Samsung commands monitor market says Tarsus` le Roux

monitors are the world`s favourite brand says Sarah le Roux, business manager for Samsung monitors at . Tarsus is the sole South African distributor of conventional and TFT displays from the Korean manufacturer.

"A worldwide market share of 18,8% puts Samsung clearly in the lead over other products in the TFT department," states le Roux.

Traditional cathode ray tube monitors are still more popular that their TFT counterparts particularly for price sensitive markets. Samsung`s CRT models emerge as most preferred by the world`s computer users with an international market share of 14,4%. "This figure includes monitors that Samsung OEM`s for many brand name PCs," explains le Roux.

According to her, of the 13 million Samsung display units shipped in 1999, 38% (about 5 million units) were branded models and the balance OEM. "It is interesting to note that Samsung`s brand popularity has increased significantly year on year. Forecasts for 2000 show exceptional increase in units, especially the SyncMaster brand with 52% (10,4 million) of 20 million units sold to date in 2000 being SyncMaster branded," she notes. This reflects growth of 110% for the Samsung SyncMaster branded displays, 20% for OEM and a healthy overall growth of 54%.

On the international front Samsung is also in the headlines as the leading manufacturer of static and dynamic RAM. Later this year Samsung is planning to open a PC manufacturing plant in Mexico to manufacture OEM Gateway PC`s, while the company is also the world`s seventh largest manufacturer of hard disk drives and is an authorised manufacturer of Compaq Alpha 64-bit server processors.