Desktop Monitor Imports Soared Amid Stay-at-Home Rules

May desktop monitor imports soared from April at a rate nearly quadruple that of laptops and tablets, the connectivity tools most commonly associated with COVID-19 stay-at-home mandates, according to Census Bureau figures we accessed Sunday through the International Trade Commission’s DataWeb. May brought the highest monthly unit imports of monitors in 10 months. The one-month spike in May monitor imports came amid surging demand in videoconferencing adoption. Cisco’s Webex exceeded 500 million meeting participants in April, generating 25 billion meeting minutes, more than triple the volume in February (see 2005140001). U.S. importers sourced 4.16 million monitors from all countries in May, a 45% increase from the 2.86 million shipped here in April, said DataWeb. May laptop and tablet imports increased 11%. Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam also contributed to U.S. monitor supply in May, on a vastly smaller scale than China.