Taipei, March 30, 2009 (CENS)--Global shipments of large-sized (over-10-inch) thin film transistor-liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels in February grew 23% month-on-month (MoM) to reach 29.5 million units, while revenues reached US$2.96 billion, up 14% MoM, according to DisplaySearch, the worldwide leader in display market research and consulting.

For both unit shipments and revenues, February saw the first positive monthly growth since September 2008. DisplaySearch said that February`s results were mainly due to increasing rush orders, as well as inventory refill from clients, but they could also be an indication that the TFT-LCD industry is at, or near, the bottom of the cycle.

DisplaySearch ponited out that it found that LCD monitor panels had the highest MoM growth at 37%, followed by notebook PC at 21% and TV at 11%. However, shipments in the month are still lower than that the same perod of last year, and the year-on-year (YoY) decline is 17%.

In the notebook segment, LGD led with a 32.2% unit share, followed by Samsung at 29.9% and AU Optronics Corp. (AUO), the largest panel manufacturer in Taiwan, at 15.9%. Samsung led in the monitor application with a 27% unit share, followed by LGD at 23.2% and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. (CMO, No. 2 in Taiwan) at 16.4%. LG Display also led in the TV application with 26.8% unit share, followed by Samsung at 25.2% and CMO at 17.9%.

Monthly Large-sized TFT-LCD Panel Shipments by Application Unit: Millions
	Feb. 08	Jan. 09	Feb. 09	M/M Growth	Y/Y Growth
Notebook PC	10.3	7.1	8.6	21%	-17%
Monitor	16.1	9.1	12.4	37%	-23%
TV	8.1	6.9	7.7	11%	-6%
Other	1.0	0.8	0.8	-	-20%
L/A Total	35.5	24.7	29.5	23%	-17%
Source: DisplaySearch, March 2009 Monthly TFT LCD ShipmentDatabase.

(by Quincy Liang)