To grab the LED TV market, local manufacturers need to be wary of the lack of light guide plates.

For TV brands or panel makers, LED (backlight) TV is nothing more than a priority for product development this year; in order to achieve the LED TV jump shipment growth target, manufacturers are actively looking for a stable source of LED chips, procurement and preparation The focus is on LEDs and strips; however, WitsView believes that the supply of relatively neglected light guides and raw materials PMMA is likely to be the most serious part of the shortage of LED TV materials this year.

The light guide plate material polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is divided into two types: plate and particle. Generally, the former is mainly cut through the larger size monitor and TV light guide plate, while the latter is through The injection molding process is applied to NB light guide plates with high thickness requirements.

According to WitsView, the demand for PMMA in the past is almost equal to the demand for NB and Monitor panels. Due to the stability of the IT market, PMMA raw materials and sheet suppliers have always been conservative in dealing with the expansion of production. However, since last year, LED TVs with side-entry light sources have been successfully formed into the mainstream of the market. In view of the difference in optical design, the backlight module must replace the diffuser with a light guide plate, and the average TV size is much larger than that of IT products. As a result of the substantial increase in volume, PMMA naturally shifts from oversupply to tightness, and even in the future there will be a shortage of supply.

Qiu Yubin, research manager of WitsView, believes that the real supply problems of PMMA will be concentrated in the second half of this year. Although the industry has begun to try out various possible alternative materials to produce light guide plates, it seems that it is difficult to connect other materials in a short time because of the transmittance and cost considerations.