Street prices of LCD monitors set to plunge

MARKET RESEARCH firm iSuppli said that LCD monitor penetration rates in Europe are near 90 per cent, causing despondency and gloom for both vendors and the channel.

And other conditions are likely to cause street prices of units to plunge during May and June, iSuppli said.

The firm canvassed companies at the recently held CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, and noted many had bunged product into the European market in late 2005, hoping that the first quarter of 2006 would be as rosy as the same quarter last year.

Isuppli said channel players are shifting existing units left over from the surge in Q4 2005 shipments. The report said that the branded vendors are suffering from a sharp fall in demand because of the channel surplus.

And things ain't going to get better this quarter, because on the 1st of July the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (ROHS) initiative kicks in - a move which effectively prohibits dangerous substances being used in monitors and other electronic bits and pieces.

That, claimed iSuppli, means there's a heap of non-ROHS compliant kit sitting around in the channel and in warehouses, with street prices set to plunge during May and June as vendors and channel players dump stock in European Union territories.

Because the EU is a strong market for all things LCD, that means more gloom and depression. µ

L'INQ
iSuppli