The European Desktop Monitor market managed to end the year just 1% up on 2013, according to Meko’s DisplayCast service. Although the growth was low, it follows four consecutive years of decline.
“There was a huge number of CRT monitors replaced by the first LCD monitors between 2005 and 2009 and those monitors are coming towards the end of their life now. There are still as many people working away at office functions that need a monitor, so the market, especially in Western Europe, is just a replacement market now”, said Bob Raikes, principal analyst at Meko.
The market was up 8.4% on Q3 2014, but was down 5% on a year on year basis. “Western Europe had a really strong result but a poor market in Russia combined with a drop in sales in MEA meant that Q4 was down on where we hoped to be. Given the good results earlier in the year, with the end of XP, 2014 could have been a really good year”, Raikes added.
Samsung remains the main brand, although if MFMs (monitors with tuners) are excluded, then Dell was top in Q4. HP and LG are the other leaders in the market.
