Touchscreen panels for notebooks to ship 4.9M in Q4

The drop in demand for touchscreen panels used in notebooks and a lukewarm increase in Q3 will see things turn around in Q4 when the segment will grow with two-digit figures, forecasted IHS. Shipments of the touch panels will reach to 4.9 million sheets in Q4, up 10 per cent from 4.4 million in Q3, stated the market research firm.

"While the overall notebook PC market remains sluggish, sales of touch panels for notebook PCs are showing some signs of life in Q4," said Stone Wu, principal analyst for display components and materials at IHS. "The resumption of double-digit growth is being driven by the full-scale launch of 10.1in touch-screen panels that appeal to consumers, along with the introduction of a new microprocessor solution and the arrival of exciting new form factors."

Despite the growth in H2, demand for laptops with touch panels is falling short of expectations in 2013. Overall shipments of notebooks have been weak this year because of the continuing inroads of media tablets into consumer demand. This has slowed growth even in the hot touch-screen notebook segment.

However, even with the disappointing growth, shipments of notebook touchscreen panels will rise to 18.2 million sheets in 2013, up nearly 500 per cent from 3.2 million in 2012. This makes touch-screen notebooks the fastest-growing segment of the PC market today.

The notebook touch-screen panel market in H2 has been boosted by the launch of products based on the new low-power Atom Bay Trail CPU chip from Intel.

The market also is getting a lift from the release of two-in-one convertible form-factor notebooks that have detachable displays.

Shipments of notebook touch-screen panels that are smaller than 10.1in are expected to flourish in the near term thanks to heavy subsidies to be provided by Intel and Microsoft for laptops with touch-screen panels and utilising the Atom chip or the Windows 8.1 OS.

Even with the rise in shipments in Q3, the notebook touch-screen panel market dwindled in terms of shipment area and revenue compared to Q2.

The average shipments area per unit in Q3 was 0.065m², or 4.1 per cent smaller than the 0.068m² of Q2.

Market revenue for notebook touch-screen panels came to $190.2 million, down 12.8 per cent from Q2. Pricing was impacted by an oversupply of panels, particularly in the large-sized laptop market.

In terms of form factors for notebooks with touch-screen panels, the most prominent change in Q3 was the decrease in clamshell types, with their share of market shipments falling to 63.4 per cent, down from 75.2 per cent in Q2. Meanwhile, the detachable segment rose to 16.9 per cent, up from 11.5 per cent. Tablet form-factor types rose to 12.7 per cent, up from 5.5 per cent.

Much of the growth in the detachable and tablet form factors is attributed to the heavy subsidies originating from Intel and Microsoft.