Pollster predicts mega UK smart TV sales
Forecast flies in the face of sales evidence - just ask Comet
Brits are rather keen on internet-connected tellies, with more than half of households owning a TV that has already been hooked up to the interweb, a survey carried out by pollster YouGov has discovered.
But this apparent interest in buying seems out of joint with the reality of high street sales.
YouGov regularly questions some 350,000 Britons and its latest enquiry reveals that 11 per cent of them say they plan to buy a smart TV in the next 12 months - a period which includes this coming Christmas.
"There is a huge appetite for accessing internet services on TV sets, whether that be on demand TV, radio, news apps, or video calling services like Skype," says the psephologist.
TV makers are undoubtedly praying to higher powers that this intention translates into real sales. In the UK, unit sales of LCD TVs were down 15 per cent between September 2011 and September 2012, according to GfK, a European market watcher. Unit sales of plasma sets was down 41 per cent in the same period. LCD and plasma sales revenues were down 12 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively.
The only consumer electronics category Brits are buying more of now than they did last year are digital radios.
But that hasn’t stopped YouGov saying there’s a £2.5 billion market for smart TVs. Its announcement is headed, ‘Smart TV sales to hit £2.5bn as more and more Brits want TV and internet all in one’. The value figure comes from multiplying the £440 buyers are willing to pay for a 32in smart TV by the 5.76 million Britons aged 16 or older who are planning to buy a such a set as extrapolated from those who've told YouGov that's what they're going to do.
It’s a shame their eager demand didn’t come in time to save Comet. The electrical retailer’s collapse is another sign, if it were needed, that Brits - despite what they may tell polls and surveys - aren’t loading up on tellies and such. ®
COMMENTS
I find this...doubtful
I'd love to see what the actual question was.
Even though I have a so-called smart TV, I very rarely use any of the functionality since the various STBs attached (Sky+, Apple TV and a rapsberry pi running XBMC) do a much better job, and given the lamentably slow pace software updates on the TV (a Samsung), I'm pretty sure that will remain the case.
"the next 12 months - a period which includes this coming Christmas"
You don't say?
"...whether that be on demand TV, radio, news apps, or video calling services like Skype"
No. Just give me something that I can plug a cat 5 into that'll stream mp4's, avi's, mkv's, mp3's, aac's and flac's from my DLNA server.
"The only consumer electronics category Brits are buying more of now than they did last year are digital radios."
We sold two last year, and three this year!
Re: I find this...doubtful
I used to be a TV Product Planner but why would you want this joined to your screen? The general purpose computer will be slow and obselete long before the screen. If you want a fully capable computer buy one and connect it by HDMI (or even ethernet and DLNA). I don't want to interact with the TV screen just have it show me content. The ideal UI would be browsing and selecting on a tablet and only showing the desired output on the TV.
A network connected (not very Smart) TV focused on what it is good at - video decoding and playback is my preference. Save power when just watching iPlayer or content from the video store. Playback local media over DLNA/UPNP.
I have a MythTV linux box doing recording and acting as a general home server and use my not very smart TV to play the content over UPNP. The TV does a far better job of decoding and picture processing than the MythTV box.
The other problem with your concept is that it would cost more than getting the TV and PC separately because it would be sold through the TV retailers and distribution channels that expect (and need to survive) dealer margins around 30% (and more at the high end) compared to typical (even retail) PC margins closer to 15%. I don't think that they would split the difference so you would end up having a +30% margin on the whole product.
