Some LCD manufacturers are using recent events in Japan as a pretext for negotiating higher prices and it is creating a negative impression in the market. Chris Connery, VP for PC and Large Format Commercial Displays at industry trade site Displaysearch.com, said that while LCD makers do face pressures to raise prices, it is not related to the natural disaster in Japan.

Connery said that demand from the CRT-to-LCD upgraded segment has petered out as that market is approaching saturation. This has been the most significant driver of demand in the near past, and although the multiple-monitor, notebook, and standard-to-wide segments remain a stable source of demand, the figures they supply are insufficient to compensate for drops in the large CRT-to-LCD sector.

This is not to say that makers do not deserve a price adjustment. Several have already been in the red for some months.

The market contraction is also aggravated by increasing manufacturing costs. Plastic components which make up 5% of LCD monitors are expected to cost more as oil prices are on the rise. Along with this, wages and other non-cash labor benefits are also in the offing as factories respond to criticism about their layout policies in the international media last year.

For example, Foxconn, which does about $90 billion in contract manufacturing work for Apple, HP, And Dell among others, has upgraded wages. This has affected factories across the Formosa Strait where Taiwanese makers scramble to keep their scarce labour from seeking better conditions in the mainland.