[Sderby] Fw: TFT Screens

[Ian Spratt]

Hi people
I got emailed this earlier on today, and i thought some people here might
be interested........

Ian





TFT Supply

As you are aware 15" TFT supply is a real problem area.  The shortages are
so bad that prices are rising steeply.  Do not be surprised if you start
to see vendors de-committing on fixed price agreements.  Some vendors have
already sold their supply for the whole of the next 3-4 months. We are not
expecting this to change for the rest of this year (i.e. 2003) and we
expect the first quarter of 2004 to be very difficult as well.  The
reasons for these storages are several fold, but basically demand for the
TFT glass is outstripping supply.  For this to change we need new
manufacturing facilities to open. As you can imagine this takes time and
each fabrication plant cost about $5 Billion.

This is the same for all the vendors, whether we are looking at the
monitor manufacturers or the PC vendors.  If any of them tell you anything
different we would like to know as it is unlikely to be true and might be
used as a way of suppliers trying to find a way in to your current
accounts and prospects.

Please remember this is impacting everyone.  Even DELL have increased
their web pricing on a 15" TFT to within £20 of a 17" TFT.  This is not a
reduction in the price of 17" screens it is a significant price increase
on the price of the15".

What should I do?
Try and get your customers / end users to move to alternative formats of
monitor.  17" CRT's are in very good supply and 19" CRT's are in
reasonable supply.

17" TFT's are another good alternative, but please be aware that many
customers have now moved to this form factor hence supply is drying up at
a very rapid rate.

Laptops
The TFT shortage is starting to impact laptop supply, again all vendors
are suffering.  Further shortages of hard drives and DVD's across the
industry are also impacting the supply.  Again prices are on the up.

Our advice should be to try and order any laptop requirements as early as
possible.