The International Data Corporation (IDC) has released a new report on the state of the worldwide PC monitor market. We find that PC monitor sales have undergone a slight decline during the first quarter of 2014. However this downturn is better than what was expected by analysts. Looking further ahead, the research firm is expecting PC monitor shipments to continue to decline, slipping to 106 million units for the full year 2018.
The Worldwide Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker shows that a total of nearly 33.7 million PC monitors were shipped in Q1 2014, a drop of 0.4 per cent year-over-year. However, "despite the overall decline, the shipment totals were stronger than the forecast of 31 million units," said Phuong Hang, Program Director, Worldwide Trackers at IDC. "Geographically, Japan and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) regions delivered the largest gains during the first quarter while Dell and HP both experienced solid shipment growth," he added.
A bright spot in the survey was the adoption of LED backlit monitors, which hit a new high of 92 per cent market share, increasing 16.4 per cent year-over-year. The report also highlights that screen size of 21.x-inches wide has held the biggest worldwide share over the last six quarters, with 20.5 per cent share in Q1 2014, and aspect ratio of 16:9 carries its dominance with 81.3 per cent market share.
Currently Dell leads the monitor sales race, being the number one manufacturer with 14.9 per cent market share, ahead of Samsung's 13.2 per cent and HP's 11.5 per cent with LG and Lenovo following closely behind.
We suspect that the decreasing sales of PC monitors in Q1 2014 could be linked to users waiting for new technologies to hit the market (at sweet spot prices) to spur on a buying decision, these include; Freesync, 4K or even curved monitors. Also we know that the PC market itself is not in a great state overall.
Recently we have seen 4K monitors getting down to more budget friendly prices (like the 28-inch AOC at £499, pictured above) and there will be a point when such displays, and the graphics cards capable of pushing pixels fast enough to game on them, become affordable enough for a big wave of adoption from the larger PC user base.
