Despite facing excess capacity and the resulting erosion in panel prices and profitability within the flat panel supply chain, several trends are adding value to the display market: a shift toward larger panel sizes, and the commercialisation of advanced display technologies and specifications, such as higher resolution, wider viewing angles, integrated touch functionality, and slimmer and lighter form factors.

“The average diagonal sizes of key FPD applications have increased over the past three years, and every inch of growth in flat panel display applications results in growth in area demand and thus capacity utilisation,” says NPD DisplaySearch vice president of Greater China market research David Hsieh.

“Once consumers adopt larger panel sizes, it’s difficult for them to revert to smaller displays and lower resolution. As a result, the increase in average diagonal sizes will accelerate in 2013 as well as long-term growth for the flat panel display industry.”

Desktop monitor
NPD DisplaySearch anticipates challenges in desktop monitor panel demand especially in 2012 and 2013. That challenge is a result of the maturity of desktop PC bundles and stagnant replacement in the stand-alone PCs. However, consumers are buying larger-sized LCD monitors such as 23”, 24”, and 27”, so average monitor diagonal size is increasing from 19.9” in 2010 to 20.9” in 2013.

LCD TV
Significant growth for LCD TV panel sizes are also forecast, with the adoption of new LCD TV panel sizes replacing smaller sizes: 28”/29” replacing 26”, 39” replacing 37”, 50” replacing 46”/47”, and 60” replacing 55”.

Mobile PC
Mobile PCs are the only key segment where average screen size is falling as smaller-sized tablet PCs take share and the ultra-portable segment grows within notebook PCs.

Mobile phones
Mobile phone display sizes are increasing from 2.4” in 2010 to 3.3” in 2013, driven by the larger, higher resolution screens for smart phones.

OLED TV
OLED TV panels are the fastest-growing segment in terms of average size from 2010 to 2013, with the average size increasing from 15” in 2010 to 55,” as both LG and Samsung invest in new manufacturing capacity.

Public displays
The public display segment also shows promise with the average diagonal size forecast to rise from 41.7” from 2010 to 46.5” in 2013.