Worldwide Production Value of Smaller LCDs for 2001 Rises by 29 Pct.: Survey
May 30, 2001 (TOKYO) -- Nikkei Market Access noted a significant growth in the world market for small- and mid-sized liquid-crystal displays for mobile devices such as mobile phones and personal digital assistants.
A survey found the annual output in 2000 was 455.5 million units, up 56 percent on an annual basis.
The output for 2001, however, is expected to be around 512.1 million units, a smaller year-on-year growth of 12 percent in volume due to the slowdown in the mobile phone market since the latter half of 2000.
On the other hand, the value of the output in 2000 was US$6.01 billion, a year-on-year increase of 58 percent, while the estimated value and growth rates of the output for 2001 are US$7.76 billion and 29 percent, respectively.
The factor which has made the growth in output value surpass the growth in output volume was the spreading use of color displays for mobile phones and PDAs.
The adoption of color displays in mobile phones went into full swing in latter half of last year in Japan. For 2001, almost 100 percent of LCDs for the Japanese market are color displays, and the LCD makers expect this trend will further prevail around the world.
In the PDA market as well, items with color LCDs such as the "iPAQ" from Compaq Computer Corp. are gaining popularity. With good prospects for market growth, however, many LCD makers are becoming engaged in this business arena, turning up the competition.
In particular, TFT-LCD makers are flooding into the manufacturing of displays for mobile phones, in addition to STN makers. Under such circumstances, most of these makers have launched bullish manufacturing plans, expecting the annual output of color LCDs for mobile phones in 2001 to total around 68 million units.
On the other hand, the estimate to one extreme end on the worldwide production of color-display mobile phones in 2001 is no more than 56.6 million units in total. Suffering from the rapidly shrinking revenue in the large-size LCD business, many Japanese TFT makers are striving to cut their own way in the small- and mid-sized LCD business. Therefore, it is very likely these makers will increase their output as they have planned, and thus engage themselves in a fight against STN makers for the limited pie.
* Figures for 2001 are estimates.
Data: Nikkei Market Access
(Ken Nakamura, Nikkei Market Access) |
