The shipment total represented a decline of 6.4 percent over the prior year, although there was a strong second quarter in 2016, which means that the numbers look worse than they probably are.

The 28.5 million units shipped represents a sequential decline of 1.2 percent, the first sequential decline for a second calendar quarter since 2014. A sequential decline in a mid-year quarter is typically the outcome of digestion of excess inventory, which is troubling given that first quarter of 2017 also opened in the red. Still, optimism abounds, particularly around replacements of old monitors approaching end of life.

Strong back-to-school and holiday seasons should prop the market up, and as such, IDC has revised its forecast for the second half of 2017 from -2.8 percent growth to a decline of 1.7 percent.

Maura Fitzgerald, senior research analyst, at IDC, expects the global PC monitor market will continue to decline at rates around two percent year over year from 2018 through 2020.

IDC currently forecasts 117 million PC monitor units will be shipped for the full year 2017 and expects to see a year-over-year decline of 2.2 percent in worldwide shipments to 27.8 million units in the second quarter of 2018. By 2020, worldwide shipments are expected to be less than 112 million units as the adoption of mobile devices at lower price points is expected to continue.