Category Archives: Displays

A new report from IHS Displaybank analyzes the scope of the flexible OLED patents issued. Of U.S patents published by July 2012, a patent containing flexible OLED structure-related technology was selected as the Issue Patent and through the prior art and citation analysis of the issue patent, key patents were extracted, and the flow of flexible OLED structure-related technology was analyzed.

Flexible OLED structure key patents analysis

patent analysis on flexible OLED structures

Flexible display is drawing attention because of its advantages that it is thin like a paper and can be bent and rolled without the damage through the substrate. As the display technology that can be integrated to the flexible display, OLED is being regarded as the one of the most likely candidates.

OLED is thin, bendable, cheap, self-luminance, and can implement clear picture quality. Thus, as OLED tries to widen the area up to large-area display market, the expectation for flexible OLED is growing.

The basic structure of flexible OLED consists of flexible substrate, which is needed to be the bendable or rollable form, TFT device that drives each pixel, light-emitting OLED, and thin-film encapsulation that blocks moisture and oxygen for the long lifetime of OLED.

Recently, the leading companies’ research on the core technology is accelerating and the patent barrier of the product structure (the basic concept) and the individual components of flexible OLED is strengthening, and it is not easy to find the source patent from many patents.

Thus, IHS Displaybank examined the source of flexible OLED structure patent through its report, “Flexible OLED Structure-related Key Patents Analysis.” 

Is the source patent of flexible OLED structure valid?

The report examined prior art that has been reviewed in the patent examination in details by selecting “issue patent,” and also traced the source of flexible OLED structure patents by encompassing 40 patents that have been cited in the “issue patent.”

In particular, main point analysis of flexible OLED structure-related key patents (16 patents), extracted from the citation analysis, and the presentation of yearly technology trend are configured to help setting the direction of R&D, patent application, and corresponding patent disputes.

Worldwide shipments of touch-screen panels are set to double from 2012 to 2016, reaching nearly 3 billion units as a wide variety of products beyond smartphones and tablets adopt the technology, particularly notebook PCs.

A total of 2.8 billion touch-screen panels will ship in 2016, up from 1.3 billion in 2012, according to the IHS DisplayBank “Touch Panel Issue and Cost/Industry Analysis Report,” from information and analytics provider IHS. Shipments this year will surge 34 percent to reach 1.8 billion units.

“Growth in the touchscreen market will be driven by increasing penetration in markets beyond the smartphone and tablet businesses,” said Duke Yi, senior manager for display components and materials research at IHS. “Demand so far has largely been limited to these two markets. However, touch-screen sales are increasing dramatically across a broad range of products, particularly notebook PCs.”

Yi addressed his remarks to a large audience at the SID/IHS Touch Gesture Motion Focus Conference here on Wednesday.

Yi presented 14 different products that all will see growth in penetration of touch-screen technology through the year 2016. In addition to smartphones, tablets, notebooks and PCs, Yi said opportunities exist in the markets for liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, digital still cameras, portable navigation devices, portable media players, portable game devices, automobiles, ebook readers, camcorders, digital photo frames, and portable DVD players. While the size of these markets varies widely and some are quite small, their aggregate growth will propel the rapid expansion and massive volumes of the touch-screen market in the coming years.

Notebooks get touchy

“The notebook represents the key near-term growth generator for touch-screen displays,” Yi told the SID audience.

As IHS noted this week, global shipments of touch-screen-equipped notebook PCs will rise to 78 million units in 2016, up from just 4.6 million in 2012. By 2016, notebooks will account for 12.3 percent of global touch-screen shipments by area, up from less than 2 percent in 2012.

Prices for touch-enabled notebooks are declining, with a popular model from Asustek Computer Inc. falling to a $700 price in China, Yi noted. This is making the touch screens more affordable for mainstream consumer notebook PC buyers.

The form factor of notebooks is evolving to suit touch technology, with new alternatives to the traditional clamshell arising, including detachable, slide, foldable, flip and twist.

