PC monitors rise and fall

The worldwide market for PC monitors experienced an overall year-over-year decline of 2.1% in the fourth quarter of 2018 (4Q18). However, quarterly growth remained unchanged with worldwide monitor shipments totaling 31.4 million units in 4Q18, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker.

“After four consecutive quarters of annual growth, the monitor market contracted slightly in the fourth quarter,” said Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices & Displays at IDC. “Yet, the moderate global decline could be misleading given that seven of the top nine country markets by shipments grew 4.7% in aggregate, while the largest country market (China) and the fifth largest (India) declined 10.3% in aggregate. India is expected to recover sooner given that inventory has been a major drag there. In China, continued poor macroeconomic trends are projected to keep the monitor market soft there.”

IDC currently forecasts 118 million PC monitor units will be shipped for the full year 2019, resulting in a year-over-year decline of 2.7% in worldwide shipments to 30.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2019. By 2020, worldwide shipments are expected to be roughly 114 million units as the adoption of mobile devices at lower price points is expected to continue.

Technology Highlights

• Curved monitors grew 15.4% quarter over quarter and 27.1% year over year in 4Q18 with 6.2% market share in 4Q18. This positive growth trend will continue as more vendors enter the curved space.
• 21.5-inch and 23.8-inch wide monitors continue to dominate the worldwide market with 21.7% and 17.8% market share respectively in 4Q18. Of the top 10 screen sizes, 23.8-inch and 27-inch wide saw the largest year-over-year growth at 40.6% and 17.2%, respectively, in 4Q18.
• Monitors with TV tuners held 3.0% market share in 4Q18, down from 4.8% in 4Q17, led by LG and Samsung with a combined market share of 99.3% in this category.

Vendor Highlights

• Dell retained the top position in 4Q18 with a worldwide market share of 21.6% on shipments of over 6.7 million units. The vendor posted strong year-over-year growth in Japan (33.4%), Central & Eastern Europe (26.7%), and Western Europe (23.6%). The largest growing screen sizes year-over-year included 31.5-inch and 37.5-inch wide.
• HP saw more than 4.5 million units shipped resulting in 14.6% share in 4Q18. Substantial year-over-year unit increases were posted in Japan (9.3%) and Latin America (24.7%), which contributed to a total year-over-year increase of 1.5%.
• Lenovo maintained its top 3 position with solid quarter-over-quarter growth of 4.3% and nearly 4 million units shipped. This was largely due to significant quarter-over-quarter growth in Latin America (52.9%) and Canada (16.5%). In terms of screen size growth, 27-inch & 23.8-inch wide monitors dominated with 141.4% & 115% year-over-year growth, respectively.
• TPV experienced both year-over-year (-5.6%) and quarter-over-quarter (-13.2%) declines in 4Q18. However, noteworthy gains were made in their second best-selling region, Western Europe, with 2.4% year-over-year growth and 33.1% quarter-over-quarter growth.
• LG Electronics rounded out the Top 5 in 4Q18 with 2.5 million units shipped. Despite a year-over-year decline of 8.5%, the vendor witnessed year-over-year gains in the United States, Canada, and Central & Eastern Europe.