Q2 small/medium FPD revenue grows 31 percent Y/Y to $5.4 billion

SANTA CLARA, USA: Shipments of small and medium displays continued to climb in Q2’10, with $5.4 billion in revenue, up 31 percent Y/Y. According to the latest Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report from DisplaySearch, this segment is forecast to experience continued growth, reaching $6.7 billion in Q3’10.

“Despite the state of the global economy, there is still a strong demand for small/medium displays,” noted Hiroshi Hayase, DisplaySearch Director of Small/Medium Display Research. “We forecast this segment will maintain stable growth, achieving around a 10 percent Y/Y growth in 2010, offsetting the economic downturn with growing demand and expansion in emerging countries such as China.”

Fig. 1: Small/Medium Display Forecast (Revenues)Source: Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report.

Samsung Mobile Displays maintained its lead on both a shipment and revenue basis, with 11.8 percent and 16.4 percent shares, respectively. The company had high shipments in both TFT LCDs and AMOLEDs for mobile phones.

Sharp’s revenue fell sharply in Q2’10, as a result of the drop in demand for devices such as portable gamingin comparison to competition. Toshiba’s revenue didn’t fall as much as its competition due to increasing demand for high-resolution mobile phone and automotive monitor displays.

Fig. 2: Small/Medium Q1’10 Market Shares (Revenues)Source: Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report.

Other key trends are described in detail in the Q2’10 Quarterly Small/Medium Shipment and Forecast Report:

* Mobile phone panel shipments, which form the core demand of the S/M FPD market, were 371 million units in Q1’10, down 10 percent Q/Q, but up 34 percent Y/Y.
* Digital still camera panel shipments in Q1’10 were 41.0 million units, down 15 percent Q/Q but up 89 percent Y/Y.
* Automobile-related FPDs are on a positive track, supported by incentives in several countries along with the global recovery trend in consumption. In particular, automotive monitor panel shipments including car navigation were 6.86 million units, up 14 percent Q/Q, despite the slow season. Shipments of passive matrix indicator displays also increased by 96 percent Y/Y, indicating a considerable recovery from the first half of 2009 when automobile production plunged.
* Shipments of panels for portable navigation devices, another automobile-related application, also increased significantly by 74 percent Y/Y.
* Applications with medium-sized FPDs (7-9”) have been growing steadily since the second half of last year. Panels for e-books, including the Amazon Kindle, increased shipments to 1.77 million units, up 6 percent Q/Q and 240 percent Y/Y, proving an extremely-rapid expansion of the market over the past year.
* Digital photo frames have become a major application for medium-sized panels. In Q1'10, panel shipments grew by 10 percent Q/Q and 311 percent Y/Y to 15.1 million units.

While many applications are recovering demand in sync with the economic rebound, single-purpose applications that have overlapped functions with other applications continue to stagnate. Amusement and portable media player applications including portable game devices have overlapping functions with smartphones like the iPhone. Panel shipments in these applications are showing around 10-20 percent decrease Y/Y with no sign of recovery.

Also, portable DVD players, which was on a growth path as low-priced amusement device, is suffering from the competition with notebook PCs and PMPs, which can be used for downloading movies on the Internet.