APEJ PC monitor market to post a strong 20.4% year-on-year growth
ConvergenceAsia staff
02/04/2008

According to IDC’s Asia/Pacific Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker 4Q 2007 report, the Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) PC monitor market totalled 54.7 million units in 2007, representing an increase of 20.4 per cent over 2006. Except Hong Kong, Korea and Taiwan, all countries in the region posted a year-on-year growth. Although total CRT sales posted a 37.4 per cent decline compared to 2006, total LCD sales in 2007 surged 53.2 per cent to 44.4 million units. Monitors bundled with a branded desktop accounted for 45.2 per cent of total monitor sales, while the standalone monitor market captured 54.8 per cent of all monitor sales in 2007.

“2007 was a challenging year for many standalone monitor vendors due to the high LCD panel prices throughout, especially for the price sensitive emerging countries. Yet, the year-on-year growth moved from strength-to-strength in these countries,” said Yoong Siat-Siah, Senior Analyst of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. “Despite hikes in panel prices, vendors translated very little of this into price increases for end-users. Instead, they chose to absorb higher component costs, or launch several reseller incentive programs such as cash rebates to help offset the higher prices.”

The top six PC monitor vendors ranking remained unchanged over 2006, contributing 59.6 per cent of overall PC monitor sales in the APEJ region in 2007, which is a slight increase from 57.6 per cent in 2006. They are Samsung, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, ViewSonic and AOC respectively.

IDC expects total PC monitor sales in 2008 to grow in all countries except the matured markets of Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore. “However, the mature Singapore market shows high widescreen adoption, even for smaller, newly introduced sizes such as 15-inch widescreen and 17-inch widescreen, which posted triple digit sequential growth rates in 4Q07,” said Anjali Joseph, Associate Market Analyst, Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. Indonesia and Vietnam are expected to post a double-digit growth in 2008.

Overall CRT demand is expected to continue to shrink aggressively over 2007, a trend expected in the emerging markets as well, despite certain end-users still wanting to opt for the CRT option.

In the LCD market, a double-digit year-on-year growth is still expected for the entire APEJ region, with 16-inch widescreen and 18-inch widescreen sizes to be launched by 1H08 and 2H08 respectively. All other wide-screen LCDs are also expected to grow at healthy rates over 2007. Entry-level home users, especially in emerging markets, are expected to accelerate uptake of 15-, 16- and 17-inch widescreen LCDs, while the more advanced home users would opt for at least 19-inch widescreen or larger size. Meanwhile, commercial users would be very unlikely to adopt any size larger than 22-inch widescreen.

“Monitor vendors often lament the growth of notebooks as a major impediment to sales. While this may be partially true, IDC believes that more can be done in conjunction with other vendors or channel partners to promote monitor bundles with other devices besides desktops, such as thin clients, or notebooks,” said Reuben Tan, Senior Manager of Asia/Pacific Personal Systems Research at IDC. ”Studies have shown that dual/multiple monitor usage increases commercial productivity. Armed with this message, monitor vendors that partner with other hardware providers can evangelise to IT managers across the region, which will also help stem the decline of monitor-PC ratios.”

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