Numbers show digital signage display giants differ in North America and globally

June 24, 2011 by Dave Haynes

A week after getting home from InfoComm I am starting to actually dig into some of my notes, materials stuck on USB drives by PR people, and downloaded conference presentations.

I was a little late getting to the DisplaySearch conference and missed much of host Chris Connery’s opening presentation, which had some really interesting stats about where the flat panel market is and where it is going.

First, the big dogs in the North American flat panel public display sector aren’t necessarily the same globally.

NEC has the biggest market share in North America (2010 numbers) at 9.6 per cent, shipping just north of 90,000 LCDs. The next biggest player is Samsung, at 7.1 per cent, followed by Panasonic (mostly plasmas), LG and Sharp.

Globally, Samsung is the biggest player – moving 242,000 units (mostly LCD) and having a 10.2 percent market share. The top five rounds out with Panasonic, NEC, LG and Sharp. Philips is #6 globally but barely registers in North America.

Interestingly, particularly in the global count, there are huge OTHER numbers for both LCD and plasma – meaning (I assume) there are lots of networks out there running on stuff from Chinese manufacturers you’ve never heard of and could never pronounce.

Connery tracked a trend towards narrow (meaning less than 20 mm) and super-narrow (meaning less than 10 mm) bezels, the attraction being the ability to build video walls with minimal seams that, therefore, don’t look ghastly.  Panels with bezels greater than 20 mm are still roughly 85 percent of the market.

Most of the panel guys have narrow bezel offers now, and with LED back-lighting, the panels are also getting crazily thin and (I assume) light.

Connery also touched on the reports about the Japan quake and tsunami disrupting supply chains. In fact, the disaster will have no impact of consequence on the global supply of flat panels.

The DisplaySearch people did a nice job with these conference and I appreciate, as I am sure others do, the PROACTIVE effort to get presentation materials in the hands of attendees. Usually, you have to beg, borrow and steal.