Omdia Reports ‘Tight Supply’ of Gen 10.5 Glass for Large-Screen TVs

Flat-panel display demand is on pace to reach 220 million square meters (2.4 billion square feet) this year, more than 4% higher than in 2019, reported Omdia Monday. Q3 demand jumped more than 12% from Q2, it said. But there’s a looming supply crunch because large-area production capacity will grow only 2% in 2020, it said. Samsung is shutting its South Korean LCD panel fabs by year-end and is reducing its Gen 7 and Gen 8.5 TV capacity by about 19 million square meters (205 million square feet), “the equivalent of about 31 million 43-inch TVs,” it said. Samsung is weighing whether to postpone exiting the LCD panel business due to the sharp spike in stay-at-home consumer demand for premium LCD TVs, it told investors last week (see 2010290025). Disruptions in the supply chain also risk constricting panel availability, said Omdia. Multiple new Chinese fabs “have suffered delayed ramp-ups as travel restrictions on foreign engineers prevented the set-up of key equipment” during 2020's first half, it said. Q4 is “further being impacted by tight supply of Gen 10.5 glass substrates for some panel makers,” it said.