The latest market analysis on LCD TV panel sales from Omdia sees a strong rebound in year-on-year sales based on feedback from Korean and Chinese TV makers. If levels rise as expected, volumes of sales will reach 2020 levels after the 14-year lows of 2022.
You can choose to see this information as either the glass is half full or the glass is not quite clear on what its intentions are. The glass is half full is easy: goodie, sales are going to normalize in the second half of the year, orders pick up in anticipation in the second quarter, and the display world will have righted itself.
On the other hand, the glass is not clear on how full or empty it is crowd, with all the best data and intentions in the world, as right as Omdia may turn out to be, should listen to the cynics, like moi, who can’t see what is going to shape changes in demand. Covid may not be an issue for Chinese manufacturers in the second half of 2023, but geopolitical pressures will be. The Russia-Ukraine war, which got the blame for some macroeconomic pressures, is still going to be there in the second half of 2023. Interest rates have about a year before they go down which means that credit is going to be expensive, and inflation is going to linger.
What’s probably going to happen is that we are going to see deals and pricing pressure on TVs throughout 2023 in anticipation of a turnaround in the second half. Vendors will want to get rid of old inventory and, unless demand is significantly up in the second half of the year, pricing will be under pressure to see sell-through on new inventories thereafter.
On the bright side, and I have one, sometimes, assuming consumer confidence is higher than it is now, deals and bargains will drive sales of larger format displays with potential longer term benefits: it will encourage the adoption of newer technologies the more people have access to bigger screens because they will, naturally, start to gravitate towards bigger, brighter screens. They’ll be hooked. Especially in European and Asian markets where we are likely to see more robust consumer spending than the US, a market which is very hard to read right now.
Bigger LCD screen sales are the harbinger of future demand for newer display technologies because, let’s be frank, below 50 inches, you’re not going to need anything more than UHD, ever.
