Benefiting from the rebound in the panel industry, BOE is expected to see a significant year-on-year increase in net profit in the first quarter of this year.
BOE recently released its performance forecast for the first quarter of 2024, expecting to achieve a net profit attributable to shareholders of 800 million to 1 billion yuan, an increase of 223% to 304% year-on-year. This positive news indicates that, driven by a favorable supply structure and early release of demand, the display panel industry's prosperity is significantly improving.
In the LCD panel sector, terminal customer orders were released early due to sports event stocking and price hike expectations. Display panel companies adhered to a "production as needed" strategy on the supply side. In February of this year, affected by the Chinese New Year and maintenance shutdowns, capacity utilization remained relatively low, reaching only 50%. However, in March, capacity utilization quickly increased to around 80%. LCD TV panel prices began to rise across the board from February, with the upward trend continuing in March. The upward trend in prices for IT product LCD panels also began to emerge.
In the OLED panel sector, BOE's shipment volume in the first quarter of this year remained the same as the previous year, with a full-year shipment target of 160 million units, representing a year-on-year growth of over 30%. BOE will focus on high-end flexible OLED panels, especially foldable screens. While the OLED panel business still faces significant depreciation pressure in the short term, the profitability of mature production lines is expected to continue to improve with increased shipments and focus on high-end products. BOE stated that it will strive to achieve extreme cost efficiency, improve efficiency, and promote the landing of the "Screen IoT" Internet of Things strategy this year.
Analysts point out that after a downturn in global panel factory revenue in 2023, 2024 is a turning point year. Global display panel industry revenue was $93.46 billion in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of about 7.6%. It is expected that the sales revenue of global panel manufacturers will increase by about 11% to around $103.3 billion in 2024.
Facing a new round of reshuffling in the global LCD panel industry, Chinese manufacturers need to enhance their industry influence and improve revenue. How to promote the orderly development of the industry will also become an important new topic for domestic manufacturers. However, despite the new challenges, the panel industry has shown a series of signals of recovery recently, which may re-inject confidence into the market.