At the CES 2024, which just concluded in Las Vegas last week, various display technologies and innovative applications showcased their brilliance. However, the global panel industry, especially the LCD TV panel industry, is still in the "winter" before spring arrives.

China's three major LCD TV panel companies, BOE, TCL Huaxing, and HKC, will continue to control production in 2024, and research institutions predict that their capacity utilization rate in February this year will drop to about 50%. Meanwhile, the head of LG Display in Korea mentioned last week during CES that they plan to complete the restructuring of their business structure this year.

However, analysts believe that regardless of dynamic production control or industry mergers and acquisitions, the LCD TV panel industry in 2024 will place more emphasis on profitability.

Half of the capacity will be utilized by the three major manufacturers in February. On January 15, research institution Omdia released a recent report revealing that due to the slowdown in demand at the beginning of 2024 and panel manufacturers' desire to stabilize panel prices, the overall capacity utilization rate of display panel manufacturers is expected to drop below 68% in the first quarter of 2024.

Alex Kang, Chief Analyst of Display Research at Omdia, stated that the TV sales during the Black Friday in North America and the Double Eleven in China in 2023 were lower than expected, resulting in some TV inventory being carried over to the first quarter of 2024. The pressure on TV panel prices from TV manufacturers and retailers has further increased.

"However, panel manufacturers, especially Chinese mainland manufacturers who accounted for 67.5% of the LCD TV panel shipments in 2023, are responding to these circumstances by further reducing their capacity utilization rate in the first quarter of 2024." Alex Kang said that the three major panel manufacturers in mainland China, BOE, TCL Huaxing, and HKC, have decided to extend the Chinese New Year holiday from one week to two weeks. Their average production line utilization rate in February this year is 51%, while other manufacturers will achieve 72%.

The decrease in demand at the beginning of this year has led to a continued decline in LCD TV panel prices. Another research institution, Sigmaintell, released the TV panel price indicator on January 5, showing that in January 2024, except for 32-inch LCD panel prices stabilizing, the prices of 50, 55, 65, and 75-inch LCD panels have all dropped by 1-2 USD compared to December 2023.

The three major panel manufacturers in mainland China have taken action to prevent price declines earlier than expected by the industry. Omdia believes that there are three main reasons behind this. Firstly, the mainland Chinese panel manufacturers have accumulated experience in adjusting LCD TV panel prices by production per order and controlling capacity utilization rate in 2023. Secondly, the demand for TV panels will increase from the second quarter of 2024 due to large-scale sports events such as the 2024 UEFA European Championship, the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the 2024 Copa America. Thirdly, the recent Middle East situation has prompted more shipping companies to suspend the Red Sea route, leading to a significant increase in shipping time and cost for maritime transportation from Asia to Europe.