Laptop and monitors display sales surge as pandemic continues

Driven by the pandemic, laptop display and PC monitor sales surged in 2020, with no end in sight in 2021, according to a new report.

The number of display panels produced for notebooks jumped from 190 million units in 2019 to an estimated 214 million this year, according to a report from market researcher Omdia. That’s a 12.6-percent jump. Even better for panel makers, Omdia said, the growth will continue into next year, with an estimated 229 million expected to sell.

The overall rise in PC sales no doubt plays a big role in this trend. The pandemic-induced migration to working and studying from home has driven sales of laptops off the charts—and some of those users have purchased a second monitor for greater productivity. According to Intel, desktop sales are equally strong. Omdia compared the 144 million monitors sold in 2019 to an estimated 159 million in 2020, a 10.4-percent increase. Omdia expects monitors next year to reach 173 million in sales, a 9-percent jump over this year.

One area that isn’t quite as rosy is televisions. Although a healthy 287 million displays built for TVs were sold last year, that dropped by about 6 percent to an estimated 269 million this year. Omdia expects 2021 TV sales to continue to sag by another 5 percent.

One of founding fathers of hardcore tech reporting, Gordon has been covering PCs and components since 1998.