to 55 inches, as both LG and Samsung invest in new manufacturing capacity.
• Public displays, where the average diagonal size is forecast to rise from 41.7 inches in 2010 to 46.5 inches in 2013.

A full report is available by contacting NPD DisplaySearch’s Charles Camaroto at (888) 436-7673 or (516) 625-2452, or contact@displaysearch.com.