The casual visitor to Hall 21 at the 2005 CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany, would quite rightly place Samsung and LG as electronics market leaders, based on the size of their booths alone.
The Samsung and LG booths seem to expand every year, encompassing more and more of the floor space, with a dazzling collection of display options. These options included everything from Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) screens not much bigger than postage stamps to Samsung’s one-of-a-kind 102-inch plasma display. Monitors were an important part of these booths, but most of the traffic was drawn to the large-screen television offerings, including plasma, LCD, and rear-projection.
Monitors: Major competitors hiding in smaller booths
In the increasingly commoditized world of LCD and CRT monitors, appearances can be deceiving; some of the fastest-growing competitors had comparatively modest booths, reflecting their cost-conscious approach to this market.
The mid-sized booth of the leading worldwide monitor manufacturer in the fourth quarter of 2004, TPV Technology (with the brand name of AOC) was less likely to catch the eye of end-users, but had plenty of traffic from channel partners and OEM customers. Lacking the technology breadth of its Korean competitors, AOC concentrates on large-volume, established products, with a lean approach focused on manufacturing cost savings.
Leading monitor manufacturers’ unit market share in 4Q 2004
The company is just now entering the LCD TV market, where it hopes to become one of the leading manufacturers, using the same cost-aggressive model to eat away at competitors’ market share. The firm’s recently announced purchase of Philips’ monitor division is a marked step in this direction.
TPV will assume Philips’ manufacturing assets and OEM monitor business as well as agreements making TPV/ Philips the preferred supplier for Philips and Magnavox branded monitors and entry-level flat-screen televisions.
Philips, one of the leading standalone monitor vendors in the European market, was just one of the noticeable no-shows in Hall 21. Also missing this year were ViewSonic and CTX, two exhibitors from past years.
As the costs of floor space and building and staffing booths have climbed through the years, vendors are scrutinizing the cost/benefit of participating in large shows such as CeBIT. Much of the show traffic is comprised of end-users, overwhelming the potential channel partners and corporate and OEM customers that are the exhibitors’ preferred target audience. With ever-tightening margins, some of the leading vendors are opting to skip the expense of the big shows in favor of a more focused approach.
Taking a different tact, Acer, one of the fastest growing branded monitor vendors in Europe and North America, opted for a small booth in the Planet Reseller section of Hall 25.
Focused on price, most of the products on display fell into the “me too” category, with little evidence of any effort to distinguish the product offerings from those of the competition. Proving that there are many routes to success in the monitor market, Acer has been grabbing market share from its competitors in recent quarters with an extremely aggressive cost model that minimizes profit and maximizes supply-chain savings and passes on that combined cost savings to end-users.
Going for the niche opportunity
As competition in mainstream markets continues to erode profit margins, a growing number of vendors are looking for opportunities in the niche spaces.
Iiyama and Chilin Technology Co. are two of the latest entrants into the medical display market. Both firms had samples of gray-scale medical displays on exhibit at CeBIT. Confronting a field of established competitors in the medical space and well-financed new entrants such as NEC and Samsung, these firms face an uphill battle to build market share.
The medical field, once dominated by a few vendors, has attracted a number of new entrants in recent years, increasing price competition and eroding much of the profit margin that initially made this space so attractive to new entrants.
One of the more interesting and easily-missed exhibits in the niche monitor space was a demonstration at station 81 of the IBM booth in Hall 1 of the Digital Packet Video Link (DPVL) VESA industry standard.
Eizo Nanao Corp., working with IBM, has developed a monitor compatible with the DPVL standard, which offers an intriguing alternative for users of multiple displays. Using a single CPU as the DPVL host, attached to a DVI signal distributor, users can daisy chain to multiple DPVL monitors.
This solution, which first premiered at the SID 2004 show, has captured the interest of the large financial houses. Using the DPVL solution, users add additional displays without changing the video card and drive them off of a single CPU. The featured solution is still in the development stage, but offers interesting possibilities for financial and medical markets, both of which employ multiple display solutions.
Rhoda Alexander is iSuppli’s director of monitor research and has responsibility for the Worldwide Monitor Market Tracker, Plasmatrak and medical display research. Contact her at r.Alexander@isuppli.com
Article edited by Esther Lam
