Meko Press Releases |
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European LCD Monitor Market Development Stalls... Again
DATE: 15th November 2004
The latest set of data from Meko's DisplayCast market research service shows that the European desktop monitor market showed reasonable growth in Q3 2004 but that the penetration of LCD monitors in the market slowed again. This was due to the effects of increased LCD panel pricing causing some suppliers and buyers to shift back to CRT monitors. The total number of units shipped was just under 9.2m units. The street price value of the market was more than $3.6 billion, a rise of more than 21% compared to Q3 2004. The average selling price for all monitors dropped again from Q2 to Q3 to $393 having reached a peak in early 2004. With panel prices continuing to rise during Q2 2004 and into Q3, the slowdown in penetration is not unexpected. Currency exchange rates movements which had prevented a similar slowdown in the early part of the year could not assist this time and LCD monitors only managed to take one percent more of the market, rising from 63% to 64% of units sold. Unit growth for LCD monitors was around 13% compared to Q2 2004 and more than 30% compared to the same period a year ago. For the CRT monitor, the decline continued with year on year shipments down by around 18%. However, the shift back to CRT by, for example, some of the major PC suppliers, meant that sequential growth was 12%. For the LCD market by screen size, 15" LCD monitors fared the worst with growth of only 3.5% from Q2. The largest share of the market was for 17" LCD monitors with more than 1.1m units sold every month in Q3. "This slowdown in the growth of LCD market penetration was not a surprise for any of the vendors involved", commented Pete Gamby, research director at Meko. "The monitor suppliers had been taking the brunt of the margin compression that was necessary to keep street prices low and eventually the pressure became too much and prices went up too far". The LCD panel makers had to react in late summer and began aggressively cutting panel prices as inventory began to build. In contrast, the CRT makers made hay while the sun shone! The market is now beginning to see the benefits of the reduced component prices but there is a concern that demand will not return quickly enough for Q4 targets to be met. This is reflected in current LCD monitor panel sales. The overall market leader was Samsung with shipments in excess of 1.5m units. This was more than 25% more than the company shipped in Q2 and up by 12% compared to Q3 2003. HP managed to secure second place, followed by Dell. Both suppliers under-performed compared to the market in unit terms but Dell saw good value growth from its increased prices. --- ends --- Notes to Editors: For more information about Meko and DisplayCast please contact Pete Gamby E-mail: peteg@meko.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)1276 22677 If you would like to receive press releases from Meko as soon as they are available, please send a blank email to: ListServer@meko.co.uk, with the subject line 'Subscribe MekoNews'. |