WASHINGTON: Demand has shifted towards products with larger sizes in the 2015 LCD monitor market. According to WitsView, the share of models sized 23-inch and above in global monitor shipments has increased to upwards of 40% in the third quarter of 2015. The 27-inch and larger segment in particular has seen the largest increase in its share of the total shipments.
A year ago, this segment accounted for just 6.8% of the annual shipments worldwide. In 2015, however, rising demand from Internet cafes in China is supporting the large-size market. Moreover, shipments of large-size niche products such as curved-screen monitors have picked up. Consequently, the share of the 27-inch and larger segment in the total monitor shipments increased to 9.5% by the end of the second quarter and surpassed 10% in the third quarter of 2015.
“Within the 27-inch and greater segment, the growth of 32-inch products continues to accelerate mainly because of demand from China Internet cafes,” said Anita Wang, research manager at WitsView. “The display panel industry is adding new capacities, leading to an abundant supply of inexpensive panels. TV panels of 32-inch in particular are now priced much lower than 27-inch monitor panels, which are the mainstream in China Internet cafes. Therefore, branded monitor vendors are now using 32-inch TV panels to make higher-margin products, resulting in impressive shipment growth for 32-inch monitor sets. In the third quarter, the share of 32-inch models in total monitor shipments is projected to stand at 2.4%, a big increase compared with the 0.03% share in the first quarter of 2014.”
The market appearance of curved-screen products has also created demand growth for large-size monitors. WitsView estimates that shipments of curved-screen monitors in 2015 will hit one million sets, with about 10% of the shipments belonging to the 23.6-inch segment and the rest belonging to the 27-inch and above segment. WitsView further forecasts that annual shipments of curved-screen monitors worldwide for 2016 will reach 1.3-1.5 million sets.
Curved-screen technology will continue to contribute to the share growth of large-size models in the overall shipments. Samsung presently has the largest market share for curved-screen monitors and is expected to take over at least 85% of the market in the third quarter. With a huge cost advantage over its competitors in curved-screen manufacturing, Samsung Electronics is now the dominant leader in this niche product.