Touch leaders

Projected capacitive is expanding its dominance of the market with 96 percent of touch screens expected to use the technology in 2016, up from 79 percent in 2012.

Asustek of Taiwan took an early lead in the touch notebook market, taking the No. 1 rank in the first quarter.

Atmel Corp. of the United States was the top touch controller integrated circuit (IC) chip supplier in in the first quarter.

Among touch-screen panel suppliers in China and Taiwan, the dominant suppliers in 2012 were No. 1 TPK and No. 2 Wintek, which are far ahead of the other suppliers in terms of revenue. In Korea, Iljin Display was the top touch panel supplier.

The diffusion of roll-to-roll technologies is expected to have a marked effect in lowering the unit prices of flexible devices. Consequently, while consumption in terms of volume is forecast to rise very rapidly, revenues will increase somewhat more moderately. As a result, the total market for roll-to-roll flexible devices is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16.1 percent from 2012 to 2017, reaching global revenues of nearly $22.7 billion by 2017.

The global market for flexible devices manufactured by roll-to-roll technologies increased from $8.5 billion in 2010 to nearly $10 billion in 2011, and was valued at nearly $10.8 billion in 2012, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.3 percent during the two-year period.

Circuit devices currently account for a nearly 96.9 percent share of all revenues in 2012. Sales within this segment are primarily associated with flexible printed circuits.

Displays and other optoelectronic devices account for a 2.5 percent share of the roll-to-roll flexible devices market, with total 2012 revenues of $264 million, while solar cells, sensors, and other emerging applications currently represent a combined share of only 0.7 percent of the total.

There are several reasons why flexible devices are gaining increasing importance. First, flexible devices are being created with the same functionalities as traditional (rigid) integrated circuits, yet are produced with low-cost materials and processes with the intent to make them commercially available at lower unit prices than their rigid counterparts.

Printed circuit boards include rigid and flexible circuits. In recent years, flexible circuits have gained increased market share driven by their growing use in popular consumer electronics such as tablet PCs, notebooks, cell phones, and other wireless devices. Flexible circuits are also gaining acceptance for the fabrication of RFIDs and smart cards.

Flexible circuits offer several advantages compared to rigid circuits, including reduced package dimensions, reduced weight, and optimization of component real estate. Flexible circuits currently represent approximately one-fifth of the entire PCB market, but are forecast to continue growing at a faster pace than the overall PCB market during the next five years, with a CAGR of 8.4 percent.

As the flexible printed circuit (FPC) market continues to expand, driven by mass-market applications, the need will grow for high-volume, automated processes that maintain consistent quality (i.e., roll-to-roll technologies) to satisfy the increasing demand for these products.

Photonics societies across the United States today announced the launch of the National Photonics Initiative. These societies, comprised of the IEEE Photonics Society, the Laser Institute of America, Optical Society of America, SPIE and the American Physical Society, intend for this initiative to be a collaborative alliance that will unite industry, academia and government experts to identify and advance areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security.

“Life without photonics is almost unimaginable. From the moment you wake up to the alarm on your smartphone, to swiping your credit card to pay for coffee, to logging into your computer and connecting with the world through the Internet, photonics makes it possible,” said OSA CEO Elizabeth Rogan. “The NPI will work to advance photonics in the areas that are most critical to the US, like improving the economy, creating jobs, saving lives and sparking innovation for future generations.”

Photonics generates, controls and detects light to advance manufacturing, robotics, medical imaging, next-generation displays, defense technologies, biometric security, image processing, communications, astronomy and much more. Photonics forms the backbone of the Internet, guides energy exploration and keeps men and women in uniform safe with night vision and physiological feedback on the battlefield.

In 1998, the National Research Council released a report, “Harnessing Light,” which presented a comprehensive overview of the potential impact of photonics on major industry sectors. In response, several worldwide economies moved to advance their already strong photonics industries. The United States, however, did not develop a cohesive strategy. As a result, the US lost its competitive advantage in a number of cutting-edge technologies as well as thousands of US jobs and companies to overseas markets.

