Taiwan market: 16:9 LCD monitor shipments growing

With LCD panel makers and monitor vendors actively promoting the 16:9 aspect ratio, LCD monitor shipments to the Taiwan market are growing, according to market sources.

Shipments of 16:9 LCD monitors continue to growth not only because of the promotion by the top-five LCD monitor vendors, but also because of more features coming with them, such as full HD, as well as competitive prices, the sources noted.

For 18.5-inch 16:9 LCD monitors, shipments are growing as vendors have lowered the prices to the level of NT$3,900 (US$116), which is lower than 19-inch 16:10 LCD monitor's NT$4,290-4,490. For the 21.x-inch 16:9 segment, shipments are increasing on growing demand for full HD resolution and HDMI interface.

But in order to digest the inventories for 16:10 products, vendors are expected to hold promotional sales of 16:10 models for the Chinese New Year holiday in January 2009, the sources said.

In addition, 16:9 models will account for 11.2% of the global LCD monitor market in the fourth quarter this year, up 6% sequentially, and the proportion of 16:9 monitors in the market is expected to rise further in 2009, according to WitsView.

The 16:9 ratio monitor was first introduced to the market by Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and AOC in the third quarter of 2006, with 17-inch 16:9 models. But the new format did not generate much interest until the third quarter of 2007 with the 15.6-inch size models, the research firm remarked.

Vendors believe that 16:9 ratio will become the mainstream specification for LCD monitors starting 2009, the market sources added.