LCD Display panel Industry Report 2021

[Introduction]: This paper analyzes the competitive pattern of the panel display industry from both supply and demand sides. On the supply side, the optimization of the industry competition pattern by accelerating the withdrawal of Samsung’s production capacity is deeply discussed. Demand-side focuses on tracking global sales data and industry inventory changes.

LCD display panel industry special report: Samsung exit + epidemic disturbance, see panel display new pattern of supply and demand.

1. From both sides of the supply and demand since April LCD display plate market

Since April 2020, the display device sector rose 4.81%, ranking 11th in the electronic subsectors, 3.39 percentage points behind the SW electronic sector, 0.65 percentage points ahead of the Shanghai and Shenzhen 300 Index. Of the top two domestic panel display companies, TCL Technology is up 11.35 percent in April and BOE is up 4.85 percent.

Specific to the panel display plate, we still do the analysis from both ends of supply and demand: supply-side: February operating rate is insufficient, especially panel display module segment grain rate is not good, limited capacity to boost the panel display price. Since March, effective progress has been made in the prevention and control of the epidemic in China. Except for some production lines in Wuhan that have been delayed, other domestic panels show that the production lines have returned to normal. In South Korea, Samsung announced recently that it would accelerate its withdrawal from all LCD production lines. This round of output withdrawal exceeded market expectations both in terms of pace and amplitude. We will make a detailed analysis of it in Chapter 2.

Demand-side: We believe that people spend more time at home under the epidemic situation, and TV, as an important facility for family entertainment, has strong demand resilience. In our preliminary report, we have interpreted the pick-up trend of domestic TV market demand in February, which also showed a good performance in March. At present, the online market in China maintains a year-on-year growth of about 30% every week, while the offline market is still weak, but its proportion has been greatly reduced. At present, people are more concerned about the impact of the epidemic overseas. According to the research of Cinda Electronics Industry Chain, in the first week, after Italy was closed down, local TV sales dropped by about 45% from the previous week. In addition, Media Markt, Europe’s largest offline consumer electronics chain, also closed in mid-March, which will affect terminal sales to some extent, and panel display prices will continue to be under pressure in April and May. However, we believe that as the epidemic is brought under control, overseas market demand is expected to return to the pace of China’s recovery.

2. The panel shows that the price is under short-term pressure, and the low inventory is gaining momentum for recovery

From a price perspective, the panel shows that prices have risen every month through March since the bottom of December 19 reversed. However, according to AVC’s price bulletin of TV panel display in early April, the price of TV panel display in April will decrease slightly, and the price of 32 “, 39.5 “, 43 “, 50 “and 55” panels will all decrease by 1 USD.65 “panel shows price down $2; The 75 “panel shows the price down by $3.The specific reasons have been described above, along with the domestic panel display production line stalling rate recovery, supply-side capacity release; The epidemic spread rapidly in Europe and the United States, sports events were postponed, local blockades were gradually rolled out, and the demand side declined to a certain extent.

Looking ahead to Q2, we think prices will remain under pressure in May, but prices are expected to pick up in June as Samsung’s capacity is being taken out and the outbreak is under control overseas. At the same time, from the perspective of channel inventory, the current all-channel inventory, including the inventory of all panel display factories, has fallen to a historical low. The industry as a whole has more flexibility to cope with market uncertainties. At the same time, low inventory is also the next epidemic warming panel show price foreshadowing.

3. LCD display panel valuation full callback, to be medium-term logic cash

In terms of valuation level, due to the low concentration and fierce competition in the panel display industry in the past ten years, the performance of sector companies is cyclical to a certain extent. Therefore, PE, PB, and other methods should be comprehensively adopted for valuation. On the other hand, the domestic panel shows that the leading companies in the past years have sustained large-scale capital investment, high depreciation, and a long period of poor profitability, leading to the inflated TTM PE in the first half of 2014 to 2017. Therefore, we will display the valuation level of the sector mainly through the PB-band analysis panel in this paper.

