The more than 430 booths, 163 participating companies and 28,000 visitors at the 9th International Flat Panel Display Exposition held at the Taipei World Trade Center June 13 to 15 attested to the growing importance of the FPD sector within the larger information and communications technology industry.
Otherwise known as "Display Taiwan 2007," this event--which was co-organized by the Photonics Industry & Technology Development Association (PIDA), Taiwan External Trade Development Council and Taipei Computer Association--highlighted current and future developments in FPD technology and popular FPD applications.
"The large number of booths and visitors made it Asia's second-largest FPD exhibition after Japan's FPD International, which is held annually in Yokohama," Deaphne Kuo, industry analyst of PIDA's Industry & Technology Research Division, said June 23. Major corporations that participated included AU Optronics Corp., Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp., Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. and Wintek Corp., a PIDA news release stated June 11.
Kuo said that the 28,000-plus visitors was up from 25,829 in 2006, a figure which included those attending related exhibitions under the Photonics Festival Taiwan 2007 banner: "Opto Taiwan 2007," "LED Lighting Taiwan 2007" and "Solar Taiwan."
Generating much attention were products from top LCD-panel makers, including the latest commercially viable innovation of a 65-inch full high-definition 120Hz liquid-crystal-display TV panel made by Hsinchu-based AU Optronics. Officially unveiled June 7, it was hailed as only the world's second commercial 65-inch LCD panel to reach cathode-ray-tube- and plasma-like image quality in motion picture response time, according to a June 7 AUO news release.
C.M. Wung, senior manager of AUO's Desktop Display Business Unit, Information Technology Display Business Group, represented his company at a June 7 question-and-answer session for media from Germany, Korea and the United Arabic Emirates that specialized in covering ICT affairs. His company was among the top three suppliers for thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT LCD) panels worldwide and a supplier of panels for diversified applications such as TVs, monitors and laptops, as well as audiovisual appliances such as video cameras, camcorders and DVDs, he said.
The company's latest 65-inch LCD TV panel was Taiwan's first, he said, and proved Taiwan's panel makers could provide customers with large panels. At present, he admitted, maximum panel size was still limited to 65 inches, but Taiwanese manufacturers already possessed technology capable of producing 70- or 80-inch panels. At present these were still at the research-and-development stage, however.
Pressed on the commercial possibilities for 80-plus-inch panels, Wung said it would still take some time since many technological aspects, such as plasma or projector, needed sorting out. Moreover, since the price would be high, customers would want to wait and see whether they could buy high-performance panels for lower prices. "Demand for panels smaller than 65 inches will increase very quickly this and next year, first due to decreased prices and second because of the trigger effect of full HD content," Wung added. "An increasing number of countries will announce digital content capable of supporting full HD."
AUO found momentum coming from consumer electronics, especially television and mobile phones, Wung noted. "Some TV brands had announced the launch of touch-panel products, which means screen sizes will increase as buttons will be moved out," he said. "New technologies will be integrated."
In the field of digital cameras and camcorders, bigger screens with high resolution enabled people to see pictures in more detail, Wung continued. "Another trend was what we call 'general-display,' which includes kiosks and public displays." The falling prices of panels, he said, meant that a cosmetic company, for example, could use LCD panels to promote their products sold in department stores, he said.
Similarly, Wung illustrated his point using the example of the price of 7-inch digital photo frames, for which panel prices had dropped by 60 to 70 percent. Three or four years ago they would have cost US$80 but now sold for around US$30, he said.
Wung said AUO's core competitiveness was its one-stop-shop concept. The company now had full-product lines, he claimed, which meant it did not focus on a single application and, by offering a range of products, could balance the up and down cycles of individual applications. Additional competitiveness came from AUO's definition of itself as a pure panel maker that did not engage in brand business.
In regards to flexible displays, Wung indicated that while the company was researching new technologies, AUO still focused on TFT LCD as its principal line of products.
Murphy Lin, manager of PIDA's Industry & Technology Research Department, said June 16 that the price war was extremely fierce and could further encourage consumer interest, but that low prices represented a challenge for manufacturers.
"If prices fall by 10 percent, the market will grow 20 percent," Lin said, adding that production value would increase by 7 percent and profits would grow in just single digits. Some basic LCD markets, such as laptops and monitors, would remain stable, he said, although LCD panels had overtaken the market for cathode-ray-tube monitors. LCD TVs had penetrated the living room, Lin added, where they would also replace traditional CRT TVs. Moreover, their size was expected to increase from the current 30 inches to more than 40 inches.
Taiwan's panel manufacturers were already focusing on TFT LCD, Lin stressed, and had almost completely abandoned their previous interest in various other types of panels, such as organic light-emitting diodes, and projector or plasma-display panels. Taiwan's share of the global TFT-LCD market was around 40 percent, although this fell to 34 percent if PDPs, OLEDs and so forth were included.
Taiwanese companies began their push into the LCD-panel industry in the late 1990s, which, in turn, promoted development of the entire display industry, the Chinese-language Economic Daily News reported June 13. The nation's FPD production value was US$25.7 billion in 2006, which represented a 15.9-percent increase over 2005, to which TFT LCD contributed US$23.8 billion, according to another June 11 PIDA news release.
With a predicted increase of 15 percent this year, the value of Taiwan's FPDs was likely to pass the US$30 billion benchmark in 2007, PIDA stated, to which TFT LCD would contribute approximately US$28 billion, an 18-percent growth riding on the back of the LCD TV market expansion.
Regarding future technological developments, although some 102-inch or 103-inch TFT models had been shown at exhibitions, commercial models would probably not exceed 100 inches in the end, Lin anticipated, and demand from the mainstream market would peak at 60 inches. He added, however, that this phenomenon would be mainly determined by consumer preference and price, with some analysts predicting that 42-inch LCD TVs might be big enough for ordinary consumers if prices of larger models did not fall dramatically.
Size not being everything, Lin said manufacturers' commitment to high definition meant that higher-resolution images were on the way to the homes of consumers in the next year or two.
Write to Edwin Hsiao at edwinhsiao@mail.gio.gov.tw