TFT-LCD Panel Shortage to Continue into 2000
September 3, 1999 (TAIPEI) -- Taiwan manufacturers say previous forecasts that the shortage in the global thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal display panel market would disappear around the second quarter of 2000 are likely to be proven wrong, as demand continues to emerge amid a tight supply.
The imbalance is expected to continue until the end of next year, they add.
Market research firm Displayresearch in March predicted that the shortage of large-sized TFT-LCD panels, which appeared in the first quarter of this year, would reach its peak in the first quarter of 2000, when demand was seen surpassing supply by around 600,000 to 700,000 units. This situation, Displayresearch said, would probably last until the first quarter of 2001.
Yet later, plans of Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., LG Electronics Inc. and Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd. to expand operations brought hope that the situation would reverse course in the first quarter of next year. Some optimists were even predicting a monthly glut of around 200,000 panels at that time.
However, it now seems that Displayresearch was not far off in its predictions. The effects of Korean makers' expansion plans are now not expected to be felt until much later, as upstream equipment makers and key component suppliers have failed to catch up with TFT-LCD makers' expansion moves.
Take as an example the stepper, which is necessary for the first stage of the TFT-LCD production process. An equipment manufacturer can only turn out around 60 steppers each year, and most of these have already been reserved by Taiwan companies, which have long had plans to expand into TFT-LCDs. Korean companies, therefore, are having difficulty obtaining manufacturing equipment, and are being forced to postpone their expansion plans
In addition, the supply of key components for TFT-LCD, such as substrates and color filters, also are failing to meet demand. The U.S.-based Corning Inc. is building factories in Japan and Korea, but shipments are not expected to begin until mid-2000.
(Commercial Times, Taiwan)
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