U.S. market research and consulting firm NPD DisplaySearch has released its latest Monthly Tablet PC Panel Shipment Value Chain Report for July 2013, indicating an 8 percent rise over June shipment figures. And according to the data, the increase came from shipments of 7” panels, now 49 percent of all shipments, and of no-brand budget tablet models. White-box devices now accounted for 59 of all 7” panels and 43 percent of all tablet PC panel shipments, according to the report.
“It’s been increasingly challenging for Apple, Samsung, and other name brands to gain greater market share because low-priced private-label brands continue to dominate the tablet PC market,” Deborah Yang, Research Director of Monitor and TV for NPD DisplaySearch, said in the firm’s release. NPD DisplaySearch cited price cuts in Microsoft’s Surface devices and in Google’s Nexus 7 – a trend further borne out by Amazon’s price cuts following the release of the latest generation of its Kindle devices.
Also, much of that global tablet panel demand is now being met by one single Chinese supplier, BOE, which accounted for almost 30 percent of worldwide tablet panel shipments for the month. It will be very interesting to see what that pattern does for the industry in future. However, Apple and Samsung remain the unchallenged consumers of panel displays, taking 24 percent and 18 percent of all shipments in July respectively. That said, “Lenovo and Google are becoming increasingly important clients for panel makers,” Yang added.
