DAustralians are moving to large over 50" HD flat panel TV's claims a senior executive of Harvey Norman. The move is in line with a global trend say executives at Display Search who have confirmed that shipments of large-size LCD panels grew 6% on quarter and 23% on year to 117.9 million units in the second quarter of 2008, the largest number of large-area panels ever shipped in a quarter.
Other retailers are reporting the same large screen trend with several LCD vendors caught out with a lack of over 50" screens. Among them are Sony and LG. However vendors like Panasonic and Pioneer who have stock of 50" HD plasma TV's are set to benefit.
David Ackery General Manager of Electrical at Harvey Norman sais "Sales of flat panel TV's are going well pre the Olympics in Beijeing. We have seen strong sales of HD TV's and even stronger sales of over 50" LCD TV's". Harvey Norman has also benefitted from increased demand for new notebooks including large 17" models.
According to Display Search notebook panel shipments reached a historical high of 37.2 million units in the second quarter, up 13% on quarter and 37% on year. The 15.4-inch widescreen segment remained over 50% of the notebook panels shipped; but the new 16:9 panels, including 15.6-inch, 16-inch, 16.4-inch, and 18.4-inch, reached a 3% share in the second quarter, up from just 1% in the first quarter.
Monitor panel shipments reached 52.5 million units in the second quarter, up 6% on quarter and 13% on year. Monitor panel shipments are not just for the LCD monitor end-market, with growing use of LCD monitor panels in pure LCD TVs, especially in the 19-inch widescreen category. With this trend in mind, 19-inch widescreen and 17-inch SXGA remain the two largest segments for actual LCD monitor panel shipments with 28% and 16% shares, respectively. However, the new 16:9 panels, including 15.0-inch, 15.6-inch, 17.0-inch, 18.5-inch, 21.5-inch and 24.0-inch, doubled their share to 6.6% in the second quarter, up from just 3% in the first quarter.
