The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Feeds

World telly shipments stall

Q2 not good for set makers

It wouldn't be fair to say World+Dog isn't buying new tellies at the moment, but numbers from market watcher DisplaySearch show it's still a depressing businesses to be in.

Some 55.5m TVs shipped in Q2 2011, down - albeit by just a single percentage point - on Q2 2010's total.

Sales of all types of TV were down with one exception: LCD, which saw shipments rise six per cent year on year - still less than the 20 per cent quarterly growth the technology was achieving in 2010.

Last was a strong one, thanks to a flood of shipments that vendors hoped would be snapped up by World Cup soccer fans. They weren't, and prices plunged.

Back to Q2 2011, and plasma and rear-projection set shipments were down slightly, and CRT continued its downward slide, though some 6.8m of them shipped during the quarter - a total second only to LCD's 44.5m, and more than the 4.2m PDPs that shipped in the period.

OLED TVs didn't trouble the scorer.

Samsung remains the top brand with a share of 22.6 per cent, followed by LG (14.4 per cent) and, at number three, Sony (11.7 per cent). Panasonic moved into fourth place (9.4 per cent) during the quarter, thanks to its acquisition of Sanyo, and that knocked Sharp into fifth place (7.0 per cent). ®

Ah well

we have no compulsive new technology at the moment. 3-DTV has not caught on, and most people either already have, don't really care or don't know about HD.

What we have here is a down-swing compared to a previous up-swing caused by LCD TVs. People could see that an LCD TV occupies less space for a larger screen, can be wall mounted, and uses less electricity than a CRT, but do many of them care that LED is better than CFL for the back-light? And the current ultra-slim tellies are not that much slimmer than the 2-3 inches of the last generation in the scale of a living room. People are realising that, as long as it works, their two year old telly is still adequate for watching Coronation Street, the Simpsons, or Mythbusters.

Are we, at last, seeing a return to a domestic consumer electronics market that is not dominated by hype and the need for the latest shiny things? I sincerely hope so.

2
0

Perhap we all now have TVs

And don't need a new one.

And I still have a few years warranteee on mine!

1
0

Well of course tele sales are down

those who looted one in the riots don't need to buy one as well

1
0

3D is the killer..

If I was in the market for a TV I wouldn't want a 3D one at all. I would see it as paying a premium for a feature I do not want and would never use. Worse that that (for TV Manufactures) is that a lot of less technical people think that a 3D tv is just that.. it only does 3D. I'm certain my parents would think "We don't want a 3D picture, we just want a normal TV".

Manufactures need to drop 3D as a headline selling feature, include it in the sets if you must, but remove the 3D moniker in the name.

0
0

Re: Ah Well

"but do many of them care that LED is better than CFL for the back-light?"

Any that have compared the two?

0
0

More from The Register

MYSTERY Nokia Lumia with gazillion-pixel camera 'spotted'
With 20Mp sensor - NOW will you try Windows Phone 8?
Microsoft reveals Xbox One, the console that can read your heartbeat
Upgrades Live service – and no always-on requirement
 breaking news
The iWatch is coming! The iWatch is coming!
Reports: Apple's wrister to have 1.5-inch OLED, test units being built
US boffin builds 32-way Raspberry Pi cluster
Beowulf cluster built for the price of a single PC
Dell's PC-on-a-stick landing in July: report
Wyse up, suckers, could this be a new set-side-stick?
Review: HP Pavilion 14 Chromebook
All roads lead to Chrome?
Borked your iDevice? Pay EVEN MORE to have it fixed by Applecare
Or scream at their hapless techies on their forums
Review: Sony Xperia SP
The new mid-range marvel? Oh yes.
Euro PC shipments plummet into bottomless pit of DOOOOM
11th quarter of decline, 20pc drop on last year - Gartner