January Panel Sales & Shipments

3/18/2022

January Panel Sales & Shipments

For the first month this year large panel sales were down 3.9% m/m and down 0.8% y/y, better than the 5 year average of -6.0% m/m. Large panel display industry shipments were down 4.6% m/m for January and up 3.8% y/y but better than the 5 year average of -8.7% m/m. Shipments for all product categories were down m/m in January, which follows both the aggregate shipment trend and the large panel sales trend for the month.

As we have large panel pricing data and a forecast for March pricing, Figure 1 overlays LCD large panel pricing over large panel sales, which gives an indication as to the expected trend in large panel sales through the end of March. While the projection also depends on the accuracy of the March forecast, it would seem that we should continue to expect the industry to see declining sales in February and possibly in March. While each panel producer has its own sales characteristics, we can see monthly sales data for AU Optronics (2409.TT) and Innolux (3481.TT), (Figure 2) which reinforce the downward trend scenario, given the release of negative m/m sales in February.
A bit more concerning is Figure 3, which shows the y/y change for each LCD large panel production region. While South Korea has been negative for over a year as Samsung Display (pvt) winds down its large panel LCD production and LG Display (LPL) reduces same, Taiwan producers are now seeing revenue lower than one year ago and the trend for Japan and China large panel display revenue remains negative. China has been the fastest growing region in the large panel display space, averaging 48.9% y/y growth (monthly average) last year, but saw only 10.7% y/y growth in January, bringing the region bringing February into the possibility of being the first month that China has not seen y/y growth in large panel display revenue since February 2018.