BenQ Corp (
"The market has seen a stock accumulation of LCD monitors of as much as 200,000 units," said Danny Yao (
Yao attributed the higher inventory levels to slow market demand in the second quarter caused by political uncertainty and a sluggish stock market.
As BenQ's stock level remained lower than that of its rivals, the price cut would not have a huge impact, Yao said.
"We hope the move could boost our market share [in Taiwan] to 30 percent in the third quarter from the current level of about 20 percent to 22 percent," he said.
BenQ reduced the prices of its LCD monitors by around 15 percent to 20 percent. The price of a regular 17-inch LCD monitor, for example, dropped to between NT$11,900 and NT$14,800 from the original range of NT$13,900 to NT$16,800.
Yao denied that the price cut was bolstered by special discounts from BenQ's LCD panel supplier AU Optronics Corp (
Expecting a bright future for larger monitors, BenQ also reduced the prices of its 19-inch products to below NT$20,000 per unit, hoping to seize half of the market for 19-inch monitors by the end of this year. The 19-inch monitor market could make up 15 percent of the nation's total LCD monitor market, up from the current level of 7 percent, Yao said.
The local market is expected to absorb around 1.2 million LCD models this year. BenQ, which saw sales of around 124,000 units in the first half of the year, hopes to market up to 320,000 units in Taiwan this year, according to BenQ Asia Pacific's marketing specialist Derrick Tseng (
BenQ's smaller rival View Sonic International Corp said that, unlike BenQ, it had healthy stock levels and would not join in the throat-cutting price competition anytime soon.
ViewSonic would not launch promotions targeting the commercial and retail markets until the middle of next month, said Alan Chang (
Chang said that the company's sales of LCD monitors in the first half of this year grew by up to 8 percent from a year ago. ViewSonic expects to sell 300,000 units in Taiwan this year.
A total of 239,167 LCD monitors were sold locally in the first quarter, according to statistics by International Data Corp.
BenQ and ViewSonic were the two leading brands, followed by Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp's (
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