The Freedonia Group says World Electronic Displays Demand to Reach $113.5 Billion in 2008
Aggregate global demand for electronic displays is projected to increase better than 13 percent per year through 2008 to US$113.5 billion. Global demand for displays has surged over the past couple of years, in the face of strong demand for flat panel computer monitors and the initial generations of high-definition flat screen televisions. Further strong growth is expected, concentrated in the flat panel segment, where demand will increase at a robust pace of nearly 20 percent per annum. Aside from favorable aesthetics and ongoing improvements in resolution and picture quality, flat panel displays will benefit from their increasing cost-effectiveness relative to CRTs.
Liquid crystal displays (LCDs) -- and so-called active matrix LCDs built on thin-film transistors (TFT-LCDs) in particular -- have enjoyed very strong growth in recent years, and as of 2003, LCDs as a whole accounted for just under 90 percent of the total world flat panel display market. LCDs have achieved especially strong penetration in the desktop computer monitor market. Further robust growth in LCD demand is expected through the latter part of the decade and beyond. Plasma displays and microdisplays have also enjoyed healthy growth over the past several years, and will continue to post strong gains. These display technologies hold particularly good prospects in high-definition television (HDTV) applications, as do LCDs. Advanced-technology organic light-emitting diode (OLED) flat panel displays hold much promise over the intermediate-to-longer term, but cost and technical hurdles to large-scale commercialization remain formidable.
Electronic display production is dominated by Asian nations, in particular four countries -- South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China -- which in 2003 accounted for a combined share of just under 79 percent of total world electronic display shipments, and for 95 percent of flat panel display output. They owe this position primarily to pre-eminence in the high-volume TFT-LCD segment of the business. Not surprisingly, these countries -- Japan, South Korea and Taiwan in particular -- also represent the largest exporters of electronic displays to the rest of the world.
