DisplaySearch Reveals Q1'99 WW LCD Monitor Market Exceeds 850,000 Units: NEC, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Samsung and Compaq Account for 57% of Global Market.

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 28, 1999--

DisplaySearch, a leading flat panel display (FPD) market research firm and the industry's only source of quarterly worldwide LCD monitor shipment data, revealed in its latest report entitled Quarterly Supply Vs. Demand Study: Desktop Monitors that the Q1'99 LCD monitor shipments jumped 806% year- over-year and 86% vs Q4'98 to reach over 850,000 units. LCD monitor revenues jumped 68.2% vs Q4'98 to reach $901 million. LCD monitor penetration as a percentage of the global desktop monitor market climbed to 4.2% and 11.4% in units and revenues respectively, up significantly from 2.0% and 7.1% respectively in Q4'98. Driving the rapid growth is dramatic increases in sales of LCD monitors bundled with desktop PCs in Japan which jumped from 15% of the worldwide LCD monitor market in Q4'98 to 39% in Q1'99. As a result, Japan's share of the total LCD monitor market rose to 61% in Q1'99, up from 42% in Q4'98. The rapid growth of bundled LCD monitors has numerous implications for the PC, notebook, monitor and monitor interface markets which are revealed in this report. Because of growing demand for bundled shipments in Japan, a higher percentage of allotments during the TFT LCD shortage to the monitor market and panel suppliers boosting capacity through increased investments and process innovation, DisplaySearch has increased its worldwide LCD monitor shipment forecast to 3.89 million units and $4.3 billion in revenues in 1999 and 5.25 million units and $5.3 billion in revenues in 2000. Companies likely to benefit include LCD monitor suppliers, LCD manufacturers and LCD monitor controller suppliers such as Genesis Microchip, Silicon Image and others.

The latest report provides worldwide and regional LCD monitor shipments by size, brand, size by brand, application and channel for Q1'99. It also forecasts LCD supply, demand, demand by product mix, demand by interface technology by size, LCD prices, LCD monitor prices, LCD costs, LCD monitor costs, analog and digital interface costs, regional penetration, CRT prices, CRT costs, CRT supply, CRT demand, CRT product mix and regional CRT product mix among other parameters on a rolling 8-quarter basis.

DisplaySearch's Q1'99 LCD monitor results are based on multilingual surveys received from more than 35 different branded monitor suppliers. The worldwide results are shown in Table 1 and indicate that NEC Corporation and NEC Home Electronics combined to account for 25.1% of the LCD monitor market in units and 26.3% in revenues. On a unit basis, NEC was followed by Fujitsu, Mitsubishi, Samsung and Compaq. NEC held the No. 1 or No. 2 position in the 14", 15", 18" and 20" segments on a worldwide basis. -0-

Table 1:          Q1'99 WW Branded LCD Monitor Market Share

                             Q1'99 Unit           Q1'99 Revenue
   Rank       Supplier      Market Share          Market Share
     1          NEC             25.1%                 26.3%
     2        Fujitsu           15.5%                 14.8%
     3       Mitsubishi         7.4%                  6.9%
     4        Samsung           4.5%                  4.3%
     5         Compaq           4.4%                  4.7%

In North America (NA), Viewsonic enjoyed the highest unit market share on both a ship-out and sell-through basis for the second straight quarter. Sell-through market data is provided by leading channel market research firm TFC.NET. Table 2 reveals Q1'99 NA revenue and unit market share for the top 5 branded suppliers on a ship-out basis. As indicated, Viewsonic enjoyed the No. 1 position in units with a 17.1% share while NEC Technologies enjoyed the highest market share in revenues at 21.3% due to its strength in large area monitors. Viewsonic enjoyed the No. 1 or No. 2 position at every major size while NEC was the leading supplier at 2 sizes. Compaq climbed from No. 4 to No. 3 as its NA shipments 35%. Compaq held the No. 1 or No. 2 position in 2 sizes. Philips' shipments rose 34% as it moved from No. 5 to No. 4. Finally, IBM fell from No. 3 to No. 5 in units while securing the No. 4 position in revenues. -0-

Table 2:          Q1'99 North America Branded LCD Monitor Market Share

                           Q1'99 Unit    Q1'99 Revenue
   Rank       Supplier    Market Share    Market Share
     1       Viewsonic       17.1%           16.0%
     2          NEC          13.5%           21.3%
     3         Compaq        11.5%           11.0%
     4        Philips         7.4%            6.1%
     5          IBM           7.0%            6.6%

The report also reveals the fab schedules for 44 different TFT LCD fab investments through Q1'01 including their PO dates, install dates, initial production dates, full production dates, substrate size and probability. It reveals that combined fab equipment spending for fiscal 1999 and 2000 will exceed $4 billion, and fab capacity normalized to the panel size mix should grow 88% between Q1'99 and Q1'01. The duration and severity of the current shortage given both increases in supply and demand is also revealed.

The Q2'99 Quarterly Supply Vs Demand Study: Desktop Monitors is available for $3995 in electronic format or $4395 for a printed copy. For more information on DisplaySearch's Quarterly Supply Vs Demand Study: Desktop Monitors or any other DisplaySearch report, please contact DisplaySearch at TEL: [phone], FAX: [phone], email: [e-mail] or Web: www.displaysearch.com. In addition to the Quarterly Supply Vs Demand reports, DisplaySearch produces 17 other monthly, quarterly or annual reports as well as provides custom consulting. More than 300 different companies from 19 different countries have become DisplaySearch customers.