Nikkei Electronics Asia --Jun. 2010
Analysis: LED-Backlight LCD Televisions Booming [Part.2]
LED Shortage for Televisions in 2010

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Jun 1, 2010 00:07 Tadashi Uno=Director of Materials and Components, DisplaySearch

Continued from the previous part

LED backlights are being used in increasingly large panels, primarily in TVs. In preparation for widespread market adoption, the manufacturers making these TVs and panels are getting worried about cutting LED backlight costs and ensuring a stable supply of LED chips. In this article, a specialist in the field backs up his supply and demand forecasts with the latest data.

As consumers become increasingly aware of environmental issues, LEDs are being used in more and more applications, including LCD TVs and lighting. The markets expected to exhibit the greatest growth in 2010 are those using LED backlights for large-screen LCD panels, such as LCD televisions, LCD monitors and notebook PCs Note 1).

Note 1) DisplaySearch defines a "large" LCD panel as having a screen size of 10 inches or more.

For the TV manufacturers there are many advantages to be gained by switching the backlight light source for large LCD panels from conventional cold cathode florescent lamps (CCFL) to LEDs. Specifically, the display can be made thinner, display performance improved and power consumption reduced. LEDs, unlike CCFLs, contain no mercury, making it possible to use their environmental friendliness as a sales point.

In 2009 Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. of Korea became the first company in the world to adopt LED backlights full-scale, in LCD televisions of 40 inches and larger. They advertised the thinner design possible, the sets were snapped up by consumers, and the firm enjoyed a huge success in the market. In the second half of 2009 other TV manufacturers followed suit by adopting LED backlights into their own mainstream models, and the ratio of LCD TVs with LED backlights is still climbing.

LED backlights have been used at an accelerating pace since 2009, especially in LCD TVs. This article examines how this trend is developing, and what effects are expected in the components supply chain as a result.

Large-Screen LCD Driving the LED Market

Fig.1 LED-Backlight LCD TVs Growing at 120% Annually
Diagram shows forecasts for various LED markets. The LCD TV market is expected to grow 120% annually. All diagrams by Nikkei Electronics based on material courtesy DisplaySearch.

First is the effect of LCD-backlight LCD TVs on the LED chip market. The LED chip market is expected to grow at 32% annually from 2009 through 2012, according to DisplaySearch forecasts. Large-screen LCD panels likely to drive this growth are LCD televisions (120% annual growth rate) and LCD monitors (135%) (Fig.1). Notebook PCs, which began using LED backlights as early as 2007, will grow at about 31% annually. The lighting market is expected to grow along with the LED backlight market, but it has only just come into existence, and annual growth is likely to be around 33%.