Revenue for color displays, barely a blip on the radar screens of market watchers last year, are expected to approach monochrome screen sales for handsets in 2004 and surpass the monochrome sales a year later, according to Stanford Resources, a San Jose market research firm. The drop in monochrome screens for handsets will not only be driven by the shift to color. Perhaps the biggest factor behind the price pressures will be the further reach of cell phones into cash-poor developing markets such as China, India and other parts of Asia, said David Mentley, a senior vice president at Stanford Resources. The early adopters are in Japan, where teens have been using handsets with color screens to send cartoon characters and other graphics to each other. Users also have an eye on eventually transmitting photos through their phones, but there doesn't seem to be an application to create a critical mass for color screens in the very near term.
Efforts are underway to boost the pixel count in small screens for portable equipment.
Despite the looming price pressures in the handset screen market, displays for mobile phones are becoming an increasingly attractive venue for flat-panel display makers in Japan. They are expanding production of small screens for mobile phones and other hand-held electronic equipment to fend off declining prices of large screens for personal computers. Prices for small screens are forecast to drop in the single digits versus double-digit declines for larger panels, according to Bloomberg News. Sharp reportedly expects small displays to account for slightly more than half its total LCD sales by the end of the first calendar quarter next year, representing a nearly 50 percent jump from the period between March and August this year. Hitachi is said to be planning production on color screens for mobile phones by year-end, with NEC following next year.