Price war between touch-control technologies to increase adoption in AIO pcs

According to Evelyn Chang, Industry Analyst for Information System at MIC, shipment volume of the Taiwanese desktop PC industry slipped 3% sequentially in the second quarter of 2013 to around 13.91 million units. As stated in Intel's product development roadmap, mainstream Core i3 and entry-level Pentium series products are expected to hit the market later in September. “The second quarter of 2013 was mainly a transition period for platforms, during which branded vendors slowed down pull-in demand in order to clear inventories. The momentum of new product deployment was unleashed as late as in June and therefore had limited contribution to the industry's shipments”, said Evelyn Chang.

Responding to the price war of touch panels, some vendors such as Mutto Optronics, O-Film, MNtech, and 3M have shifted their focus to metal mesh touch panels, which are around 10% cheaper than capacitive touch panels in terms of BOM (Bill of Material) cost. Besides low cost, metal mesh touch panels are as slim and lightweight as film-type touch panels. As for end-user products, some Korean vendors plan to adopt metal mesh touch control modules in their AIO PC series in 2014.

As vendors work on technology development, increase touch panel production yield, and develop various technologies to overcome the bottleneck of AIO PC touch panel development, it is anticipated that a greater number of price-competitive touch control solutions will be available for AIO PCs. Besides, as the price gap between traditional and touch-control AIO PCs becomes narrower, adoption of touch control in AIO PCs is expected to surge.

Taiwanese Desktop PC Shipment Volume, 3Q 2011 - 2Q 2014

Source: MIC, October 2013

To see more about this report, please visit: The Taiwanese Desktop PC Industry, 3Q 2013.

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Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC), based in Taipei, Taiwan, was founded in 1987. MIC is Taiwan's premier IT industry research and consulting firm providing intelligence, in-depth analysis, and strategic consulting services on global IT product and technology trends, focusing on markets and industries in Asia-Pacific. MIC is part of the Institute for Information Industry. https://mic.iii.org.tw/english