The analyst firm IDC has found that the PC monitor market saw its best year ever in 2020 when looking at growth compared to the year before. It found that for the full year of 2020, shipments grew by 8.3% compared to 2019. In addition, the fourth quarter (4Q20) saw a growth of 16.9% compared to the same period the year before with shipments passing 39.2 million – the PC monitor market has not sold that many units since 4Q11.
As you’ll probably have guessed, the record growth was driven due to the shift to working and learning from home. IDC also said that component shortages led manufacturers to amass stocks of monitors before any price hikes set in, meaning there were more units available for sale to consumers.
Discussing the findings, Jay Chou, research manager for IDC’s Quarterly PC Monitor Tracker, said:
“Many of the same trends from earlier in the year continued in the holiday quarter. Amidst the surging demand, production has had issues so some markets remain short of stock and we can expect more fulfillments for back orders through much of this year. Beyond 2021, we believe the market will settle into a faster replacement cycle that is based on a higher attach rate to notebooks and a more active usage model inside the home.”
The top five manufacturers of PC monitors in 2020 were Dell (19.3% market share), TPV (14.1%), HP (13.5%), Lenovo (10.5%), and Samsung (8.6%). Compared to 2019, Dell and HP saw a decline in sales of less than 1%. Meanwhile, TPV, Lenovo, and Samsung all saw growth compared to 2019 with Samsung recording the highest at 30.6%.
IDC says that manufacturers will face component shortages through the first half of this year, despite this, it believes that hybrid working and gaming will help to support the recovery of commercial spending on displays as people begin to return to their offices. Finally, IDC pointed out that the United States overtook China as the biggest market for displays and is expected to remain the biggest market in the coming years.