Displaybank, a global authority in market research and consulting for the display industry, today announced that LG Chemical would secure its No.1 position in large-area TFT-LCD polarizer market in 2010 following from 2009. LG Chemical is at top with 30.7 percent market share followed by Nitto Denko at No.2 with 27.3 percent share and Sumitomo Chem. at No.3 with 22.5 percent share for the large-area TFT-LCD polarizer market in 2010 that top 3 suppliers' market share would exceed 80 percent. These and other findings are disclosed in Displaybank newly updated Polarizer and Optical Films Industry Trend Analysis which covers global polarizer market in detail on a quarterly basis.

As value-added polarizer demand rises including polarizer for LEDs, 3D and Touch Panel, market share of top 3 maker shows continuous growth. Irene Heo, senior analyst at Displaybank noted "the industry dependence towards these top 3 polarizer makers will continue to go up in 2011 as the makers have manufacturing know-how for value-added films and also secure higher price competitiveness against other makers."

As new line operation and decreased demand during 2H, 2010 led to drop in polarizer price, the overall polarizer market in 2010 is expected to reach US$9.18 billion, slightly lower than previous expectation and in terms of area-basis, the market is expected to grow 24 percent from 2009 to 320 million square meters in 2010.

By major application, TV-use polarizer market would reach US$4.95 billion (corresponds to 54 percent) in 2010 and Monitor-use polarizer at US$2.08 billion and Notebook-use polarizer at $1.07B. In terms of area-basis, TV-use polarizer reaches 200 million square meters which translates into 63 percent of the total market.

Heo noted "in 2011, large-area polarizer market is expected to exceed US$10.1 billion to grow 10.4 percent Y/Y and TV-use and Notebook-use polarizer will each grow 14.6 percent and 14.3 percent Y/Y respectively."

Source: Displaybank