TV shipments into MEA robust

Dubai: Total TV shipments into Middle East and Africa (MEA) in the second quarter of 2008 stood at 2.82 million, an increase of 3.68 per cent compared to 2.72 million units in first quarter of 2008, a research firm said.

"Demand for TVs will be strong in the region as consumers replace old ones or the number of households grows and due to the falling prices in flat panel TVs," said Paul Gagnon, Director of North America TV Research, DisplaySearch.

LG Electronics retained its No 1 spot for the second consecutive quarter with shipments of 1.04 million units, followed by Samsung with 545,000 units and TCL with 205,000 units.

Gagnon said shipments were very high in second quarter and so far indications were that sell-through wasn't quite as strong. So we should see a weaker third quarter for sell-in shipments. However, this isn't unusual since third quarter is normally a seasonally weak period.

"Looking at the panel supply situation, orders from brands have softened with [growing] concern over end-market demand at a time when capacity of those panels is increasing. So an over-supply situation is shaping up in the fourth quarter through the early part of 2009.

'Cyclicality'

"This is typical of the LCD industry cyclicality - to have periods of over and under-supply, even if it seems a little exciting right now," said Karen Hopkins, for Strategia Marketing, at DisplaySearch. He added: "So far, we haven't seen a huge impact on TV sales due to the global slowdown. At least not in unit volume. The impact seems to be related to the types of TVs being purchased.

"We see entry level models at the lowest price points in their class doing well, while step-up feature-loaded models not performing as well. We are also seeing more modest screen sizes, like 32-inch, doing well while slightly larger models are underperforming, though not significantly."

The entire panel market for LCD has seen some very quick price declines since June, triggering panic among participants in the thick of the action.

Yet, shipments of TV panels so far this year have been very strong and sell-through in the US is higher, year-on-year. As such, demand weakness seems to be more perceived than actual.