“The EU, Germany, Korea, Taiwan and China all recognize the importance of photonics, and have taken action,” said SPIE CEO Eugene Arthurs. “The US Department of Defense, for example, has long supported photonics, but more photonics research is needed to maintain our national security in the face of non-traditional threats. The time is now for the US to make the right investments in the crucial capabilities of the future.”

In 2012, the National Research Council released “Optics and Photonics: Essential Technologies for our Nation” that called for a national photonics initiative to regain US leadership in key photonic-driven fields. In response to that call, the NPI was established to raise awareness about photonics and the impact of photonics on our everyday lives; increase collaboration and coordination among US industry, government and academia to advance photonics-driven fields; and drive US funding and investment in areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security.

“The NPI offers an opportunity for us to show how critical it is for federally funded research to flourish in this country,” said Kate Kirby, executive officer of APS. “So many of the technologies that we use have come from the results of basic research funded by the federal government.”

As part of the NPI effort, more than 100 experts from industry, academia and government collaborated to draft a white paper detailing recommendations to guide funding and investment in five key photonics-driven fields: advanced manufacturing, communications and information technology, defense and national security, health and medicine and energy. New opportunities in these fields such as 3-D printing, more efficient solar power, improved nuclear threat identification, more accurate cancer detection and the growth of Internet speeds and capacity, offer the potential for even greater societal impact in the next few decades.

“There are thousands of companies that have sprung up in the last decade or so that produce the photonics devices and systems that we all depend on now, but there’s plenty of room for growth,” said Richard Linke, executive director of the IEEE Photonics Society.

In order to capitalize on new opportunities and regain global leadership and economic prosperity, the white paper also provides key recommendations to the United States government that apply across all five of the fields:

  • Drive funding and investment in areas of photonics critical to maintaining US competitiveness and national security—advanced manufacturing, defense, energy, health and medicine, information technology and communications; 
  • Develop federal programs that encourage greater collaboration between US industry and academia to better support the research and development of next-generation photonics technologies;
  • Increase investment in education and job training programs to reduce the shortage of technically skilled workers needed to fill the growing number of photonics-based positions;
  • Expand federal investments supporting university and industry collaborative research to develop new manufacturing methods that incorporate photonics such as additive manufacturing and ultra-short-pulse laser material processing; and
  • Collaborate with US industry to review international trade practices impeding free trade, and the current US criteria restricting the sale of certain photonic technologies overseas.

The NPI maintains that fulfillment of these recommendations will position the United States as a global leader in photonics research and development, and will grow the US economy and add jobs at home.

“Our objective is to direct funding intelligently to research, implementation and education and training, with the ultimate goal of restoring US competitiveness, thereby improving our security, our economy and our quality of life,” said LIA Executive Director Peter Baker.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this article, the Optoelectronics Industry Development Association was listed in the first paragraph among the societies launching this initiative. This information was incorrect. Solid State Technology apologizes for the error.

Researchers have created a new type of transparent electrode that might find uses in solar cells, flexible displays for computers and consumer electronics and future "optoelectronic" circuits for sensors and information processing.

The electrode is made of silver nanowires covered with a material called graphene, an extremely thin layer of carbon. The hybrid material shows promise as a possible replacement for indium tin oxide, or ITO, used in transparent electrodes for touch-screen monitors, cell-phone displays and flat-screen televisions. Industry is seeking alternatives to ITO because of drawbacks: It is relatively expensive due to limited abundance of indium, and it is inflexible and degrades over time, becoming brittle and hindering performance.

"If you try to bend ITO it cracks and then stops functioning properly," said Purdue University doctoral student Suprem Das.

The hybrid material could represent a step toward innovations, including flexible solar cells and color monitors, flexible "heads-up" displays in car windshields and information displays on eyeglasses and visors.

"The key innovation is a material that is transparent, yet electrically conductive and flexible," said David Janes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Research findings were detailed in a paper appearing online in April in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The hybrid concept was proposed in earlier publications by Purdue researchers, including a 2011 paper in the journal Nano Letters. The concept represents a general approach that could apply to many other materials, said Alam, who co-authored the Nano Letters paper.

