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August Panel Pricing Rise Exceeds Expectations
August panel pricing showed the surge in demand for IT applications as monitor panels were up 1.0% and notebook panels rose 1.1%. But the shift to IT caused a surprising shortage of TV panel, where the price rose7.1%. Smartphone panel pricing was estimated to be up 1.0% in August.
Table 1: August Panel Pricing
August panel pricing showed the surge in demand for IT applications as monitor panels were up 1.0% and notebook panels rose 1.1%. But the shift to IT caused a surprising shortage of TV panel, where the price rose7.1%. Smartphone panel pricing was estimated to be up 1.0% in August.
Table 1: August Panel Pricing
Coming out of August, monitor demand is slowing a bit and panel makers are shifting production away from monitors and back to TV panels, which should keep the monitor panel market fairly tight. Notebook demand continues to grow under a number of high volume Chromebook or notebook programs in Japan and China and component shortages continue to keep supply under pressure, which will likely continue into September.
TV panel demand remains strong, despite recent panel price increases and while we have already stated our belief that we are close to a TV panel demand peak, the risk is not on the panel side but the set side, where increasing prices and little room for typical holiday discounting leave TV set producers facing compressed margins in what is already a low margin business.
TV panel demand remains strong, despite recent panel price increases and while we have already stated our belief that we are close to a TV panel demand peak, the risk is not on the panel side but the set side, where increasing prices and little room for typical holiday discounting leave TV set producers facing compressed margins in what is already a low margin business.