Meko Press Releases

EMEA Desktop Monitor Market Takes Up Wide Format

DATE: 20^th March 2007
The latest data from Meko's DisplayCast Desktop Monitor market intelligence service indicates that sales of wide format desktop monitors are set for explosive growth in the coming months. Shipments are forecast to rise from just over 3 million units in 2006 to more than 9.3 million in 2007 for growth of over 200%.

But this growth could be higher. "We’re still not seeing rapid take-up of wide monitors by business customers, although some PC vendors expect this to change very quickly", commented Pete Gamby, Meko's research director. "We think there needs to be a solid reason to change the hardware and it will only be when Vista gets better adoption that this can happen. This could take between 12 and 18 months".

Overall growth for the desktop monitor market is expected to be around 4% in unit terms from 2006 to 2007. This slows a little in 2008 and then again in 2009 to just under 3%. Shipments for 2007 will be 57.7 million with nearly 95% of all sales going to LCD.

Wide aspect ratio monitor sales will rise to around 20% of the market by year end 2007 and then to 38% by the end of 2009. "Whilst the global monitor market is likely to see higher overall penetration of wide screens, it should be remembered that regional variations exist", noted Jordan Popov, Meko's desktop monitor research manager. "For example, China has been very quick to take to the newest wide format categories as there is very little 'legacy' PC hardware in place. In Europe, there is a huge installed base of PC software and hardware which is set up to work well with 5:4 or 4:3 format displays at 15", 17" and 19" in size". This is particularly true for the commercial or business user and this part of the market accounts for up to two thirds of unit sales in EMEA, according to Meko's estimates for the market.

"Consumers and small businesses that see the benefits of widescreen computing will be quick to move to the new size categories as they have done in the notebook PC market", concludes Gamby. "However, the majority of the market has to make a carefully planned transition and this could hold back wide monitor sales despite the expectations of the LCD panel suppliers".

Regional variations in Europe itself show that the German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland will be buying one wide monitor for every four sold by the end of 2007. France will be slightly ahead with one in three monitors being wide this year. The UK is behind the curve with 20% of the market going wide in Q4 2007.

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For more information or graphics, please contact Pete Gamby on +44 (0)1276 22677 or by email at peteg@meko.co.uk.

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