Across the industry, we have signs of a steep angled recovery - after Volterra posted impressive growth earlier today, we received a report from DisplaySearch, the research unit from NPD Group.
The report states that shipment of TFT LCD panels for notebooks grew to 11.6 million, marking a 38% growth over February/March, and equaled last year's March results. Conventional desktops grew by 24%, and LCD TVs grew by 30%. Overall, astounding results from the industry that shows the demand for all market segments. You can see the results in the table below, but these numbers are encouraging, to say the least.
Source: DisplaySearch, NPD Group
Overall market size in March 2009 [inside the display industry] recovered to $3.9 Billion, which is still 47% lower than in March 2008. This is sharp evidence about the growth of HDTV industry, which simply exploded in the past couple of months. To see LCDTV industry growing by 14% on Year-on-Year basis is just incredible. Customers surely just love to buy new HDTVs… or roughly 1.2 Million of them.
Looking by segment, every market segment saw the large increase of 16:9 panels - 16:9 panels now account for 24% of all notebooks, 28% of conventional desktop displays and of course, a 100% share in LCD TV arena. 32" LCDTV is the best seller, with more than four million units shipped - highest monthly volume ever recorded.
If the growth continues throughout current quarter [2Q'09], it will be a clear evidence of industry recovery. If the market shipments stagnate or decline, that will be a sign of oversupply during the first quarter. Only time will tell.
