The Hindu Business Line : Losing inches, gaining figure

In India, at a time when consumer electronics majors are blowing up billions to promote their flat panel display (both LCD and plasma) televisions, the computer industry has quietly adopted the technology by switching to TFT (thin-film transistor) terminals from the conventional CRT (cathode ray tube) ones much faster and without much of a push from the manufacturers.

According to IDC reports, in calendar year 2007, the organised sector shipped 6.3 million desktop computers, including corporate (4.26 million) and consumer desktops (2.04 million). Of this, over 50 per cent was flat panel monitors. And this segment is growing faster than the overall desktop market and expected to grow to 78 per cent during the current year.

Advantage TFT

Besides aesthetic reasons and that TFT panels occupy less space, the switch happens for a variety of other reasons. TFT terminals offer inherent advantages such as higher resolution and contrast, for high-quality display, and an eye-friendly viewing experience, say industry people.

“They also come with integrated entertainment and other operational functionalities such as speakers. As desktops are moving into the living room as the entertainment hub these days, display, and these entertainment functionalities, are taking centre-stage when it comes to consumer preference,” says Chandrahas Panigrahi, Country Category Head-Consumer PC, Personal Systems Group, HP India.

TFT monitors consume less electricity in comparison with CRT monitors. While CRTs consume 60 to 80 Watts, TFTs require between 25 and 50 Watts. “Apart from that, considering the lower heat generation by TFT monitors, the room requires reduced air-conditioning, which is again power saving,” highlights Rajendra Kumar, Executive Vice-President, HCL Infosystems.

Falling price is another key reason for this trend, says R. Manikandan, Business Group Head, Digital Display & Storage Business, LG Electronics India. LG, apart from manufacturing computers, manufactures and supplies CRT and TFT panels to the market.

These thin panels witnessed a price erosion of an average 10 per cent in the last year alone. In some cases, it is as much as 15 per cent, narrowing the price gap with CRTs. For example, a 15-inch TFT, which sold for Rs 7,500 a year ago, is now available for Rs 6,300 in the market, which effectively brought down the price gap between a computer with 17-inch CRT monitor and 15-inch TFT to merely Rs 2,000 now, says HP’s Panigrahi.

Prices are seen coming down as manufacturers bring more monitors into the market.

In addition to price, technically too, TFT monitors are seen as superior. Formerly, a major drawback with TFT monitors in comparison with CRTs was the limited viewing angle. However, now they offer 178-degree viewing. Moreover, these monitors are also not affected by magnetic interference, a key feature that is preferred in medical and research labs, according to Nitin Bawankule, Director S&P, Dell India.

The superiority in technology — through factors such as fine contrast ratio, ultra-fast response time, wide colour gamut — will push sales further in the years to come, says LG’s Manikandan.

Global picture

Talking about the global trend, he says, the world is moving towards larger screen size and wide screen monitors. “There are a few interesting trends in the global market, which will soon be followed by Indian consumers as well. Consumers are fast shifting to notebooks for mobility reasons. As the screen size of the notebooks is reducing continuously from 15” to 14” to 13.2” to 12” and then to 10.6” to be lighter and for increased battery back-up, the consumer is missing the multimedia power of the computing device.

To set this off, he/she has started looking at TFT monitors as an add-on at the work place and home. So, when at work or home, consumers use the large TFT screen. Only during travel do they actually use the smaller-screen notebooks.”

While players such as HCL, Dell and LG feel that both CRT and TFT will co-exist for a few more years and hence have no clear plans as to when they will phase out CRT monitors from the market, according to Panigrahi, HP witnessed a growth of over 1.5 times as compared with the previous year, in both its brands — HP Pavilion and Compaq Presario. He says, of the total desktops shipped in 2007, 50 per cent was with TFT monitors. During the current year, as of now, it is around 80 per cent and expected to grow to 90 per cent in the next three to six months.

“We expect our entire desktop portfolio to be shipped with TFTs by the end of 2008,” he says, which could mean HP hopes to phase out CRT monitors by then.

Growing demand

According to Rajendra Kumar of HCL, a steep growth in demand for TFTs is expected in the quarters to come. “The expected growth for PC in 08-09 is by 25 per cent and the growth for PCs with TFT should be in the range of 100 to 120 per cent,” he says. HCL has shipped around 7.26 lakh desktop computers in 2006-07. Of this, 60 per cent was with TFT monitors.

Going by the latest trend, flat panel monitors are in demand in the market, especially in the 17 inch space. “The future is with higher attach rate of flat panel along with PC and also multi product functionality being introduced in monitors,” says Bawankule of Dell.

At LG, numbers talk its success. It sold about one million monitors in 2007 of which around 30 per cent was TFT monitors. “We posted a growth of 148 per cent on TFT monitor volumes over 2006. The major growth came from SMEs followed by the home/small office home office (SOHO) segments. We are targeting 200 per cent growth on TFTs in 2008,” says Manikandan.

Moving forward, he says, entry-level LCD monitors such as 15 inch and 17 inch will tend to be stable as they have almost bottomed out in terms of both technology and scale of volume. The 19 inch and above will see some marginal drop, not significantly, in the months to come. The technology features and aesthetics will likely set off such price drops, if any.

Larger screen size, being high on technology, design and aesthetics are emerging trends. The B & C Class City consumption of LCD is also growing rapidly to keep pace with the growth in metro markets.

In unorganised sector too

While this is the case with the organised sector, according to industry experts, the unorganised sector (where assembled PCs are sold) and the replacement segment — people who graduate from CRT to TFT — are also growing.

Electronic shops are being flooded with TFT monitors from Samsung, LG and other relatively lesser-known Chinese and Taiwanese brands. However, they say, this is yet to get its due momentum.

The replacement market is pegged to grow at 10 per cent currently, owing to limited availability of any organised channel, says Manikandan,. But with the growing aspiration for owning a TFT monitor, this is likely to increase substantially.

In all, feel industry experts, it is only a matter of time before TFT completely replaces CRT monitors here.

rravikumar@thehindu.co.in

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Losing inches, gaining figure