Features

LCD TV Sales Rise 135 Pct in Q1: Study

By Sophia Mayengbam

Liquid crystal display (LCD) TV is one of the technology advancement seen in recent times. There is always a tug-up-war happening among the big market players to capture the largest size of the market. This severe competition between the main display makers have resulted in significant price drops for comparable LCD television sets.

The average selling price for a LCD television was USD 1,195, 9 percent less than a year ago. For that money, consumers got a 19 percent bigger screen, with an average 27 inch diagonal, U.S.-based market research group DisplaySearch in a report.

In the report DisplaySearch said global sales of thin LCD televisions rose 135 percent to 7.4 million units in the first quarter of 2006, with Philips Electronics leading with a 13.9 percent market share. Overall revenues from LCD TVs rose nearly as fast as unit shipments, by 114 percent to USD 8.8 billion compared with the first quarter of 2005.

Four brands – Philips, Sharp, Samsung and Sony --dominate the LCD TV market accounting for a 50 percent share of units and a 54 percent share of revenues.

Table 1: LCD TV Unit Share

Table 2: LCD TV Revenue Share

Philips, including the Magnavox brand it uses in the United States for cheaper televisions, saw its global market share slip slightly to 13.9 percent from 14.2 percent in the fourth quarter. Sharp recovered to second position with 13.1 percent from 13.6 percent a quarter earlier, as Sony slipped to fourth place from second with 10.9 percent from 14.6 percent.

Samsung Electronics increased its market share to 12.5 percent from 11.6 percent, and LG Electronics finished the top five with a 6.9 percent market share, up from 6.4 percent.

Measured in revenues rather than units, the ranking looked very different, with Sony top with 15 percent due to the much bigger average screen sizes of its LCD televisions. By this measure Samsung, Sharp and Philips were the respective second, third and fourth biggest producers.
Ross Young, the founder and president of DisplaySearch said most panel makers will focus on 42-inch panel production, which means more component makers will target this segment as well.

The increased production scale will lead to fall in the prices in the segment, he stated.