China LCD Growth Booms but CRT Volume Still Strong
September 6th, 2006LCD-TVs enjoyed the biggest growth in the Chinese electronics industry with Y/Y unit growth up 168%, according to statistics published by China’s Ministry of Information Industry (MII) on its Chinese-language web site. What was unexpected about the numbers was the unusually small loss in the CRT-TV segment, down just 1.6% Y/Y.
To put things in perspective it’s important to note that in the January-July time frame, CRT’s shipped 10x the number of LCD-TVs in China-41M vs. 3.8M units respectively. If the present 168% growth rate is maintained, total shipments of LCD-TVs will overtake CRT-TVs in 2009.
RPTV’s are also showing a strong growth rate at 87% Y/Y. Surprisingly, the manufacture of Plasma TVs in China declined, at a higher rate than the modest drop in CRTs.
|
China’s January-July 2006 output of consumer electronics, IT & peripheral products
|
||||
| Product category |
Production volume
(M units) |
Y/Y
|
||
|
Consumer
electronics |
Handset | GSM, CDMA |
244.75
|
60.7%
|
| Xiaolingtong (China-developed low-power standard) |
6.81
|
(29.4%)
|
||
| Color TV | CRT |
41.31
|
(1.6%)
|
|
| LCD |
3.77
|
168.5%
|
||
| Rear-projection |
0.71
|
87.5%
|
||
| Plasma |
0.35
|
(10.4%)
|
||
| Digital camera |
33.06
|
36.8%
|
||
| Video recorders |
6.03
|
(7.6%)
|
||
| IT & peripheral products |
Portable PC | Notebook |
31.40
|
|
| Others |
21.19
|
30.6%
|
||
| Monitor | LCD |
119.25
|
59.5%
|
|
| Others |
15.13
|
(5.8%)
|
||
| Server |
3.10
|
62.3%
|
||
| Printer |
26.57
|
(5.8%)
|
||
| Fax machine |
7.15
|
21.6%
|
||
| Source: China’s MII, compiled by DigiTimes, Sept. 2006 | ||||
In addition to the Chinese LCD-TV industry, the report said there were 119M LCD monitors and 31M notebook computers built in the same six months, for a total demand of 154M large screen LCD panels, or an average panel usage of 25M a month.
On a related topic, DigiTimes reported total shipments in August of large-size LCD panels from AU Optronics was about 4.4M units, with Chi Mei Optoelectronics, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and HannStar Display producing 3.1, 2.1 and 1.4M large screen LCD panels respectively for the month. The total shipments from these four companies are about 11M panels with shipments from each of the manufacturers estimated to be up by 18-20% from July. These panel totals includes all three major applications of large size LCD: LCD-monitors, notebook computers and LCD TV.
These are "apples and oranges" numbers comparing end units from China to panels from Taiwan, and ignore the panels made in other countries, including China. There have been fears of over-building of LCD fabs. Perhaps the voracious appetite of the Chinese electronics industry for large LCD panels and its rapid growth rates will prove these fears are unfounded. –MB
Note: An expanded version of this article will be published in the October issue of Projection Monthly.
