Taiwan's Monitor Market Scale Shrinks by 20% in 2008

Taipei, March 11, 2009 (CENS)--With sales for the fourth quarter of 2008 totaling only 400,300 units, representing a 9.1% drop from the third quarter, Taiwan's monitor market declined by 20% in scale for entire the year, according to the latest report by IDC (International Data Corp.)

As suppliers actively cut selling prices of 16:9 LCD (liquid crystal display) monitors to stimulate sluggish consumer demand, sales of such models reached 344,400 units in the fourth quarter of last year, slightly down 5.7% from a quarter earlier. In the meantime, with demand from enterprises stalling, sales of LCD models in the commercial and government procurement market shrank by 24.7% quarterly or 34.3% annually to only 60,000 units.

In the fourth quarter 2008, 19-inch models remained the mainstream in Taiwan's monitor market, but sales of the models plummeted by 50.2% to command a market share of only 22.8% due mainly to active market promotion for 18.5-inch models. Coincidentally, sales of 21.5-inch wide-screen models contributed 19.8% to the total sales in the quarter, exceeding those of 22-inch wide screen models for the first time, due mainly to price promotion.

In sales rankings, Asus, Viewsonic, Acer and Chi Mei were the top four brands in the market during the quarter. Noteworthy is that Asus outpaced Viewsonic in shipment as the No. 1 for the first time.

However, as sales value of the market posted a larger decline, at 21.7%, than sales volume in the fourth quarter, IDC warned that monitor suppliers should ease price-cutting promotion, which, although being helpful to quickly boost market shares of new models, such 16:9 DVI and HDMI models, will undermine profit margins for both brands and retailers in the future.