By David Hsieh – Vice President, Greater China Market, DisplaySearch

“This over-supply is coming so fast and so hard,” said a senior sales manager at a TFT LCD company. Apparently, panel price reductions are more severe than anybody expected. Both the buy side (brands, ODMs and OEMs) and the sell side (panel makers) seem to be panicking about panel prices and losing confidence in market stability. Everyone is expecting panel prices to crash to panel makers’ cash cost very soon—maybe within two to three months—before we see a possibility for stability.
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By David Hsieh – Vice President, Greater China Market, DisplaySearch

On May 27, 2010 Acer and Founder announced that they had signed an agreement to work together in the China PC market. On August 4, the companies announced that they have deepened their cooperation. These moves are clearly intended to help Acer achieve its goal to become the #3 PC brand in China, with a target revenue of $2.5 billion in 2011. However, complicated legal procedures in China and prevailing patriotic sentiment of Chinese people could raise suspicions and misunderstandings about this deal.
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By Ken Park – Senior Manager, Korean FPD Market and Technology Research, DisplaySearch

According to PDP panel module shipment data in the Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, PDP module shipments had 42% and 49% Y/Y growth in Q1’10 and Q2’10, respectively. Samsung SDI and LGE are squeezing more from their capacity, and COC is expected to ship its first 42” PDP modules from its own line from Q3’10. Of course Panasonic always leads PDP module volume, for both TVs and public displays.
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By Charles Annis – Vice President, Manufacturing Research, DisplaySearch and Finlay Colville, Senior Analyst, Solarbuzz

Applied Materials has more experience depositing high quality silicon thin films on large glass substrates than any other company in the world, based on its PECVD tools for the production of TFT LCDs. So it seemed to offer a credible solution to the desire to add solar cell capacity despite the silicon shortage over the past few years: the SunFab™ turn-key Thin Film Si (TF Si) line, which could produce the biggest solar modules in the world. But Applied Materials struggled to sign up customers, and on July 21, announced it was discontinuing sales of its SunFab lines to new customers.
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By Charles Annis, Vice President of Asia Operations, Solarbuzz

On June 29, Solarbuzz revised its 2010 demand forecast up nearly 40% to 15.2 GW. The worldwide PV market is now expected to more than double in size this year! The solar industry is in the midst of yet another tremendous up cycle. Excitement about end market demand was clearly evident on the floor of PVJapan 2010, held in Yokohama from June 30 through July 2. But optimistic PV supply chain companies are anything but complacent.
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