Rising demand and tightening supply to push unit costs.

The era of plummeting prices for large-sized LCD panel shipments will soon be over, market watchers warned today.

Research firm iSuppli reported that rising demand and tightening supply will force prices up over the coming months.

Global sales of large-sized LCD panels (with diagonal dimensions of 10in or greater) will rise to US$66bn in 2007, up 22.2 percent from US$54bn in 2006.

This represents a six percent increase compared to iSuppli's previous forecast of US$62bn for 2007.

Worldwide shipments are forecast to reach 353.8 million units in 2007, up 25.2 percent from 282.5 million in 2006. ISuppli previously predicted shipments of 350.1 million units for the year.

"Following weak pricing conditions in the fourth quarter of 2006 and the first quarter of 2007, the large-sized LCD panel market entered into a robust recovery in the second quarter, and strong conditions are persisting in the third quarter," said Sweta Dash, director of LCD and projection research at iSuppli.

"Demand is rising in all three major markets for such panels, namely televisions, desktop monitors and notebook PCs. Meanwhile, inventories remain under control.

"This combination of rising demand and constrained supply is causing overall panel prices to increase. Demand for ever-larger LCD-TVs has prompted iSuppli to raise its revenue forecast by a larger margin than its unit forecast."

This market strength should continue during the coming years, iSuppli forecasts, with the large-sized LCD panel market expanding to 597.6 million units by 2011, up two per cent on iSuppli's previous estimate of 587.1 million.

"In the coming years, unit growth will be driven by increased adoption of LCD TVs among the world's consumers," said Dash. "Revenue growth will arise from consumers shifting to bigger LCD TVs, especially to 40/42in and even larger."

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