"This is a beautiful illustration of how theory enables a fundamental new way to engineer material at the nanoscale and tailor its properties," he said.

Such hybrid structures could enable researchers to overcome the "electron-transport bottleneck" of extremely thin films, referred to as two-dimensional materials.

Combining graphene and silver nanowires in a hybrid material overcomes drawbacks of each material individually: the graphene and nanowires conduct electricity with too much resistance to be practical for transparent electrodes. Sheets of graphene are made of individual segments called grains, and resistance increases at the boundaries between these grains. Silver nanowires, on the other hand, have high resistance because they are randomly oriented like a jumble of toothpicks facing in different directions. This random orientation makes for poor contact between nanowires, resulting in high resistance.

"So neither is good for conducting electricity, but when you combine them in a hybrid structure, they are," Janes said.

The graphene is draped over the silver nanowires.

"It’s like putting a sheet of cellophane over a bowl of noodles," Janes said. "The graphene wraps around the silver nanowires and stretches around them."

Findings show the material has a low "sheet resistance," or the electrical resistance in very thin layers of material, which is measured in units called "squares." At 22 ohms per square, it is five times better than ITO, which has a sheet resistance of 100 ohms per square.

Moreover, the hybrid structure was found to have little resistance change when bent, whereas ITO shows dramatic increases in resistance when bent.

"The generality of the theoretical concept underlying this experimental demonstration – namely ‘percolation-doping’ — suggests that it is likely to apply to a broad range of other 2-D nanocrystaline material, including graphene," Alam said.

A patent application has been filed by Purdue’s Office of Technology Commercialization.

Driven by falling prices and a major initiative from Intel Corp., shipments of touch-enabled mobile PCs are expected to enjoy rapid growth in 2013 and the coming years, rising to about 25 percent of all notebooks by 2016.

Global shipments of touchscreen-equipped notebook PCs will rise to 78 million units in 2016, up from just 4.6 million in 2012, according to the Notebook Touch Panel Shipment Database from information and analytics provider IHS. By 2016, touch notebooks will represent 24.6 percent of all global PC notebook shipments, as presented in the figure below. This year is expected to represent a major threshold for market growth, with shipments expected to surge to 24 million, up more than 400 percent—the highest rate of growth the market is anticipated to achieve for the next four years.

touch notebook shipments

The year 2013 will be a banner year for touch notebooks because prices for low-end 14-inch capacitive touchscreen display panels fall to $35—down dramatically from $60 to $70 in 2012. The $35 price will help spur widespread market acceptance, enabling the production of more affordable touchscreen mobile PCs.

This pricing breakthrough, combined with Intel’s supply-chain muscle, will boost market growth this year and beyond.

“Touch displays are reinventing the PC market and there is a substantial growth opportunity in this area,” said Zane Ball, Intel vice president and general manager, Global Ecosystem Development. “At Intel, we have adopted a strategy that touch should be everywhere. We believe that as touch moves into the PC space, it will be a transformative product and will unlock new demand.”

Ball addressed his comments here Monday to a large audience at the Society for Information Display (SID) IHS/SID 2013 Business Conference.

Ball said that new mobile PC designs based on the company’s new Haswell processor are well underway in 2013. These designs combine touchscreen displays with innovative form factors.

In addition to Haswell, Intel is taking steps to ensure the stable supply of inexpensive touchscreens. The company also had to do some evangelizing to convince sometimes doubtful members of PC supply chain of the merits of touchscreen technology.

“We’re glad we’ve made this investment because now there’s little doubt there’s demand for touch in any number of PC form factors,” Ball said.

Ball noted that Intel’s touch ambitions are much larger than the mobile PC space. He outlined Intel’s vision for touch-enabled all-in-one PCs, including devices that are portable and battery powered.

