Regulatory Probe of LCD Market Widens

narramissic writes "Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., Taiwan's AU Optronics Corp., and a U.S. subsidiary of Taiwan's Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp. on Tuesday said they have been contacted by investigators who are looking into possible anticompetitive behavior in the flat-panel display market. This follows Monday's announcement by LG.Philips LCD Co. that it had been subpoenaed by regulators in the U.S., South Korea and Japan." From the article: "The probe centers on TFT (thin-film transistor) LCDs, according to Samsung. They are used in a wide range of electronics products including flat-panel televisions and computer monitors, laptop computers, cell phones and digital music players. The three companies being investigated are among the largest manufacturers of such displays. The investigation comes on the heels of anticompetition probes in the DRAM (dynamic RAM) and SRAM (static RAM) markets. The DRAM investigation focused on price-fixing, which is when vendors cooperate to set prices artificially."

Comments

Wow!

[FridayBob]

Good thing this kind of criminal behavior doesn't go on in the market for software!

Because the LCD plants cost billions

[bestinshow]

And yet LCD prices continue to collapse year-on-year whilst getting bigger, brighter and more contrastful (suck on that word, grammar nazis).

So what's bad for the consumer here? Companies still in business making a profit, or killing off all the companies until the one remaining LCD maker can charge the earth for them?

Yes, there is a fine line to tread between organised price fixing to pwn the consumer, and a free market where competition kills off choice, but things aren't black and white, good or bad.

Re:Because the LCD plants cost billions

[rrhal]

And yet LCD prices continue to collapse year-on-year whilst getting bigger, brighter and more contrastful (suck on that word, grammar nazis).
I believe in would be most cromulent to say "... bigger and brighter while contrastiness enbiggens ..."

Exactly

[brunes69]

I mean, I am all for the consumer, and very anti-price fixing.

But shouldn't these guys be investing their time and resources into industries where price fixing is a REAL PROBLEM that affects the consumer?

I mean, LCD prices plummet month-over-month. An LCD today costs less than half what it cost only 2 years ago for the same size and even higher quality. I would like to see another industry (besides the CPU industry) match that kind of price drop.

What about stuff like high speed access? How come the cost of my high speed goes nowhere but UP, even though all the significant marginal costs (like laying cable + fibre, back-end infrastructure) were done YEARS ago? Why do I still have a bandwidth cap of 60 GB / month download when 100 GB of bandwidth costs essentially nothing nowadays (I can get a 10 TB web hosting plan for $5 a month) ?

The answer, of course, is there is no real competition, or reason for the major ISPs to reduce their prices.

The same can be said of lots of other industries as well. LCDs should be the LEAST of these guys worries.

Re:Exactly

[bestinshow]

But shouldn't these guys be investing their time and resources into industries where price fixing is a REAL PROBLEM that affects the consumer?

But LCD panels are made in Asia. Not America.

You wouldn't want to investigate a company that contributes to your political party now would you?

It wouldn't surprise me

[simm1701]

There seems a fair basis for these claims.

The PC LCD market has been notorious have having a "sweet spot" (the biggest screen you can buy before the prices jumps stupidly)

Right now its 1440*900 19" wide screens - for about 130GBP last time I looked - yet 20" 1680*1080 displays start around 350GBP and go through the roof from there (1500 for the rather nice dell/apple 30" widescreen displays)

Also LCD TVs have not even remotely kept pace with PC screen prices - they still seem to be at prices PC screens were 1-2 years ago for equivalent sizes.

The top end of hardware is usually more expsive - CPUs/GPUs/RAM - the top 1-2 models are never on the same price/performace curve as the rest of the product line, but LCDs really do seem to be extracting the urine.

I'd love to see a little leveling in the fields - especially since I really to want one of the 30" displays - preferably for about half the current price!

Re:It wouldn't surprise me

[ivan256]

I just bought a 1920x1080 47" LCD for $1700. Those didn't even exist two years ago, and smaller ones cost 5x as much.

It seems to me that they're keeping pace...

Bring it on

[Fist! Of! Death!]

I loathe the LCD Television - I want the LCD Wall - no - I want the LCD Room constructed purely of LCD Walls. No! more! price! fixing! swines!

Econ 101

[mumblestheclown]

"even though all the significant marginal costs (like laying cable + fibre, back-end infrastructure"

Econ 101:

• You are referring to fixed costs, not marginal costs
• The whole point of fixed costs is that you risk a lot at the beginning to hopefully get a stream of rewards later.

The "there is no real competiton" excuse is whining amongst those who weren't clever enough to make the big investments earlier or can't make them now because of market forces. yes, this is tough for consumers, but that's the market - it goes to those who get in early. You only have a case to whine if your provider has a monopoly by law.

Re:Econ 101

[drinkypoo]

You only have a case to whine if your provider has a monopoly by law.

Uh, they do. The cable company has exclusive rights to lay underground cable along certain routes. The phone company generally has exclusive rights to their phone poles, which are provided by an arrangement with the city/county. You can't just go put up a bunch of phone poles and offer DSL.

On top of that, the FCC isn't exactly making it easy for people who want to provide wireless internet access to get spectrum. Granted, there's a fixed amount available, but the idea behind the FCC is that they are supposed to portion out the spectrum in the public interest. That means that if someone is ready and willing to provide the public a service that they want, they should get the spectrum. Instead the FuCC plays games with auctions and bullshit and helps media conglomerates extend their control.

Re:Econ 101

[planetmn]

The "there is no real competiton" excuse is whining amongst those who weren't clever enough to make the big investments earlier or can't make them now because of market forces.

You forgot one group: Those that weren't allowed to make the big investments earlier because of monopoly rights granted to the utility companies and other legislative barriers put up by the utility companies who were subsidized in order to make those big investments.

-dave

Re:Econ 101

[drinkypoo]

Putting aside your juvenile ranting for a moment, you *do* realize that spectrum auctions are just about the best way to serve the public good? The reason is that because they are basically 'winners curse' type auctions - if you win, you probably overpaid. I'd sure as hell rather have some given piece of spectrum controlled by some company who is propping up my standard of living because it overpaid than for some amateurs to muck around

you are 100% incorrect. the only thing having the prices auctioned up into the stratosphere accomplishes is keeping the smaller providers from participating. it pretty much automatically ensures that one of the titans will get it, and we can see how responsive they are to our needs now.

And I'm not talking about amateurs, I'm talking about commercial providers.

Re:I disagree.

[Psiren]

Glad I'm not an American consumer then. Or American, come to that.

Don't blow a gasket.

[Kadin2048]

This never seizes to amaze me.

You might want to put some oil on that ... I suggest a good synthetic blend for the winter.