In 2017, due to the combined impact of panel display price rise and OLED production, the valuation of the plate continued to expand, with the highest PB reaching 2.8 times. Then, with the price falling, the panel shows that PB bottomed out at the end of January 2019 at only 1.11 times. From the end of 2019 to February, the panel shows that rising prices have driven PB all the way up, the peak PB reached 2.23 times. Since entering March, affected by the epidemic, in the short term panel prices under pressure, the valuation of the plate once again fell back to 1.62 times. In April, the epidemic situation in the epidemic country was gradually under control, and the valuation of the sector rebounded to 1.68 times.

We believe the sector is still at the bottom of the stage as Samsung accelerates its exit from LCD capacity and industry inventories remain low. Therefore, once the overseas epidemic is under control and the domestic demand picks up, the panel shows that prices will rise sharply. In addition, the plate will also benefit from Ultra HD drive in the long term. Panel display plate medium – and long-term growth logic is still clear. Coupled with the optimization of the competitive pattern, industry volatility will be greatly weakened. The current plate PB compared to the historical high has sufficient space, optimistic about the plate leading company’s investment value.

4. Leading stock price performance at home and abroad

1). share market, in April in addition to Zhiyun shares, Tiantong shares, Yizhi technology fell, the rest of the stock plate rose, precision test electronics, Lebao high-tech and TCL technology rose larger, reaching 22.38%, 11.45%, and 11.35% respectively.
In the overseas market, benefiting from the control of the epidemic in Japan and South Korea, all stocks except UDC rose. Among them, Innolux Optoelectronics, Finetek, AU Optoelectronics rose more than 10%.

Revenue at Innolux and AU Optronics has been sluggish for several months and improved in March. Since the third quarter of 2017, Innolux’s monthly revenue growth has been negative, while AU Optronics has only experienced revenue growth in a very few months.AU Optronics recorded a record low revenue in January and increased in February and March. Innolux’s revenue returned to growth in March after falling to its lowest in recent years in February. However, because the panel display manufacturers in Taiwan have not put in new production capacity for many years, the production process of the existing production line is relatively backward, and the competitiveness is not strong.

LGD gained 5.41% in April and is down 32.56% year-to-date. LG Display reported a loss of 422 billion won ($361.6 million) in the fourth quarter of 2019, with revenue down 8% to 6.4 trillion won. That came after LG Display posted an operating loss of 437 billion won ($372 million) in the third quarter on a 4.6% year-on-year drop in revenue to 5.82 trillion won. For the entire year, LGD posted a record operating loss of 1.36 trillion won, its first such large full-year loss in eight years.

On March 31, Samsung Display China officially sent a notice to customers, deciding to terminate the supply of all LCD products by the end of 2020.LGD had earlier announced that it would close its local LCDTV panel display production by the end of this year. In the following, we will analyze the impact of the accelerated introduction of the Korean factory on the supply pattern of the panel display industry from the perspective of the supply side.

1. Three reasons promote the capacity withdrawal of Korean plants

The early market on the panel display plate is controversial, mainly worried about the exit of Korean manufacturers, such as LCD display panel price rise, or will slow down the pace of capacity exit as in 17 years. And we believe that this round of LCD panel prices and 2017 prices are essentially different, the LCD production capacity of South Korean manufacturers exit is an established strategy, will not be transferred because of price warming. Investigating the reasons, we believe that there are mainly the following three factors driving:

(1) Under the localization, scale effect, and aggregation effect, the Chinese panel leader has lower cost and stronger profitability than the Japanese and Korean manufacturers. In terms of cost structure, according to IHS data, material cost accounts for 70% of the cost displayed by the LCD panel, while depreciation accounts for 17%, so the material cost has a significant impact on it. At present, the upstream LCD, polarizer, PCB, mold, and key target material line of the mainland panel display manufacturers are fully imported into the domestic, effectively reducing the material cost. In addition, at the beginning of the factory, manufacturers not only consider the upstream glass and polarizer factory but also consider the synergy between the downstream complete machine factory, so as to reduce the labor cost, transportation cost, etc., forming a certain industrial clustering effect. The growing volume of shipments also makes the economies of scale increasingly obvious. In the long run, the profit gap between the South Korean plant and the mainland plant will become even wider.

