What They Say
TrendForce released its forecasts based on the global issues raised by the attack by Russia on Ukraine and the subsequent inflation. It sees TV demand as ‘challenging’ and pointed out that shipping costs for TVs from Asia to other markets are still very high. As a result, it has reduced its 2022 forecast from 217 million to 215 million, but that still means 2.4% growth.
The ‘stay-at-home’ trend is past its peak, too and this has meant a reduction in demand for LCD monitors and again TrendForce has revised its forecast from 144 million units to 142 million, a decline of 2.3% in market size.
Notebook demand has also been revised down from 238 million units to 225 million, which means a drop of 8.5%. The analyst expects ChromeBook shipments to decline by 50% after the boom in the pandemic which accounts for most of the decline, but an end to direct shipments to Russia are also a factor, accounting for another 2%.
What We Think
Taiwanese reports on the drop in purchasing by notebook brands are confirming the challenges in notebooks. I’m sure that the Display Week Business Conference will be looking for some green shoots somewhere. As we have reported here, one of the ways to make the market look ‘not so bad’ is to limit or redefine your target market in some way. (DSCC Report Reveals Advanced Notebooks Rose 629% in 2021 to 8.2M – Apple Led Q4’21 with a 54% Share).
I remember for a long time pointing out to clients when I did market research, that if you looked at ‘all monitors’, things weren’t great, but if you looked at the larger sized segment of the market and excluded the volume 19″-21″ range, then the market had plenty of growth. (BR)
TrendForce had higher forecasts around a month ago – but note this is for notebook panels, not for finished sets.
