Q4'07 worldwide shipments<br>of LCD TV increase

TV revenues also reach a record high and are up by 10% to $33 billion. DisplaySearch, a display market research and consulting company, reported in its latest announcement, that global TV shipments grew 21% Q/Q and 5% Y/Y to 60.8 million units, which brought 2007 total shipments to almost 200 million units worldwide. For the full year 2007, TV revenues exceeded $100 billion for the first time, with Q4’07 revenues climbing 10% Y/Y and 26% Q/Q to a record $32.9 billion. DisplaySearch also reported that LCD TV shipments worldwide overtook CRT TV shipments for the first time, after rising 56% Y/Y to a record of more than 28.5 million units or 47% of the world TV market. The strong LCD TV share gains can be attributed to share gains in all regions and the natural replacement for CRT. The LCD unit share improved in every region worldwide, including Europe, which had the strongest growth of the quarter. LCD penetration was highest in developed regions, reaching 86% in Japan, 84% in Western Europe and 78% in North America. But the strongest unit growth for LCD was in developing regions, such as Latin America, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa, which jointly rose 106% Y/Y, where penetration is low and the opportunity is substantial. LCD is the only other technology that extends down in screen size to less than 20”, which makes it a natural replacement to CRT TVs, as consumers upgrade and CRT TV tube capacity shrinks. Current plasma (PDP) TV technology extends down to 32”, but the CRT market is largely below this size, and many regions of the world have limited acceptance of 40”+ screen sizes. CRT has fallen from 77% of global TV shipments in Q1’06 to 46% in Q4’07, even with LCD prices at a 224% ASP premium for 32” and smaller screen sizes. Despite the natural replacement of the CRT TV market, LCD has also made strong share gains against plasma and RPTV technologies with new larger LCD panel fabs optimized to produce larger screen sizes more cost effectively. LCD share of 40”+ TV’s has grown from 44% to 65% Y/Y on a unit basis while PDP TV has fallen from 40% to 31% and RPTV is down from 16% to 3%.