“In the cloud computing era, AMOLED displays are most likely to have the greatest amount of influence on innovation in smart devices." Kinam Kim, CEO of Samsung Display, delivered this statement as part of a keynote speech on "Display and Innovation" to attendees at the Society for Information Display’s Display Week 2013 in the Vancouver Convention Centre today.

During the keynote speech, Kim said that the future of displays will change considerably, with special attention to be given for the virtually infinite number of imaging possibilities in AMOLED (Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode) display technology.

Kim emphasized that three evolving “environments” are likely to make displays the central focus of the increasingly pervasive use of electronic devices.

The first environment is the spread of cloud computing. In the cloud environment, the capability of electronic networked devices for data processing and storage will be extended infinitely, allowing users everywhere to easily enjoy content that only highly advanced devices can fully process today, including ultra HD (3840 x 2160) images and 3D games. Higher levels of display technology will be required to support our increasing reliance on the cloud.

The second environment is the accelerating evolution of high-speed networks. By 2015, the velocity of 4G LTE will rise to 3 gigabits per second (Gbps), so the transmission time for a two-hour UHD-resolution movie will be under 35 seconds.

“As image quality of video content improves, larger and even more vibrant displays will emerge as a key differentiating point in mobile devices,” said Kim.

The third environment is the spread of connectivity among electronic devices. As the use of Wi-Fi networks explodes, the N-Screen era is on its way. A massive network environment will be established by connecting not only smartphones and tablet PCs but also automobiles, home appliances and wearable computing devices. Due to this explosion in “data flow,” there will be a huge surge of interest in touch-enabled displays.

Kim said that the innovative advantages of AMOLED technology will allow consumers to realize more possibilities in electronic convenience than we might have ever imagined.

AMOLED TV presented at CES 2013
AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays.

The first innovative advantage of AMOLED, according to Kim, is the superiority of its color. AMOLED displays can embody true colors closest to natural colors with their color space 1.4 times broader than that of LCD displays. By offering the world’s broadest color gamut – supporting nearly 100 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, AMOLED will expand the range of displays well suited to printed media, where specialized color is frequently required.

The second innovative advantage of AMOLED is its flexibility and transparency. AMOLED displays can maximize portability by making devices foldable and rollable, and they can also lead innovation in product designs with advantages in curved forms, transparent panels, and lighter weight than other display technologies.

The third innovative advantage of AMOLED displays will be their responsiveness to touch and sensors for detecting all five human senses. Using Samsung’s new Diamond Pixel technology, which has been optimized for the human retina, AMOLED displays can now depict natural colors and images with super high resolution.

Kim went on to say that display applications, with advantages of AMOLED technology, will rapidly spread throughout other business sectors like the automotive, publishing, bio-genetic and building industries.

In the automotive business, AMOLED displays will replace conventional glass and mirrors that have been used for digital mirrors and head-up displays. Capitalizing on their advantages with flexibility, durability and high resistance to temperature changes, AMOLED display panels also will be used for watch displays and for products in the fashion and health care market sectors. Further, in publication and building, AMOLED displays will set the trend for the building market sector with AMOLED architectural displays in and outside buildings being used as highly desirable decorative and information-delivering products.

Kim expressed confidence that "the display market is unlimited in the amount of growth that it can achieve, as technical innovation continues to accelerate.”

Worldwide semiconductor revenues decreased by 2.2 percent year over year to $295 billion in 2012, according to the latest version of the International Data Corporation (IDC) Semiconductor Application Forecaster (SAF). The industry witnessed a slowdown during the second half of 2012 on weak consumer spending across PCs, mobile phones, and digital televisions (DTV), as well as in the industrial and other market segments. The European economic crises and a slowdown in China also had an impact on global demand while the lackluster launch of Windows 8 failed to stimulate PC sales and turn the tide. Meanwhile, competitive suppliers from China continued to pressure average selling prices, dragging down overall revenue growth. IDC expects the semiconductor market to return to growth in 2013 with revenues forecast to increase by 3.5 percent this year.

