By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
Samsung Electronics widened the market gap between it and its competitors in sales of liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors during the July-September period, market search firm IDC said Sunday.
Samsung sold 6.29 million LCD monitors during the period, giving it a 16 percent global share. Samsung has maintained the top position for five straight quarters.
By adding 1.7 percentage points from the previous quarter, the Suwon-based technology player expanded the gap with its trailer, Dell, to 2.0 percent. Dell came second with a 14 percent share, followed by Hewlett-Packard (HP), LG Electronics and Acer with 11.9 percent, 10.2 percent and 8.9 percent, respectively.
Samsung secured the top ranking even though the company, unlike Dell or HP, does not sell desktop computers bundled with monitors in overseas markets, IDC said.
"We will maintain leadership in the global LCD monitor market by steadily introducing products differentiated from our rivals," Park Yong-jin, a senior executive of Samsung Electronics' Visual Display Business, said.
But IDC said a slowing economy has forced most consumers to cut spending on new PCs and even flat-screen TVs, which has also pushed down prices of some key components, such as LCD panels.
"We forecast at least 15 percent unit growth year-on-year going into 2009," the research company said, adding major LCD panel vendors including Samsung and Sony have lowered prices of their TVs and monitors since the beginning of the year after the panel prices weakened.