Ubergizmo: The Samsung SPF-71E is a 7″ digital photo frame. Although all the some blogs out there are stating a 4:3 aspect ratio, I’m going to trust my eyes and call it as I see it: IT IS WIDE. The 7″ digital photo frame should have a pixel format of 800×480. Or it could have the lower pixel format of 480×234, but that would be really low. The brightness is 200 cd/m2 and has a contrast ratio of 500:1. There is some internal memory (120MB) and a SD port. Two colors are available: white and pink. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem to be anything that’s really special. Except for the price: just $100.
Corning: During the Maxim Group Growth Conference on October 7, 2008 in New York City, Corning’s CFO James Flaws updated the company’s display glass market outlook for 2009. Flaws also announced Q3’08 glass volume shipments for the company’s wholly owned business and Samsung Corning Precision Glass (SCP). Q3’08 glass volume shipments grew 2% Q/Q, which was lower than expected. SCP’s volume, however, grew 12% Q/Q on the strengths of its ties with Samsung, S-LCD and Sony. What brought growth down was its wholly-owned businesses located primarily in Japan and Taiwan with a 10% Q/Q drop in volume shipments in Q3’08.
Glass pricing was as expected in Q3’08 according to Flaws and Corning will continue to pursue its pricing strategy in Q4’08. Flaws also noted that the inventory situation in the supply chain is improving. He then moved toward LCD TV demand citing that US LCD TV unit sales were up 29% in August citing NPD Group’s retail tracking service. Unfortunately, NPD does not track club store sales. Club stores such as Sam’s Club and Costco is where many cost-concious LCD TV consumers are increasingly shopping. Sam’s Club recently announced that its electronics category posted soft sales in September but also noted that LCD TVs and small electronics (MP3 players, GPS devices) were strong. Also that 29% growth figure is in units. If those units are generally on the small side, then Corning is in trouble. Corning’s Display Technologies segment relies on growth in display size. Not only must LCD TV unit sales grow, the trend needs to be toward larger sizes for Corning to maintain healthy growth.
Flaws cautioned that many Taiwan-based LCD manufacturers might continue to run their TFT LCD fabs at lower utilization rates in Q4’08. A Q/Q decline in volume shipments in Q4’08 is not out of the question according to Flaws. He was also cautiously optimistic about SCP that Q4’08 volume shipments could come in higher than in Q3’08. LG Display, based in South Korea, just announced that it has resumed normal production rates starting October. Corning supplies roughly 50% to LG Display’s larger generation LCD fabs.
In 2009, Corning is looking at a 15% to 25% Y/Y growth. Previously the company forecasted a 20% to 25% Y/Y growth for 2009. In 2008, Corning estimates that 2.25 billion square feet will be shipped and the new forecast would mean volume shipments of 2.65 billion to 2.9 billion square feet in 2009, an increase of 400 million square feet at a minimum. Corning has decided to delay construction and ramp in capacity with the fourth phase of its Taichung facility until late 2010. The company may also delay maintenance at some of its glass production facilities. CAPEX in 2008 and 2009 will be reduced by US$400 million to US$600 million. In 2008, Corning’s CAPEX for its Display Technologies segment will be between US$1.8 billion and US$1.9 billion, down US$300 million to US$400 million. CAPEX in 2009 will be between US$1.6 billion and US$1.7 billion, down US$100 million to US$200 million from previous forecasts. Corning also announced that it has stopped outside hiring, preparing for capacity shift toward other businesses, limit R&D spending and reflects prudence not a lack of confidence according to Flaws.
Barron’s: Corning announced its Q4’08 outlook and it is disappointing but not surprising. Corning expects Q4’08 revenues of US$1.2 billion to $1.3 billion with profits of 20-28 cents per share. Wall Street was expecting revenues of US$1.54 billion and profits of 42 cents per share. Quite a disparity! Corning also expects glass volume to be down 10%-20% Q/Q with its wholly owned businesses down 20%-30% Q/Q. Samsung Corning Precision (SCP) is expected to decline by 5%-15% Q/Q. And on a Y/Y basis, glass volume is expected to 2%-13%. What is interesting is that Corning has been telling everyone that they have not seen any decline in LCD TV demand.
Corning is only partially at fault for the company had a single source for US LCD TV retail sales and that source was signaling that everything was humming along as usual. Up until now. The “everything is OK” response from Corning was unusual as many LCD manufacturers as well as major LCD TV brands like Sony have been adjusting LCD TV supply for at least a couple of months.
CEO Wendell Weeks stated that Corning will be reducing captial spending, scaling back some manufacturing operations and reduce the rate of growth in research, deverlopment, engineering expenses and overhead. CFO Jim Flaws commented that the company’s gross margins would tank by 20%-30% for its wholly owned display businesses due to lower sales and capacity reductions in Q4’08. 5% is due to one-time costs for shutting down glass tanks while the rest is due to lower utilization. Previously Corning expected overall LCD glass volume to grow 15%-25% Y/Y; now the company is looking at 5%-15% Y/Y growth. The reason? Slowing in consumer demand for LCD TV.
Tech On → Gizmodo: The 8th International Meeting on Information Display (IMID) is being held in Korea from October 13 to 17. At IMID, LG Display showcased a 19″ OLED display.
From the picture, the 19″ OLED display from LPL seems to sport a regular aspect ratio of a 19″ TFT LCD at 5:4. The pixel format is unknown, but if it turned out to be 1280×1024, I wouldn’t be surprised. However, the interesting thing is that with almost all LCD monitors shifting to wide, a 19″ wide OLED display would have had a bit more pizazz.
What is really interesting about LPL’s 19″ OLED display is that it uses an a-Si (amorphous silicon) TFT backpane. This is significant: with a-Si TFT LCD backpanes size can be scaled for OLED. And that means bigger OLED displays should be coming, at the very least in prototype forms in the near future. I am still quite pessimistic that much larger OLED displays can be mass produced and last as long as LCDs and come in at less than 2x the price in the next 5 years.
Sony via Engadget: The Sony PRS-700 is the latest incarnation of the company’s e-book reader. Similar to the PRS-505, the PRS-700 incorporates E Ink’s electronic paper display. But Sony added a very needed feature: touch. You can use your stylus or finger to flip pages and do other things: much better than having to use buttons for everything. I’m glad that most of the buttons are gone. Nonetheless, buttons are very useful and you still get one row of them underneath the screen.
You can read up to 7500 pages on a single charge. What will you read? E-books, of course, but with special software (eBook Library 2.5 for Windows) you can read Microsoft Word, BBeB, EPUB and Adobe Digital Editions and other text files. Sony says that its e-book store will be revamped sometime this month: something that should have happened years ago. Better late than never. But it does seem that Sony is still missing the boat: No 3G. No wireless. It is indeed very difficult to think outside the box and to create a brand new device or a brand new service. But Amazon has already created it for you: a wirelessly connected e-book called Kindle that allows for wireless purchase and instant downloading of electronic content. And all you had to do was copy it, make a deal with AT&T or Verizon Wireless, work with Barnes & Noble or some other store with an online presence, make some minor changes to the hardware and slap on your nice logo. And you can’t even do that…