According to the latest survey by WitsView, a research division of TrendForce, the average street price of LCD monitor added by 2.2% QoQ to USD201 in 3Q10, which reflected that the prices rose instead of decreasing during the traditional back-to-school hot season. Due to the slow season in 2Q10, coupled by the Europe debt crisis, end-market demand for IT products shrank rapidly. Accordingly, the inventory, which was purchased with higher prices, was not able to be cleared away among LCD monitor brand vendors; additionally, brand vendors also had to face the loss from the falling panel prices. It is difficult to run business operation due to the cost pressure from the inventory, purchased with higher prices, as well as panel price decline. Brand vendors began to lower mainstream prices strategically to stimulate sales in 3Q10. However, due to the higher cost from the inventory pile-up, the price promotions launched by brand vendors was limited. Of which, prices of mainstream 18.5”W and 19”W posted larger decline, dropping by 6.1% and 3.2% respectively.

 

Based on the average regional street prices in 3Q10, in order to spur end-market demand, brand vendors cut the prices by more than 10% on mainstream 18.5”W in the consumer market in the US, Europe and Japan. Among which, brand vendors were aggressive to launch price promotions in 3Q10 in the US. The quarterly street price of 18.5”W dropped by 10% on average while 19”W fell by nearly 20%; additionally, due to the price promotions launched by Acer, Samsung, AOC and ViewSonic during August and September, street price of 22”W decreased by 15.4% QoQ. On the contrary, in the US, 17” was the only size that rose by 28.4% QoQ in street price in 3Q10 because of the increase in model launches which mainly concentrated on high pricing products.