IDC’s SAF tracks more than 120 semiconductor companies. Most companies saw their revenues decline during the year, including eight of the top ten companies. Only 17 companies, with revenues of a billion or more, grew at a rate above 5 percent last year. Among the 25 largest companies covered in the SAF, only seven had positive top-line growth, including: Qualcomm, Broadcom, NXP, NVIDIA, MediaTek, Apple, and Sharp Electronics. AllWinner, a tablet application processor supplier, was the fastest growing company in 2012.

The largest semiconductor company, Intel, saw its revenues decline to $50.0 billion in 2012, down 3 percent from 2011 largely due to weak PC demand, and minimal traction in tablets and smartphones. Samsung Electronics, the second largest supplier, saw revenues drop 6 percent on weak DTV demand, loss of market share at Apple, and volatile memory prices. Meanwhile, Qualcomm, the largest fabless semiconductor supplier, ranked third last year as revenues grew 34 percent to $13.2 billion due to its leadership in modem technology and success of its Snapdragon application processor in smartphones. Texas instruments, the number four supplier, saw revenues decline by 6 percent due to falling analog, DSP, and MPU revenues and the company’s exit from its wireless business. Rounding out the top 5, Toshiba revenues were off by 13 percent from the previous year due to declining revenues for its analog, ASSP, and memory products. Renesas, Hynix, Broadcom, STMicroelectronics, and Micron filled out the top 10 spots. From this group of companies, only Broadcom saw revenues grow last year. Combined, the top 10 vendors represented 52 percent of worldwide semiconductor revenues, declining 3 percent when compared to 2011. The top 25 semiconductor firms brought in $206 billion, declining 3 percent year over year.

Within the semiconductor device types, performance was mixed. Sensors and actuators grew the fastest at 11 percent year over year, but with 2012 revenues of $7 billion the segment only accounted for 2 percent of industry revenues. ASSPs, the largest category of semiconductors with 32 percent of the overall opportunity, grew by 4 percent for the year on strength in media, graphics, and application processors and RF and mixed-signal ASSPs. Finally, optoelectronics, with 6 percent of total semiconductor revenues, grew 5 percent, mostly from image sensors and LEDs. Revenues for microcomponents declined by 5 percent, driven by lower revenues for MPUs and MCUs. Memory, representing 17 percent of the industry, saw its revenues decline by 10 percent. Finally, Analog, which accounted for 7 percent of revenues last year, declined by 7 percent.

"Beyond the slowdown in end-market demand, the challenge for semiconductor companies is to zero in on their key value propositions. Whether that is in modem or connectivity technologies, sensors, mixed-signal processing, or power management, there are areas of the market showing strong potential. However, competing in crowded segments with little differentiation has contributed to the slowdown in semiconductor revenues," said Michael J. Palma, research manager, Semiconductors at IDC, who led the study and compiled the SAF results. "Large vendors have been going through a process of narrowing their product portfolios to focus resources on profitable lines where their IP and experience provide an edge in the market."

"As we mentioned in our Top 10 Predictions for the 2013 worldwide semiconductor market, investment in R&D and capital in the semiconductor industry remains very high and focused on innovation and addressing the competitive dynamics of a diverse set of industries that semiconductors support. In fact, the overall market landscape and reach of semiconductors continues to expand with the rise of Intelligent Systems and will play a critical role in the overall health and growth of the market," said Mario Morales, program vice president for enabling technologies and semiconductors.

IDC’s Semiconductor and Enabling Technologies research team manages the Worldwide Semiconductor Applications Forecaster database, which is a focal point for IDC’s semiconductor research efforts. This database contains revenue data collected from more than 120 semiconductor companies and forecasts the markets to 2017. Revenue for over twelve semiconductor device areas, four geographic regions, six major vertical markets, and over 90 system devices markets are also part of the SAF coverage.

North America-based manufacturers of semiconductor equipment posted $1.17 billion in orders worldwide in April 2013 (three-month average basis) and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.08, according to the April EMDS Book-to-Bill Report published today by SEMI.   A book-to-bill of 1.08 means that $108 worth of orders were received for every $100 of product billed for the month.

