While shipments of touch panels for handset applications will continue to dominate the touch panel industry in China in the second half of 2013, the ratio of tablet touch panels will rise in the fourth quarter as China-based touch panel makers have cut into the supply chains of the new Nexus 7 and entry-level Kindle Fire, according to Digitimes Research.
The ratio of handset touch panels to total touch panel shipments will slide to 75.7% in the fourth quarter, while tablet touch panels will account for 24% during the same period.
Affected by the China government's policy to end subsidies for 4-inch smartphones, shipments of handset touch panels are expected to drop 1% sequentially in the third quarter before edging up 1.8% in the fourth.
Buoyed by efforts initiated by touch panel makers such as Laibao Hi-Technology, China's shipments of handset glass touch panels will account for 25.2% of total handset touch panels in the fourth quarter of 2013.
For tablet applications, China-based cover glass maker Lens Technology began to roll out touch panels in 2013 and managed to become the touch panel supplier for Amazon's new Kindle Fire tablets. Combined with Laibao's shipments of touch panels for Google's new Nexus 7, tablet touch panel shipments will post a 42.9% sequential growth in the third quarter of 2013.
China-based O-film Tech has been developing metal mesh thin film touch panels to compete with Taiwan-based glass touch panel makers for orders from the notebook sector. It managed to win orders from Lenovo and Acer recently, which will be instrumental to ramp up the ratio of China's shipments of notebook touch panels to over 10% of total global shipments in the segment, Digitimes Research estimated.
