FORT WORTH, Texas – Of all the things folks love about consumer electronics, constantly falling prices probably ranks right up there with big-screen televisions and MP3 players. But in the past year, flat-panel computer monitors refused to go along.

Now the space-saving displays are getting into line.

Retail prices started sliding in July, and wholesalers report that prices at Asian factories that produce most of the screens fell 5 percent to 10 percent in July. That is expected to result in falling prices for the rest of the year.

DisplaySearch, an Austin, Texas-based research firm, said wholesale prices for all LCD (liquid crystal display) flat panels 10 inches or larger fell 3 percent in July, and the firm expects them to fall another 3 percent in August and 2 percent a month the rest of the year.

DisplaySearch President Ross Young said it takes about 60 days for those lower costs to work their way through the retail chain, but prices are definitely coming down. He thinks 15-inch monitors – which averaged about $332 in the first quarter of 2004 – could sell for $299 by year’s end, with some promotional models as low as $249.

With prices just starting to come down, “it’s a good time to wait” if you’re looking to purchase a new flat-panel monitor, said Paul Semenza, vice president at iSuppli Corp., a technology research firm based in El Segundo, Calif.

Waiting is exactly what consumers started doing as prices began rising in April 2003 and kept going up for more than a year. The higher prices finally took their toll in the first quarter of 2004, when flat-panel sales dropped for the first time in three years. And while sales of traditional cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitors had been declining every quarter, they stabilized in the first quarter, he said.

Semenza said iSuppli’s research shows that the average retail price of a 15-inch LCD monitor rose 13 percent from $293 in the first quarter of 2003 to $332 in the first quarter of 2004. In the same period, the average price of 17-inch LCD monitors was nearly unchanged, slipping $2 to $425 in 2004.

A 17-inch CRT monitor, meanwhile, can be had for close to $100.

Basic economics also explains why flat-panel monitor prices rose in the first place. The same LCD panels that make computer monitors make LCD TV sets. With LCD televisions selling for thousands of dollars and computer monitors selling for hundreds, the choice for LCD manufacturers was clear.

“We see good supply (of flat panesl) compared to a few months ago,” said Willey of computer monitor panels. And Semenza said iSuppli estimates that worldwide capacity of LCD panels will rise more than 50 percent next year.

And that means lower prices.

iSuppli forecasts that the average retail price of 15-inch LCD monitors will fall 5 percent by the fourth quarter to $315, while 17-inch monitors will dip nearly 15 percent to $355.

“We see the 15-inch monitor still the majority of sales. But it’s shifting to 17 inches,” said Ornstead. “Within the next year, 17 inches will be the No. 1 seller, and 19 inches will be the upgrade,” he said.

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(c) 2004, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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GRAPHIC (from KRT Graphics, 202-383-6064): FLATPANEL

AP-NY-09-01-04 0611EDT