Liquid Crystals Profile 

Imagepicture Liquid Crystals (photo)

All over the world, liquid crystals from Merck are found inside most LCD televisions, computer monitors, notebooks, digital cameras, mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players and many other high-quality displays. Merck is the global market leader in this field and, thanks to continuous investment in research and production, also the technology leader.

Highlights of 2007

  • Market leadership in liquid crystals successfully defended
  • Gross margin increases by 3.3%, operating result stable at €487 million
  • Return on sales at 53.1%, free cash flow improves by 14%
  • LCD televisions remain the largest growth driver and have prevailed over plasma flat screens
  • Superb position to maintain a competitive lead
The business model

The division’s success is based on close cooperation between interdisciplinary teams and display manufacturers in the Far East. Merck’s future is secured through a broad portfolio of customer-specific LC mixtures, reliable just-in-time deliveries in a highly demanding market with high innovation rates, and a large number of patents. More than 100 researchers based in Germany as well as close to our customers in Japan, Korea and Taiwan are responding to the ever-increasing demand in particular for shorter switching times.

Key product

  • licristal® - Liquid crystals and mixtures for super-fast and high-performance displays based on innovative technologies such as VA or IPS (see also "Research and development").
    Additional fields of work
    • High-performance OLED (organic light-emitting diode) materials for displays and lighting
    • Efficient and environmentally friendly structuring tools for photovoltaic products and displays
    • Superior materials for optical films that enhance display image quality
    • Printable polymers for flexible displays, solar cells and RFID chips
    Market trends and
    prospects for the future
    • The LCD market will continue to grow strongly in the coming years.
    • According to forecasts by the market research firm DisplaySearch, the following growth rates are expected for LCD panels, in terms of units sold, for the years 2007 to 2011: 17% for notebooks, 7% for computer monitors and 18% for LCD televisions.
    • The major growth driver for computer monitors will be sales in emerging countries, for notebooks the trend toward new flat-panel formats and for LCD televisions diagonal screen sizes exceeding 40 inches as well as extremely flat screens.
    • At 100 million units worldwide, sales of LCD televisions are expected to already exceed those of cathode-ray televisions in 2008.
    Last update 18.02.2008, © Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany