According to IDC global Q4 2014 PC monitors drop by -4.4% Y-o-Y to reach 34 million units-- a 1.3% improvement over analyst forecasts, as the adoption of lower-price mobile devices eats into the monitor market.
"For consumer-oriented vendors like Samsung and LG the holiday season helped fuel the sector. Shipments were also bolstered by high volumes of renewals for devices still running Windows XP in both the public and private sectors," the analyst says. "Geographically, W. Europe, the 2nd largest regional market in terms of units shipped, experienced year-over-year gain for the fourth consecutive quarter, recording 8.4% growth Q4 2014."
LED monitors make 97.6% of Q4 2014 shipments, a 7.9% Y-o-Y increase. 21.x-inch displays are the most popular with 22.5% Q4 2014 share, while monitors armed with TV tuners make 5.8% of the 2014 market, a share IDC says will increase to 6.5% to 2015.
In the Q4 2014 vendor rankings, Dell leads with 15.2% share and shipments reaching 5.1m units with 3.8% Y-o-Y growth. Samsung follows with "record" growth in European markets, while HP comes 3rd as it ships 4m units and W. European growth reaching 9.5% Y-o-Y (even if it sees overall declines of -5.8% Y-o-Y).
As for the future, IDC forecast global Q1 2015 shipment declines reaching -10.4% Y-o-Y to 30.3m units, while full-year 2015 shipments should reach less than 103.5m units.