Computer monitor vendors hit a few bumps in the local market last year, losing out to the rise in notebook sales, according to a study released by International Data Corp (IDC) Taiwan yesterday.
Total sales of PC monitors last year stood at 2.04 million units, up only 0.24 percent from the previous year, the report said.
The figure is below the research firm's earlier projection of 4.5 percent.
Slow fourth quarter
The fourth quarter of last year was extremely sluggish, with vendors selling only 474,279 units, marking a 19.7 percent decline from the previous year, and a 22.3 percent dip from the third quarter, the statistics showed.
"Consumers expected computer vendors to slash notebook computer prices again, just as they did in the third quarter. This pulled down overall buying sentiment for desktop computers and PC monitors in the fourth quarter," IDC's Taiwan analyst Sunny Chen (陳睿聆) said in the report.
The nation's top four brands -- ViewSonic International Corp, Chi Mei Corp (
Chi Mei, affected by a change in its brandname strategy, even reported a sequential plunge in sales of 34 percent, she added.
Chi Mei earlier sold its liquid-crystal-display (LCD) monitors and televisions under the CMV and PolyView brands. To avoid confusion, it began integrating these products under the "Chimei" logo in the beginning of this year.
The report said that sales of cathode-ray-tube monitors continued to fall in the fourth quarter, dipping 36.9 percent from the third quarter, with 15,766 units sold.
Sales of LCD monitors, in contrast, rose to 378,849 units, an increase of 0.9 percentage points over the third quarter, it said.
Looking ahead, Chen said that due to seasonal factors, first-quarter sales would most likely decline from the fourth quarter.
Bigger models
"However, as vendors began to introduce and push wide-screen models in the fourth quarter of last year, coupled with the price drop in large-size panels, we believe the models will show great momentum this year," Chen said.
Alan Chang (張仲英), the Asia-Pacific general manager of ViewSonic, said in a telephone interview that although the market would remain stagnant this year, posting around 3 percent to 5 percent growth, consumers are quickly embracing monitors with larger displays as they become more affordable.
Chang estimated that sales of 19-inch LCD models may surpass mainstream 17-inch models for the first time in the second quarter.
Twenty-inch and wide-screen monitors will enjoy a brisk outlook from the third quarter onward, he added.
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