(2) The 7 and 8 generation production lines of the Korean plant cannot adapt to the increasing demand for TV in average size. Traditionally, the 8 generation line can only cut the 32 “, 46 “, and 60” panel displays. In order to cut the other size panel displays economically and effectively, the panel display factory has made small adjustments to the 8 generation line size, so there are the 8.5, 8.6, 8.6+, and 8.7 generation lines. But from the cutting scheme, 55 inches and above the size of the panel display only part of the generation can support, and the production efficiency is low, hindering the development of large size TV. Driven by the strong demand for large-size TV, the panel display generation line is also constantly breaking through. In 2018, BOE put into operation the world’s first 10.5 generation line, the Hefei B9 plant, with a designed capacity of 120K/ month. The birth of the 10.5 generation line is epoch-making. It solves the cutting problem of large-size panel displays and lays the foundation for the outbreak of large-size TV. From the cutting method, one 10.5 generation line panel display can effectively cut 18 43 inches, 8 65 inches, 6 75 inches panel display, and can be more efficient in hybrid mode cutting, with half of the panel display 65 inches, the other half of the panel display 75 inches, the yield is also guaranteed. Currently, there are a total of five 10.5 generation lines in the world, including two for domestic panel display companies BOE and Huaxing Optoelectronics. Sharp has a 10.5 generation line in Guangzhou, which is mainly used to produce its own TV. Korean manufacturers do not have the 10.5 generation line. In the context of the increasing size of the TV, Korean manufacturers are obviously at a disadvantage in competitiveness.

(3) As the large-size OLED panel display technology has become increasingly mature, Samsung and LGD hope to transfer production to large-size OLED with better profit prospects as soon as possible. Apart from the price factor, the reason why South Korean manufacturers are exiting LCD production is more because the large-size OLED panel display technology is becoming mature, and Samsung and LGD hope to switch to large-size OLED production as soon as possible, which has better profit prospects. At present, there are three major large-scale OLED solutions including WOLED, QD OLED, and printed OLED, while there is only WOLED with a mass production line at present.

According to statistics, shipments of OLED TVs totaled 2.8 million in 2018 and increased to 3.5 million in 2019, up 25 percent year on year. But it accounted for only 1.58% of global shipments. The capacity gap has greatly limited the volume of OLED TV.LG alone consumes about 47% of the world’s OLED TV panel display capacity, thanks to its own capacity. Other manufacturers can only purchase at a high price. According to the industry chain survey, the current price of a 65-inch OLED panel is around $800-900, while the price of the same size LCD panel is currently only $171.There is a significant price difference between the two.

To sum up, we believe that Samsung, LGD, and other South Korean factories are resolute in their capacity to withdrawal from this round and will not be delayed or change their plans due to the impact of subsequent price recovery.

2. The pace and range of Samsung’s exit are far beyond the market expectation

Samsung and LGD began to shut down LCD production lines in Q3 last year, leading to the recovery of the panel display sector. Entering 2020, the two major South Korean plants have announced further capacity withdrawal planning. In the following section, we will focus on its capacity exit plan and compare it with the original plan. It can be seen that the pace and magnitude of Samsung’s exit this round is much higher than the market expectation:

(1) LGD: LGD currently has three large LCD production lines of P7, P8, and P9 in China, with a designed capacity of 230K, 240K, and 90K respectively. At the CES exhibition at the beginning of this year, the company announced that IT would shut down all TV panel display production capacity in South Korea in 2020, mainly P7 and P8 lines, while P9 is not included in the exit plan because IT supplies IT panel display for Apple.

