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Global and China Small and Medium-sized Display Device Industry Report, 2009-2010

Generally speaking, the display devices below 10 inches are defined as small & medium-sized display devices. Year 2010 has witnessed several significant changes in small & medium-sized panel industry.  

Firstly, Japanese enterprises have experienced downslide in revenue.

Japanese small & medium-sized panel manufacturers are mainly export-oriented due to the narrow domestic market. The already high prices of Japanese products have been further driven up by the JPY appreciation in 2009 and 2010. Although Japanese products deliver excellent performance and hold irreplaceable positions in many fields, manufacturers still prefer to reduce the purchase of Japanese products over cost concerns. Sharp, Epson Imaging Devices (EID) and Hitachi Displays, especially EID, have suffered various degrees of decline. As early as 2006, EID misjudged the situation and focused on the exclusive TFD technology, which resulted in the serious lag in TFT-LCD field and the downslide for four successive years. Other Japanese small & medium-sized panel manufacturers like NEC, Mitsubishi Electric and Sony Mobile Display give priority to supplying parent company. NEC and Mitsubishi Electric see poor performance and shrunk demand for small & medium-sized panels.

Secondly, the originally large-sized TFT-LCD centered manufacturers have increased their investment in small & medium-sized field.

Traditional small & medium-sized panel manufacturers energetically expand the revenue from other fields while cutting down the investment in their main businesses. Along with the mushrooming of high-generation TFT-LCD production lines above G5, the competitiveness of existing large-sized TFT-LCD production lines of G5 and below fall sharply in the large-size field, which brings no choice but only to increase the investment in small & medium-sized field. HannStar has experienced the most significant growth. Formerly almost without any products in small & medium-sized panel field, it took advantage of the explosive development of netbook in 2009 and aggressively entered the small & medium-sized field.

The revenue of HannStar from small & medium-sized field in 2009 almost sextupled that in 2008. In 2010, HannStar has entered digital photo frame and mobile phone fields, and the shipment has risen substantially by over four folds from 2009, but the revenue has not seen clear increase. LG Display, originally with little investment in small & medium-sized field, has become the display screen supplier for Apple iPhone 4 and iPad after defeating Sharp. The display screen of iPhone 4 currently has the highest pixel density among the same size display screens, almost reaching the limit of visual resolution. Traditional small & medium-sized panel manufacturers cannot withstand the aggressive price offensive from traditional large-sized TFT-LCD manufacturers, so, they expand the investment in other fields. A case in point, Wintek, once the mobile phone display screen manufacturer with the global largest shipment, increased its investment in touch screen field in 2009. The touch screen revenue occupied 29% of the total revenue of Wintek in 2009, and climbed sharply to 63% in 2010, and is estimated to reach 76% in 2011. Nevertheless, Varitronix proclaimed downright retreat from mobile phone display field at the end of 2009 while enhancing the investment in on-board display field.  
 
Thirdly, mergers and acquisitions have sprung up continuously.

Taiwan Innolux purchased Toppoly, the largest supplier of Nokia mobile phone screens, and at the end of 2009, Innolux and ChiMei Optoelectronics were merged into Taiwan's No.1 and global No.3 TFT-LCD manufacturer as well as the small & medium-sized panel manufacturer with the largest shipment worldwide. On the other hand, the deeply trapped EID also tried to merge with Sony Mobile Display. At the end of 2009, LG Display acquired the OLED business of KODAK, the OLED originator, and AUO bought TMD's LTPS TFT-LCD plant in Singapore.

AM-OLED turns out to be the hottest subject in 2010. After years of perseverance, Samsung Mobile Display (SMD), incorporated by the display business of Samsung SDI and the small and medium-sized display business of Samsung Electronics, has achieved breakthrough in AM-OLED field with greatly increased shipment. As Samsung, HTC and Lenovo have launched AM-OLED mobile phones on a large scale, the demand for AM-OLED has exceeded the supply. LG Display and AUO have also increased the investment in OLED field. However, only SMD has achieved mass production of AM-OLED, and suppliers have absolute advantages, consequently, a majority of the manufacturers refuse to adopt OLED as the main display screen.  
      
Just as they have done in lithium battery, polysilicon, and LED fields, mainland China enterprises are swarming into the OLED field, with proclaimed investment of at least RMB30 billion. What deserves to be mentioned is that OLED field has extremely high technical thresholds. For example, RiTdisplay, the world's second largest OLED manufacturer founded in 2000, can only manufacture the increasingly downfallen PM-OLED instead of AM-OLED despite a decade's efforts. RiTdisplay currently devotes itself to the exploitation of touch screen field and might ultimately withdraw from the OLED field. While Japan's Tohoku Pioneer Corporation, the world's first enterprise achieving mass production of OLED, cannot realize mass production of AM-OLED at present.

Another threshold of OLED is the need for TFT-LCD production line, LTPS TFT-LCD production line may as well, which also shapes the major reason why the global No.2~5 OLED enterprises, all without TFT-LCD production lines, cannot carry out mass production of AM-OLED. It is also why AUO took the purchase of TMD's LTPS TFT-LCD plant as the first step into the OLED field. As for mainland China, except Tianma, all the other manufacturers who attempt to enter OLED field possess no TFT-LCD production lines.   

For details of this report please visit http://www.researchinchina.com/Htmls/Report/2010/5966.html

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ResearchInChina

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