The LCD panel industry has always been a star that Taiwan is proud of. As early as 1990, Taiwan had already built Taiwan's first large-size TFT-LCD production line. South Korea's Samsung's first large-size TFT-LCD production line was established. One year later. But now Taiwan's panel industry is intensifying.
According to Taiwan media news, Apple announced the latest list of 200 suppliers in 2017. The list shows that three Taiwanese companies, including AUO, were excluded, and Gu Yu Precision Industry and Zhaoli Technology also fell out of Apple's 200-strong supply chain list. WisView senior associate Qiu Yubin said that in the display panel section, only the AUO supply of Apple Macbook air display panel in the first half of last year.
After AUO no longer supplies Apple, it means that the Taiwan panel factory has disappeared from the Apple supply chain. At the same time, the mainland BOE successfully entered the Apple supply chain. Also on the list of new Apples are Japan Special Ceramics (NGK) and Eaton (Eaton), an industrial equipment factory based in Dublin, Ireland.
The LCD panel industry has always been a star that Taiwan is proud of. As early as 1990, Taiwan had already built Taiwan's first large-size TFT-LCD production line. South Korea's Samsung's first large-size TFT-LCD production line was established. One year later. But now Taiwan's panel industry is intensifying.
Data show that in the first quarter of 2016, Taiwan's four major panel makers AUO, Huaying, Caijing, and Group were all losing money, with losses of more than 3.6 billion yuan. In the second quarter of 2016, the output value of Taiwan's LCD panel factory was 164.135 billion yuan, compared with 205.141 billion yuan in the same period of 2015, the annual recession rate was 20%.
Speaking of Taiwan's panel industry, the industry is worried that when the financial crisis broke out in 2008, many Taiwanese panel makers were in trouble. In order to help Taiwan panel makers solve difficulties, mainland China's panel makers went to Taiwan to purchase LCD panels. Billions of dollars, the total amount of more than 12 million, but Taiwan sold to South Korea at a low price, South Korea through the compression of LCD exports to China, pushing the panel price increase reached more than 30%, and then sold to the mainland at high prices.
Of course, based on this kind of grievances and hatreds, many people in the industry believe that China and Taiwan are united with South Korea to hang the mainland. But then, the mainland does not have the right to speak in the panel industry and has no product of its own. The market is monopolized by South Korea and Taiwan, and the price is controlled. Nothing to say.
However, such a case has made the Chinese panel industry itself feel a sense of crisis and strengthened in the panel industry. Since then, BOE has established a number of production lines in Hefei, Chengdu and Erdos, and the local SASAC has given a large amount of funds and technical support. Huaxing Optoelectronics and BOE have also grown stronger in this context.
The decline of Taiwan's panel factory also has industry and market factors. First of all, it is related to the industrial property of LCD panel: it requires capital re-investment, large fluctuations in market demand, and large input cost of panel factory production line, which means great uncertainty.
According to statistics, it takes 50 billion yuan to build a 6-generation line, more than 100 billion yuan for the 7.5-generation line, and more than 120 billion yuan for the 8.5-generation line. The mainstream panel size of the LCD production line will increase by 1.5 times every three years. Manufacturers need to continuously invest in new upgrade production lines to expand production capacity. This means that it is necessary to continuously invest huge sums of money and technology research and development personnel, which is a heavy burden for the limited panel industry in Taiwan.
There are even data showing that Taiwan’s investment in panel production lines from 2003 to 2009 accounted for more than one-third of Taiwan’s total fixed-asset investment in manufacturing. The data shows that more than 90% of the world's notebook computers, 25% of LCD TV assemblies and at least 50% of LCD monitors are assembled in Taiwan. The above three items account for more than 20% of the cost.
As mentioned above, there is uncertainty in the panel industry. The uncertainty is that the LCD panel belongs to the market economy cycle industry. Whether the market economy directly determines whether the panel factory is revenue or loss, because it is related to current mobile phones, computers, televisions, etc. The development momentum of the industry and international sports events are related. For example, international sports competitions such as the Olympic Games are launched. The market demand for energy-saving products is increasing and the price is increasing. The panel industry tends to usher in the peak season.
While the current sales of smartphones have slowed down and tablet sales have fallen, the Taiwan panel industry's 2015 output value has decreased by 13.5% year-on-year. As of this year, the impact panel industry output value has decreased by 31.9%. According to a report published by research firm DisplaySearch, the penetration rate of LCD TVs is close to 100% in developed countries, and the demand for large-size LCD panels has begun to decline. This has also indirectly caused an impact on Taiwan's panel industry.
Of course, there are competitors, and Taiwan's panel makers are gradually expanding, including South Korea's Samsung, LG and China's panel makers. Taiwan panel makers can be said to have suffered a two-pronged attack from price to brand and technical strength.
On the one hand, it can be seen that South Korea's Samsung and LG are diversified business strategies of vertical industry chain. LCD panel production is only one part of its business. They also have a large number of their own brand products, such as LCD TVs, LCD monitors, digital cameras, mobile phones, Washing machines, refrigerators, etc., can be used to subsidize panel cost investment in electronic product sales.
ALLIN , https://www.displayapio.com