Growth was most impressive for 52" up with 2476% year over year growth, followed by 47" up with 1204% year over year growth.

LCD TV panel shipments hit an all-time high in July with 7.2 million units shipped, up 6% from June and a staggering 72% from July, 2006. Notebook PC panel shipments increased 69% in the past year with more than 10 million units in shipped in July according to data supplied by tracking service DisplaySearch.

The most popular LCD TV module size continued to be 32", with a 36.2% shipment share in July, followed by 26" at #2 with 13.0% shipment share.

Since April 2004, 40" has led the battle against 42", but the tide has recently turned. Beginning in June 2007, the 42" share of LCD TV module shipments beat 40", 8.3% to 6.7%, respectively. In July, that gap slightly widened with 42" at 9.0%, versus 7.3% for 40". The reason is due to the success of second tier TV brands such as Vizio, who captured the #1 spot with 12.1% market share in North America in LCD TV unit shipments in Q2'07. Growth was most impressive for 52" up with 2476% year over year growth, followed by 47" up with 1204% year over year growth.

Although LCD monitor panel shipments have been growing in single digits on a sequential basis since April, July results established a record high of 16.1 million units, up 35% year over year.

"Despite worries that US consumer spending might decline due to weakness in the housing market and recent credit crunch, July was a strong month for the LCD industry-indicating that there is still a strong demand for LCD TVs and notebook PCs," noted Jin Kim, DisplaySearch's Director of TFT LCD Market Research. "While there were concerns of LCD TV set inventory build-up in June and July, LCD TV panel shipments continued to post strong growth in July. Furthermore, with back to school sales imminent for college students, notebook PC sales should see an increase in August through September. Overall, most producers involved in the three large-area LCD applications supply chain, including panel suppliers, OEMs and major brands, expect strong retail demand to continue for large area LCDs into the holiday shopping season," Kim added.

In terms of overall large panel shipments in July, Samsung Electronics (SEC) regained the #1 position on a shipment basis with a 20.6% share in July 2007. SEC had fallen to the #3 position in June due to weak notebook panel shipments, but in July led the notebook segment, displacing LG.Philips LCD (LPL) who led for 14 consecutive months. AUO (AU Optronics) edged out LPL for the #2 position with a unit market share of 19.8%, while #3 LPL closely chased the leaders with 19.7% unit share.

AUO captured the #1 position for LCD TV panel shipments, with a 22.1% share followed by LPL and Samsung with shares of 21.3% and 18.9%, respectively.

Looking forward, DisplaySearch has upgraded its annual outlook as the result of strong performance in June and July and a robust August outlook as LCDs continue to take share from competing technologies. DisplaySearch now expects LCD TV panels to rise 48% year over year in 2007 to 80.4M panels.

DisplaySearch reports that notebook PC demand has been strong all year, and seems to be accelerating. "As performance for notebook PCs increases to a point where the majority of customers are comfortable using the latest software, notebook PC sales will continue to increase far quicker than desktop PCs. In fact, notebook PC panel shipment growth has significantly outpaced monitor panels shipments for 9 of the last 12 months," Kim added.

Notebook PC module shipments increased 69% year over year in July, accelerating from an already strong June, which posted a growth of 55% year over year. AUO posted the strongest shipment growth in July with 167% year over year, followed by Samsung with an impressive 113% year over year growth. LPL and CMO both posted a brisk 71% year over year growth rate for July.

The majority of notebook PC panels shipped in July were 15.4" Wide, capturing a 46.8% shipment share. 15.4" Wide's popularity has been slipping since February after capturing a 53.3% share in January. That is the result of growing demand for 14" Wide notebook PCs, resulting in 14" Wide panel shipment market share growing from just 16.0% in January to 24.6% in July.

LCD monitor panels are expected to rise 24% year over year in 2007 to 174M panels, although Q2'07 may prove to be the peak quarter as a number of panel suppliers divert capacity in 2H'07 to seasonally stronger TV panels or higher margin notebook panels.