Display Standard - Veritas et Visus

Veritas et Visus Display Standard February 2009
For the first time in its history, Apple tallied more than $10 billion revenue, reporting sales of $10.17 billion for the
three months ended December 31. That’s up 6% from the revenue of $9.6 billion Apple recorded during the yearago
quarter. The company reported a $1.61 billion profit, up 2% from last year. Apple earned $1.78 per diluted
share, up from $1.76 a year ago and ahead of analyst expectations. Analysts polled by Thomson First Call expected
revenues of $9.75 billion and $1.39 per diluted share.
On the retail front, Apple ended the quarter with 251 stores in 10 countries. Total revenue from the stores rose 2%
from the 2008 first quarter to $1.74 billion. However, average per store revenue fell to $7 million from $8.5 million
last year. The company plans to open 25 more stores during the 2009 fiscal year, with half of those openings slated
for outside the US.
WitsView’s Market Confidence Index (MCI)
WitsView Technology Corporation, a Taiwan-based LCD Research Institution, routinely publishes a
fascinating peak into the health of the TFT LCD market and has graciously given us permission to
occasionally reprint their Market Confidence Index (MCI) as part of the Display Standard.
WitsView’s commentary: “Between January 12, 2009 to January 30, 2009, the MCI index rose from 4363.2 to
4386.4, up slightly by 23.2 points. The index variations during this time period were relatively small, fluctuating
between 4255 and 4482. A key reason stemmed
from the Chinese Lunar New Year holidays,
where the stock prices of the Taiwan and
Korean panel makers were respectively
unavailable for 7 and 2 days. In addition, the
index also appeared to be weighed by the panel
makers’ expected quarterly financial losses for
4Q08. For reference, among the already released
figures, LGD and Samsung respectively posted
a 7% and 8% operating loss, while AUO
reported a whopping 44.3% operating loss. On a
different note, it is worthy to note that the MCI
index started to fall below the 20-day average
on Jan 21, 2009. The difference with the 20-day
average reached as high as 126.3 points during
the index’s subsequent development.
Fortunately, as of Jan 30, it narrowed to 11.0
points. The crossover reflects the still shaky
outlook surrounding the TFT-LCD industry,
despite market anticipations of a monitor panel
price increase in February.”
Source: WitsView
The MCI is an indicator tailored for the TFT LCD industry. In the past, marketers tend to use the mainstream panel
prices to diagnose the health of the TFT LCD industry and predict its market trend. However, as the application
sizes vary and market focus changes all the time, it is never easy to find an appropriate tool to judge the market
climate. In view of this, WitsView develops MCI, aimed to become a mutual-language among industry participants
for effective communication on industry outlook and market trend.
MCI is NOT an underlying index traded in any market; those who use MCI as their trading benchmark should judge with their discretion and take the full
responsibility for any loss that incurs. WitsView and Veritas et Visus hereby expressly disclaim all warranties of originality or accuracy.
94