There are lots of insight in the digital media world which you can get from studying the delivery of screen types, and US researcher DisplaySearch this week came out with a report on mobile display shipments, which it says have finally turned the corner.
While Q1 2009 was down, the following quarter’s numbers are now in and hit 360 million mobile screens, up 30% compared to last quarter as all mobile device industries are gearing up for growth. This represents only a 3% rise over this time last year, but it’s a hugely upward trend.
Revenues were up 29% from last quarter to $2.9 billion, but still down on this time last year by 5%.
And the distribution of orders says that the saturated Western European and North American markets will see subscriber growth of less than 10% in 2009, while emerging markets like India and China continue to drive growth.
‘The global economy is slowly recovering, fueling growth in mobile phone shipments in Q2’09,’ noted Calvin Hsieh, DisplaySearch Research Director. ‘Despite this, total 2009 mobile phone demand in North America and Western Europe is still less than 2008, an impact of the recession. Looking ahead, we expect it will be a better year in 2010, with worldwide mobile phone growth of 15% and emerging markets playing an increasingly vital role in shipments.’
DisplaySearch puts Nokia market share declining from 31.7% in Q1 to 25.5% in Q2 and says that Nokia has been unsuccessful in catching up with GSM growth rates in emerging markets. White-box handsets mainly produced in China captured nearly 20% market share away from brand names. Those Nokia numbers are very low and don’t tally with the company’s own numbers.
With touch functionality, higher resolution and larger displays (3.5’+) for smart phones, active matrix displays are growing as a share of the mobile phone market. Taking advantage of its cost-effectiveness, a-Si TFT LCD reached 46.6% share of the market. LTPS TFT LCDs grew 25.3% Q/Q, maintaining a 21.6% share. AMOLED displays capitalized on high-end devices such as Samsung Anycall, growing 54.5% Q/Q with a 1.3% share.