What They Say
Digitimes interviewed Andrew Beck, director of Worldwide Commercial Operations at Corning’s Display business unit and he confirmed the view, expressed at the SID Display Week Business Conference by Corning, that LCD will continue to dominate display panel sales.
After covering the challenges from lockdowns and geo-political issues, Beck said that “every manufacturer is facing increasing costs”. He said that Corning announced raised prices last year in Q2 and again in Q3. Pricing was again up in Q1 this year, although he added,
“relative to a number of other components, I think that any price increases in glass are quite small compared to what other components are feeling”.
More inventory means more logistics cost and that is adding to cost pressures.
Beck said that Corning is conservative on demand for IT and expects smartphones to remain stable, but the firm does expect to see some growth in TV in the second half of 2022 after a weak year of sales, following the Covid peak.
Beck declined to comment on regional demand patterns, apart from saying that Taiwanese makers are clearly trying to exploit their greater experience and technology depth to make more premium products.
What We Think
In the SID/DSCC Business Conference, Corning pointed out that QD OLED has a lot of high temperature processes and that means a really strong need for dimensionally stable glass.
Seeing this interview reminded me of part of my learning as a publisher. I got some ‘inside information’ from a CRT vendor about price rises. I published this a couple of times before I realised that the vendor was simply using my publication to ‘soften up’ his customers, so that they were less surprised when he told them his prices were going up. (BR)
