Samsung #1 in LCD monitor Q1-08 prelim

AUSTIN, USA: Samsung beat out Q4-07 market leader Dell to regain top market share for worldwide LCD monitor shipments in Q1-08, according to preliminary figures complied by DisplaySearch. Desktop monitors are the world’s largest market for large-area LCD displays, superseding the TV market by 1.8x in unit volumes.

These preliminary numbers are being released, with greater details coming in the forthcoming Q2-08 Quarterly Desktop Monitor Shipment and Forecast Report.

Key trends noted for Q1-08 include:

* Samsung overtook Dell for the top worldwide market share position mostly due to significant increased shipments in emerging markets like (up 42 percent Q/Q), Latin America (up 25 percent) and Asia Pacific (up 21 percent).

* Although North American shipments dropped 16 percent from Q4-07 to Q1-08, Dell shipments in this region only declined 5 percent due to expanding distribution into US retail.

* HP LCD monitor shipments were down 13 percent, seeing fewer units shipped into all regions with the exception of Japan, which is the world’s smallest market for LCD monitors.

* AOC continued to rise in the rankings, moving from #8 in Q4-07 to #7 in Q1-08 attributed to renewed interest from TPV (the owner of the AOC and Envision brands) with its own-brand products. AOC’s growth came in emerging markets with the brand realizing sequential growth rates for unit shipments into Asia Pacific (222 percent), China (75 percent) and Latin America (18 percent).

With the US economy remaining soft, many vendors are looking to other markets for growth in personal computing sales. An exception to this rule is Dell, which continues to expand its distribution into new regions and continues to gain market share from competitors with expanded presence in US retail.

This was most evident in the actual US sell-through data captured by DisplaySearch parent company The NPD Group’s Retail Tracking Service, which showed that Dell had the best-selling LCD monitor for the last month of the quarter, outpacing HP, which has typically held this top spot.

19"Wide best-selling

In terms of LCD monitor sizes, 19”Wide and 22”Wide continue to gain share, with 19”Wide now being the best-selling size/resolution display worldwide. There still remains a considerable gap between the preference of consumers and the needs of commercial buyers, with the key dividing line at the moment being wide vs. standard aspect ratio displays.

Consumers have quickly migrated their purchase of new displays (either with a system or as an upgrade) from standard aspect ratio displays to wide displays. Commercial buyers, who are more standards-focused, still prefer the standard set for their institutions 3-5 years ago.

Several studies have recently been released empirically showing that wide aspect ratio displays increase worker productivity, thus providing a basis for commercial institutions worldwide to migrate from standard displays to wide displays.

Just when commercial buyers have started to consider changing to wide displays, the LCD monitor market is migrating production of desktop monitors from 16:10 wide aspect ratio displays to 16:9 wide displays.

These plans are being made by panel makers and their brand partners to drive down costs by utilizing glass substrates more efficiently. However, this raises questions about how quickly purchasers (both consumer and commercial customers) can make another switch from “standard” to “wide” to a “new type of wide”.

Most consumers and commercial purchasers are unaffected by this, but for some, this change in aspect ratio and resolution creates a potential change in compatibility.

This could make them hesitant to change to 16:9 until the next major PC refresh cycle or major OS change, particularly given the small difference between the two wide displays in comparison to the productivity differences between conventional and 16:10 displays.