COVID-19 Pushing Chinese LCD Fab Equipment Spending Into 2021, Says DSCC
LCD fab closures in Korea will “dramatically tighten” the LCD TV supply/demand balance, said Display Supply Chain Consultants in its quarterly capital expenditures report. It’s projecting LCD TV panel oversupplies will decline to 5.9% in 2021 and 3.2% in 2022,…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
from 17.8% this year. COVID-19 will delay the “move-in and install timing” of display production equipment by about six months at LCD fabs in Wuhan, China, the pandemic’s original global epicenter, said DSCC. Most installs at fabs in other parts of China will be delayed about three months because the pandemic forced engineers to return to Japan and Korea in Q1, it said Monday. “It has been challenging to get them to return to China.” They're forced into 14-day quarantines once arriving in China, and then must self-isolate again for two weeks upon returning to their home countries, said DSCC. This affected the last phase of equipment installations at BOE’s “B17" LCD fab in Wuhan, pushing it from 2020 to 2021 and reducing the panel maker’s equipment spending this year by $1.1 billion, it said. With COVID-19 forcing the delay of “tool deliveries” to Q4, DSCC estimates 66% of “equipment revenues on a move-in basis” will occur in 2020's second half.