CRT death coming faster than forecast
11 January, 2007
By Vanessa Ho
The slow death of Cathode Ray Tubes (CRT) monitors
continued in the midst of a great year for the Liquid
Crystal Display (LCD) market.
"It was a stellar and amazing year for the LCD
market," said Michelle Warren, senior IT analyst
with Partner Research Corp. "[But] we also saw
continued waning on the CRT side and that product
category is going to die a little bit sooner than
expected," she added.
This past year, Warren forecasted 128,900 units of
CRT displays were shipped in Canada, a decline of
78 per cent over previous years. The LCD market grew
44 per cent with about 2.7 million units shipped in
2006.
"Contrast that to 2004 where CRTs represented
a bulk of the shipments at 52 per cent of the market,"
she added.
According to Warren, the reason for LCDs increasing
popularity is due to the continued price erosion on
the units as well as strong demand for LCDs coming
from Asia.
Maria Del Rio-Arbuckle, product manager with personal
systems group at Hewlett-Packard (HP) Canada, said
that the majority of displays that HP sold this year
were LCDs.
"The great majority of what is sold in the business
sector today is [LCDs] and if you ask any PC manufacturer
out there, they will tell you the exact same thing,"
said Del Rio-Arbuckle.
One of the trends that the HP executive noted this
year in the LCD space was the movement towards 19"
and 20" displays, especially in widescreen sizes.
"I think [widescreen displays] are going to
have a big play in the flat panel space in the coming
year just because it is a lower cost alternative to
the standard 19"and 20" screens," Del
Rio-Arbuckle said.
In fact, Warren noted that 19" LCD shipments
grew by 176 per cent in the third quarter of 2006.
Shipments of 20" LCD displays grew 839 per cent
while displays 20" and greater saw 325 per cent
annual growth.
"The switch to larger displays [is due to] prices
coming down and the other thing is the technology
has advanced where the picture screen quality is really
good on the larger products," said Warren
Even though CRT shipments slowed down significantly
in 2006, Del Rio- Arbuckle said that HP will continue
to offer CRT displays in the near future for customers
that are price-conscious.
"There is still a market for CRTs, but [it's]
usually when it is bundled with an entry-level PC,"
she said.
In terms of market leaders for the first three quarters
of the year, Warren said Dell lead the overall LCD
market followed by Acer, LG, Samsung, ViewSonic, Lenovo,
NEC, HP and Phillips.
Warren has forecasted the continued dominance of
LCDs into 2007, predicting that 99 per cent of displays
being shipped will be LCDs. The news gets worse for
CRTs in 2008 where Warren has forecasted that 100
per cent of displays being shipped will be LCDs.
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