DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas-based flat panel display (FPD) research and consulting firm, predicts that liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors, the world’s dominant FPD application, will overtake CRT monitors for the first time on a unit basis in the U.S. marketplace in the first quarter of 2004 and worldwide in Q2. Additionally, according to the group’s findings, 17-inch LCD monitors overtook 15-inch LCD monitors in volume in the U.S. in Q3 2003, with preliminary results indicating that 17-inch LCDs became number 1 worldwide among LCD displays in the fourth quarter of last year.
DisplaySearch says that LCD monitors represent 31 percent of 2003 FPD revenues, resulting in widespread impact on corporate and personal productivity. Preliminary results indicate that computer maker Dell accounted for a dominant 19 percent share of the worldwide LCD monitor market in Q4 2003; the company’s LCD sales rose from 44 percent of Q1 2003 desktop monitor shipments to 57 percent of shipments by year’s end. Other leading vendors in the market include LG Philips LCD, which has led the LCD monitor module market for each of the 17 quarters that DisplaySearch has been tracking this market. Preliminary results indicate it held a 23 percent share of the LCD monitor market in Q4 2003.
DisplaySearch will present these and other findings as well as its annual customer satisfaction awards at its 6th annual U.S. Flat Panel Display Conference March 30 to April 1 in San Diego. Speakers at the event include Stan Glasgow, senior vice president in the Information Technology Division of Sony Electronics. For more info: www.displaysearch.com/usfpd2004/.