By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest liquid crystal display (LCD) maker, expects a demand and supply imbalance to significantly boost profits in its LCD business next year.
The average supply growth rate of LCDs by the top five players will sink to a three-year low of 21 percent in 2008 from an estimated 44 percent this year and last year’s 62 percent mostly due to sagging shipments from Taiwanese manufacturers, including the world’s third-largest manufacturer AU Optronics, Samsung said.
Samsung said panel prices will continue to rise in 2008 thanks to growing demand for large- and medium-sized panels.
``Demand for flat screens bigger than 10 inches will rise over 15 percent to some 416 million in 2008 from 361 million this year, while that for flat screens smaller than 10 inches will experience double-digit gains,’’ the company said.
This market forecast was in line with local brokerages’ views that demand will rise about 30 percent in 2008 whereas supply will fall by less than 25 percent.
Earlier this week, U.S.-based market researcher iSuppli said Samsung Electronics maintained its top position as a market leader on the back of its strength in LCD TVs.
Samsung had 12.4 percent of the global market in the April-June quarter, followed by its local rival LG Electronics with 11.4 percent and Dutch group Philips with 7.1 percent. Japan’s Sanyo Electric took fourth place with 6.3 percent, according to the research firm.
iSuppli forecast that old-fashioned cathode-ray-tube televisions will make up only 38 percent of unit shipments in 2009, down from 56 percent this year, as flat-screen TVs led by LCDs are gaining popularity.
On Thursday, a senior Chinese official said Beijing was in favor of key Chinese television makers such as TCL forming strategic alliances with foreign manufacturers to produce 7.5- or eighth-generation flat-screen LCD panels.
TCL, once the world’s biggest manufacturer of televisions, fell to fifth from third with 5.6 percent of the global market in the second quarter, according to iSuppli.