According to TrendForce consulting display research report, 2023 panel factories set the goal of turning from loss to profit in the second half of the year, strictly control the production water level, and maintain the strategy of on-demand production. It is estimated that the supply and demand ratio of Gen5 (including) and above LCD display industry will fall to 2.1% in 2023, which is lower than the supply and demand balance of 3~5%. The overall market is tight.
Affected by high inflation, poor TV sales in 2022, coupled with the impact of large-size TV panels on brand layout due to high freight costs, not only caused a reduction in panel demand area, but also made panel quotes continue to decline, panel factories in order to quickly remove the inventory and operating pressure in the plant, since the third quarter of 2022 began to adjust the production level on a large scale. After two quarters of control, since the first quarter of 2023, whether IT is TV, or IT panel inventory level has declined significantly. Although the first quarter coincided with the traditional off-season demand, resulting in the supply and demand ratio compared with the fourth quarter of last year -7.1%, rose to 0.6%, and there is still a certain distance from the balance of supply and demand value of 3%, but the inventory has been significantly reduced compared with the previous two quarters, laying the foundation for the subsequent panel price increase.
According to TrendForce consulting statistics, the second quarter of the large generation line glass output area increased by about 13%, but the application of stock demand also rose, an increase of about 13.6%, supply and demand ratio of about 0.5%, and the first quarter of 0.6% is almost flat. As the market supply continues to be tight, the LCD TV panel quotation, which has 80% of the panel market capacity, has also been supported.
In the third quarter, the financial pressure of the panel factory slowed down slightly compared with the first half of the year, and the production willingness was higher than the second quarter, but it has not yet achieved the goal of quarterly profit, and it continues to carry out production control, and the tight supply and demand situation should be alleviated in the third quarter, and the supply and demand ratio is about 3.3%, which has reached the balance between supply and demand. The fourth quarter is the final sprint shipment time point this year, if some panel factories can be turned into a single quarter profit, the fourth quarter does not rule out the panel factory will face the phenomenon of different production attitudes, the supply and demand ratio will rise to 3.7%, still in the supply and demand balance range.
It is worth noting that TrendForce consulting believes that the current TV panel market supply and demand does not fully reflect the real situation, most of them are the result of careful control of production capacity in the past year, so the second half of the year still needs to focus on the panel factory operating rate and terminal sales changes.
