Mobile phones drive small/medium LCD<br>shipments past 3.8 billion units in 2007

Largely because of this, shipments of small/medium LCDs—i.e. displays smaller than 10-inches in diagonal size that are used in devices like mobile phones, MP3 players, Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) and many other products—will exceed 3.8 billion units this year, up 6.3 percent from 3.6 billion in 2006. Revenue will decline, dropping to $19.9 billion by 2011, falling at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 3 percent from $22.7 billion in 2007 due to severe price erosion. “The overall small/medium display market, which also includes monochrome character-segmented displays used in digital clocks and other such applications, is changing to color and is adopting better-performing, higher-end Thin-Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) technology," said Vinita Jakhanwal, principal analyst, mobile displays, for iSuppli. “The market for small/medium color displays is set to grow to 2.1 billion units by 2011, expanding at a CAGR of 7 percent from 1.8 billion units in 2006. The small/medium TFT-LCD market will grow more aggressively at a 11 percent CAGR from 1.2 billion in 2007 to 1.9 billion in 2011." Mobile phones are the largest application market for small/medium TFT-LCD displays, accounting for about 67 percent of sub-10-inch TFT-LCD display shipments. Shipments of mobile phones using TFT-LCDs are expected to exceed 835 million units in 2007, up 36 percent from 614 million in 2006, according to iSuppli. The market is set to grow to 1.3 billion units by 2011. However, in terms of revenue, the mobile-handset TFT-LCD market will decline to $10.3 billion in 2011, decreasing at a CAGR of negative 2 percent from $11.1 billion in 2007 due to the price erosion. Although growth is expected from other applications, iSuppli believes mobile handsets will continue to dominate small/medium display demand for the foreseeable future driven by the following factors.