Shippin’ Out
As we hit mid-year we look at panel sales and shipments as one indicator of how the consumer electronics space has progressed and how it has performed relative to 2024 thus far. Here is how the panel space performed in June:
At the 2025 half, on a cumulative basis (against 2024) large panel shipments are up 7.7%, with most of that gain coming from notebook and tablet shipments, both of which are up over 10% YTD (cumulative). While panel sales have been on an upswing over last year and certainly over 2022 and 2023, we were curious to see how the first half of 2025 was tracking against the first half of 2024. According to the data, TV panel shipments tracked ahead of 2024 for the early part of this year and have underperformed since, while monitor shipments are running close to even y/y to date. Tablet demand has remained substantially ahead of last year’s depressed shipment levels and notebooks have also been standouts, staying ahead of last year ‘s shipment levels for most of the year, although the ‘PC refresh cycle’ began to take hold in 3Q last year, so the y/y gains for note books might be a bit more difficult to maintain for the rest of the year.
There has been considerable speculation as to why these two categories have performed better than last year and better than other categories in the panel space. We try to quantify these factors as the year progresses, which we list below, with our rating on how much we believe that particular factor has influenced panel shipments. A 10 means we believe that factor had a major influence on panel demand and shipments, and zero mean we believe it had no influence on same. Note that only two of these topics are ‘ours’, the rest come from a variety of ‘informed’ sources.
There has been considerable speculation as to why these two categories have performed better than last year and better than other categories in the panel space. We try to quantify these factors as the year progresses, which we list below, with our rating on how much we believe that particular factor has influenced panel shipments. A 10 means we believe that factor had a major influence on panel demand and shipments, and zero mean we believe it had no influence on same. Note that only two of these topics are ‘ours’, the rest come from a variety of ‘informed’ sources.
We expect TV panel shipments to track roughly 8% below last year’s levels, while we expect monitor shipments to outperform 2024 shipments modestly. We expect notebook shipment levels will stay relatively strong but will face more difficult comparisons later in the year, while tablet shipments will be maintained at a higher level than last year but will see some shipment pressure in the back half. Aside from seasonality and our gut level predictions, we took a few moments to ask Gemini (GOOG) what it might predict for panel shipments for the rest of the year. We rarely ask AIs to do data analysis unless we specify the type of analysis, but in this case we gave Gemini the data and asked it to predict the monthly results for the four key panel categories, in any manner it chose, making sure that the process used was detailed.
Here is how (no prompting) Gemini decided to make the calculations:
Gemini calculated the ‘growth factor’ for the first six months of both years by adding monthly shipments and then dividing. This resulted in a growth factor (19.31%) that was applied to each month in the 2nd half of 2024, representing the shipment levels for the remainder of 2025. The result is an optimistic view of panel shipments, a 9.1% y/y improvement for 2025. Again we gave Gemini no instructions on what methodology to use for the calculations. We will track progress against Gemini’s prediction as the year develops to see how close the AI gets to actual final 2025 shipments.
In the interim, here is the visual of the 2024/2025 panel shipment comparison and the longer-term view::
Here is how (no prompting) Gemini decided to make the calculations:
Gemini calculated the ‘growth factor’ for the first six months of both years by adding monthly shipments and then dividing. This resulted in a growth factor (19.31%) that was applied to each month in the 2nd half of 2024, representing the shipment levels for the remainder of 2025. The result is an optimistic view of panel shipments, a 9.1% y/y improvement for 2025. Again we gave Gemini no instructions on what methodology to use for the calculations. We will track progress against Gemini’s prediction as the year develops to see how close the AI gets to actual final 2025 shipments.
In the interim, here is the visual of the 2024/2025 panel shipment comparison and the longer-term view::
Figure 1Large Panel Shipments - 1H 2025 vs. 1H 2024 - Source: SCMR LLC, OMDIA, Runto, Company Data
Figure 2 - Large Panel Shipments - 2019 - 2025 YTD - Source: SCMR LLC,OMDIA, Runto, Company Data
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