LCD panel demand will increase by 10% in 2011, and Corning will expand its glass production capacity

According to the analysis report of DisplaySearch LCD glass substrates, the demand area of ​​TFT-LCD panels is expected to increase by 10.4% in 2011, and the demand for TFT-LCD glass will increase by 11%. The glass substrate factories including Corning will have to expand their production capacity to respond to the rapid growth. Glass requirements.

Due to the tight market supply in 2009, TFT-LCD glass substrate manufacturers substantially expanded their production capacity in 2010, and the supply area increased by 32% year-on-year. DisplaySearch estimates that glass production capacity will continue to increase by 13% in 2011. However, due to lower capacity utilization rate in the first quarter of a number of panel plants, it is expected that the supply of glass substrates in the first quarter of 2011 will exceed supply, and the supply will be about 12.8% higher than the demand.

As the investment in new glass furnaces is extremely expensive, the recent increase in production capacity has largely come from increasing the capacity of existing furnaces, increasing the yield rate, and accelerating the production process. For Fusion production process manufacturers, the main way to increase productivity is to produce thinner glass substrates, especially in the sixth generation line and higher generation line 0.5mm, thus replacing the original 0.7mm. It is estimated that from the second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2011, TFT-LCD glass production capacity will increase by 42%, and the number of glass furnaces will grow by 15%.

“The capacity will increase by 13% in 2011, and the investment in the new furnace will account for 7% of this growth, and the remaining 6% will be the expansion of existing furnace capacity.” Tadashi Uno, Research Director of Materials and Components at DisplaySearch, said, “As a result, new The production capacity of 7% of the furnace will be able to meet the growth of 11% of the demand, and the expansion of the existing capacity will bring more substantial profits to the glass manufacturers."

Forecast quarterly demand for glass substrates according to actual application (Source: DisplaySearch, 4Q2010)

Since the market began to improve in the second quarter of 2009, glass substrate manufacturers have different production capacity expansion strategies. The top three companies are Corning (including Corning and South Korea's Samsung Corning), Asahi Glass and NEG. Among them, Corning has given up part of the TFT-LCD market share and transferred some of its production capacity to Gorilla Glass. . The market share of Samsung Corning and Asahi Glass remained basically the same as before, while NEG continued to increase market share.

Since the second quarter of 2009, Corning has moved all glass melters from the United States and some of Taiwan to Gorilla Glass. In addition, Corning's new production of Gorilla Glass furnace in Japan, Samsung Corning Precision also transferred some of the furnace production of Gorilla Glass; on the other hand, Corning also increased the production capacity of TFT-LCD glass. If we only look at TFT LCD capacity expansion, from the second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2011, the production capacity of Corning (including Samsung Corning Precision) TFT-LCD glass increased by a total of 29%, while Asahi increased by 54%, NEG more Up to 71%.