According to our latest industry chain survey, by the end of Q1 in 2020, P7 production capacity remains 140K; P8 has 100K of capacity left.P7 is expected to shut down by the end of the year, and P8 will shut down all TV production capacity at the end of the year, but there is still 40KIT production capacity to continue.

(2) Samsung: At present, Samsung has L8-1, L8-2, and L7-2 large-size LCD production lines in South Korea, with designed production capacities of 200K, 150K, and 160K respectively. At the same time in Suzhou has a 70K capacity of 8 generation line.

Samsung had planned to retire all L8-1 and L8-2 capacity by the end of 2021, while L7-2 would retain 50K of IT capacity. This time, it is planned to withdraw all production capacity by the end of 2020, among which the production line in South Korea will be converted to Qdoled, and the production line in Suzhou will be sold.

This round of capacity withdrawal of South Korean plants began in June 2019. Based on the global total production capacity in June 2019, Samsung will withdraw 1,386,900 square meters of production capacity in 2019-2020, equivalent to 9.69% of the global production capacity, according to the previous two-year withdrawal expectation. In 2021, 697,200 square meters of production capacity will be withdrawn, which is equivalent to 4.87% of the global production capacity, and a total of 14.56% will be withdrawn in three years. After the implementation of the new plan, Samsung will eliminate 2.422 million square meters of production capacity by the end of 2020, equivalent to 16.92 percent of the global capacity. This round of production plans from the pace and range are far beyond the market expectations.

3. The trend of increasing industry demand will not change, and 2021 will be available

Global shipments of TV panel displays totaled 281 million in 2019, down 1.06 percent year on year, according to Insight. In fact, TV panel display shipments have been stable since 2015 at between 250 and 300 million units. At the same time, from the perspective of the structure of sales volume, the period from 2005 to 2010 was the period when the size of China’s TV market grew substantially. Third-world sales also leveled off in 2014. We believe that the sales volume of the TV market has stabilized and there is no big fluctuation. The impact of the epidemic on the overall demand may be more optimistic than the market expectation.

In contrast to the change in volume, we believe that the core driver of the growth in TV panel display demand is actually the increase in TV size. According to the data statistics of Group Intelligence Consulting, the average size of TV panel display in 2014 was 0.47 square meters, equivalent to the size of 41 inches screen. In 2019, the average TV panel size is 0.58 square meters, which is about the size of a 46-inch screen. From 2014 to 2019, the average CAGR of TV panel display size is 4.18%. Meanwhile, the shipment of TV in 2019 also increased compared with that in 2014. Therefore, from 2014 to 2019, the compound growth rate of the total area demand for TV panel displays is 6.37%.

It is assumed that 4K screen and 8K screen will accelerate the penetration and gradually become mainstream products in the next 2-3 years. The pace of screen size increase will accelerate. We have learned through industry chain research that the average size growth rate of TV will increase to 6-8% in 2020. Driven by the growth of the average size, the demand area of global TV panel displays is expected to grow even if TV sales decline, and the upward trend of industry demand remains unchanged.

Meanwhile, the global LCDTV panel display demand will increase significantly in 2021, driven by the recovery of terminal demand and the continued growth of the average TV size. In 2021, the whole year panel display will be in a short supply situation, the mainland panel shows that both males will enjoy the price elasticity.

This paper analyzes the competition pattern of the panel display industry from both supply and demand sides. On the supply side, the optimization of the industry competition pattern by accelerating the withdrawal of Samsung’s production capacity is deeply discussed. Demand-side focuses on tracking global sales data and industry inventory changes. Overall, we believe that the current epidemic has a certain impact on demand, and the panel shows that prices may be under short-term pressure in April or May. But as Samsung’s exit from LCD capacity accelerates, industry inventories remain low. So once the overseas epidemic is contained and domestic demand picks up, the panel suggests prices will surge. We are firmly optimistic about the A-share panel display plate investment value, maintain the industry “optimistic” rating. Suggested attention: BOE A, TCL Technology.