LG pwns the tablet display market

As the whole world plus dog moves to a more mobile way of computing, wise companies who invested in flat panel manufacturing technology, are cashing in big time. But in this world of LED willy waving, who’s the alpha monkey? KitGuru steps into the ring to get hands on with the numbers.

We love the folks at iSuppli. There. We said it. It’s not only that they spend ages counting things, but they also manage to present their countings in a simple and interesting way. In short, they are a headline writer's wet dream.

This time around, they have been counting the tiny screens leaving the back of the LED manufacturing plants – and we were not disappointed with their work.

Not at all.

Lucky Goldstar (LG to you and us) is clearly in number one position, with a whopping 46% of all tablet displays being ejected from its factory doors.

Close behind, Samsung is now up to 35% – but in a way they are proper cheating by buying loads of them for Samsung tablets.

The remaining 19% of the tablet screen market in 2011 was split between the usual suspects, including: Chimei, Chunghwa, E-Ink, Tianma, Beijing Orient Electronics and – for Japan – Hitachi.

Overall, more than 18 million tablet sized LEDs shipped last year – and 2012 is looking to smash that total.

The clever folks at iSuppli reckon the world's appetite for this screens might reach close to 145 million units in 2012. Nice.

KitGuru says: So far the work has centred on screens that are in/around the 9″ market, but when Apple unloads a low-cost 7″ version – the numbers could well jump again. Exciting times.

Comment below or in the KitGuru forums.

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