Commentary: Innovations needed to keep panel industry moving forward
Rebecca Kuo, Tainan; Alex Wolfgram, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 23 April 2014]
Creating new demand through innovations and unique solutions will be crucial to the panel industry in upcoming years as the primary panel markets, including handsets, notebooks and monitors, mature.
That was the tone at the recent 2014 Finetech expo in Tokyo where panel makers from across Asia convened to showcase new display technologies. Panel makers also gave talks on their views about the development of the panel industry, with Sharp stating that it expects the industry to grow annually by about 4% from 2014-2020 compared to 1993-2013 when the industry grew about 20% a year.
In Sharp's view, the panel industry is being constrained by developing when product demand comes about, such is the case for mature products like TVs and notebooks, rather than setting the bar for technologies, both new and existing, to follow. This is leading to a slowdown in the panel industry, and makers need to focus on creating new applications and demand for their products, according to the company.
Samsung Display representative Haksun Kim meanwhile said the company expects industry growth to be around 7.4% a year through 2020. Samsung sees potential in mobile life and connectivity solutions in addition to curved, flexible, transparent and other niche segments.
While both makers have different viewpoints on market prospects, their estimations about annual panel growth are noticeably down compared to recent years. This means that applications for panels are mature in the market. If such a trend continues, and is coupled with improving pricing and production capacity competitiveness from China's panel industry, Taiwan-, Japan- and Korea-based panel makers could face serious challenges.
Innovation, diverse product mixes, value-added products, and an increased focus on niche markets will therefore be crucial for panel makers, in addition to creating products that will give device vendors a roadmap to follow, rather than the other way around.
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