The three-month average of worldwide bookings in April 2013 was $1.17 billion. The bookings figure is 6.4 percent higher than the final March 2013 level of $1.10 billion, and is 26.8 percent lower than the April 2012 order level of $1.60 billion.

The three-month average of worldwide billings in April 2013 was $1.08 billion. The billings figure is 9.3 percent higher than the final March 2013 level of $991.0 million, and is 25.7 percent lower than the April 2012 billings level of $1.46 billion.

“Both bookings and billings trends have been improving over the last four months, with the book-to-bill ratio remaining above parity over the same period," said Denny McGuirk, president and CEO of SEMI.  “While orders remain well below last year’s numbers, the current order and spending activity is aligned with 2012 capex plans.”

The SEMI book-to-bill is a ratio of three-month moving averages of worldwide bookings and billings for North American-based semiconductor equipment manufacturers. Billings and bookings figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.

  Billings
(3-mo. avg)		 Bookings
(3-mo. avg)		 Book-to-Bill
November 2012 910.1 718.6 0.79
December 2012 1,006.1 927.4 0.92
January 2013 968.0 1,076.0 1.11
February 2013 974.7 1,073.5 1.10
March 2013 (final) 991.0 1,103.3 1.11
April 2013 (prelim) 1,083.2 1,173.4 1.08

Bringing an end to a full year of declines, global flat-panel television shipments rose slightly in the first quarter, paving the way for marginal growth in 2013, according to the “Monthly Worldwide FPD TV Shipment Data Report” from the IHS TV Systems Intelligence Service at information and analytics provider IHS.

Global shipments of flat-panel televisions comprising liquid-crystal display (LCD) and plasma sets amounted to 47.6 million units in the first quarter, up 0.4 percent from 47.5 million during the same period one year earlier. This represented the first year-over-year quarterly growth for the market since the fourth quarter of 2011, as shown in the figure below.

global flat-panel tv growth

“While a less than 1 percent increase in the first quarter may not seem like much, it’s a major achievement for a TV market that was stuck in the doldrums throughout 2012,” said Jusy Hong, senior analyst, television research, for IHS. “Just one year earlier, in the first quarter of 2012, shipments fell by 5 percent—and then continued to decline by 3.5 percent, 0.3 percent and 2.4 during the next three quarters. Even with weak results in February and March, the rise for the entire first quarter sets the stage for the global flat-panel TV market to return to growth this year, with a slight 0.4 percent increase expected in 2013.”

An up-and-down quarter

Global flat-panel television shipments started the year with a bang, rising by 11 percent in January compared to the same month in 2012 because of strong seasonal Lunar New Year demand. However, shipments declined 9 percent in February and 3 percent in March as demand plunged following the Lunar New Year buying season, according to the latest IHS figures. The strong performance in January was just high enough to offset the declines during the next two months.

The market is now showing signs of rebounding, with estimated year-over-year growth of 10 percent in April and another 9 percent increase forecast in May.

LCDs grow—and grow their sales

LCD TVs are leading the growth for the overall market, with a 2 percent expansion in shipments in the first quarter compared to a year earlier. Shipments of LCD TVs amounted to 45.2 million units, up from 44.3 million.

Sales of LCD TVs are being boosted by 50-inch and larger sets, whose share doubled to 10 percent in February this year, up from 5 percent during the same time last year.

“LCD TV brands are aggressively increasing their super-larger-sized TV lineup and shipments in order to improve profitability,” Hong said. “Panel makers are following suit. This is resulting in declining prices for the larger sets, attracting more consumer interest.”

Plasma plunges

In contrast to the strong performance of LCDs, plasma sales are dropping like a rock, constraining the growth of the overall flat-panel market. Global plasma TV set shipments declined to 2.5 million in the first quarter, down a gut-wrenching 22 percent from 3.2 million one year earlier.

“Plasma shipments are declining because they are losing ground to LCDs in the market for super-sized TVs, especially in the 50-inch segment,” Hong said.