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MarketWatch: As global economic conditions deteriorated during Q4’08, consumer demand for discretionary purchases suffered, including flat panel TVs. According to the latest findings from the DisplaySearch Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, global TV shipments fell more than 5% Y/Y in Q4’08 to 57.7M units from more than 60M units a year earlier.

Total TV revenues fell even more, declining by 7% to just over $30 billion (€24 billion) despite flat panel technologies picking up more than 10% unit share. Combined flat panel TV revenues posted the first annual decline in a given quarter, falling 3% Y/Y despite 17% growth in unit volume with falling prices affecting revenues.

The 1080p share of global TV shipments exceeded 20% of units for the first time, and a new metric available from DisplaySearch in TV tracking shows that more than 10% of LCD TV sets shipped were equipped with 120 Hz+ frame rates. 

China remained the largest market for TVs on a unit basis, accounting for just over 19% of units, followed by Western Europe and North America at just less than 19%.

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Dealerscope: Worldwide shipments of plasma display panels fell along with the global economy, as they dropped 12 percent year over year in the fourth quarter. That’s according to numbers released Monday by research firm display search.

According to DisplaySearch’s Quarterly Global TV Shipment and Forecast Report, Plasma and LCD TV Panel Shipment Module, shipments of the panels dropped 12 percent to 3.8 million in the final quarter of 2008. Meanwhile, 1080p panels grew in share, representing 25 percent of those sold.

Meanwhile, Panasonic widened its market share lead to just under 50 percent, followed by Samsung and LG; Panasonic was the only brand whose sales grew in the quarter.

“Due to the demand reduction brought about by the economic crisis and manufacturing line shut downs by each plasma panel maker, it is hard to expect optimistic results for 2009 PDP shipments,” DisplaySearch’s Director of Display Technology and Materials, YS Chung, said.

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Electronic House: New U.S. president Barack Obama talked about going green with solar and wind power in his inauguration speech. We’ll no doubt be seeing a lot more in eco-friendly and sustainable products—and one of them will be “green” TVs.

Research company DisplaySearch reports that in 2008, 20 percent of flat-panel display shipments had green features, and this share is expected to soar to 70 percent by 2012 and dominate the market by 2014. In other words, green will become commonplace in our TVs.

By “green,” DisplaySearch means that TVs either have environmentally friendly components and materials, achieve lower power consumption, are compliant with environmental regulations such as waste disposal, use production processes that reduce energy and materials consumed, are completely or partially recyclable after useful life, or use green or eco-friendly concepts in product design, packaging methods or materials.

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MarketWatch: In its latest Q4’08 Quarterly OLED Shipment and Forecast Report, DisplaySearch reported that the worldwide OLED display revenue in Q3’08 was US$141 million (€ 108 million), up 60% Y/Y.

“OLED displays have very attractive performance: wide viewing angle, wide color gamut at all gray scales, fast response time, low power consumption, thin/light weight and wide operating temperature. Lifetime has improved dramatically in recent years, and red and green lifetimes are long enough for many consumer electronic applications. Despite this, OLEDs still face strong price competition from TFT LCDs and PM LCDs,” said Jennifer Colegrove, PhD, Director of Display Technologies at DisplaySearch.

“The OLED display industry is changing rapidly, with new companies entering the business, existing companies expanding capacity or exiting the market, and other companies changing their application focus,” added Dr. Colegrove.

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SlipperyBrick: DisplaySearch has released its quarterly reports on the number of TVs shipped worldwide for Q3 2008.

Despite the poor economy, TV shipments grew by 11% quarter-over-quarter and 6% year-over-year. Over 53 million TVs were shipped worldwide in the quarter.

Shipments in North America grew more than expected with a 12% increase compared to last quarter to 10 million units.

Globally the share of flat panel TVs grew to 57% in Q3, a gain of 1% compared to the previous quarter.

Plasma TVs retailed the same 7% share of the worldwide market. The top TV brand globally was Samsung.

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Digital Home: Worldwide sales of plasma panels in the third quarter rose to 4.2 million units in the third quarter of 2008, a 37% over the same quarter in 2007 according to research firm DisplaySearch.

The firm says demand continues to be strong for plasma TVs worldwide due to attractive price points and increasing availability of high-definition content and predicts global plasma sales will reach 15.5M units for the year.

While unit sales were up 37% year over year, revenues were up a more modest 21% due to declines in the average selling price of plasma sets. The number one seller of plasma televisions was Panasonic which took in 39.8% of revenues followed by Samsung (29.4%), LGE (21.9%), Pioneer (4.7%), Hitachi (4.1%) and Orion (0.1%).

The 1080p share of plasma panel unit shipments remained over 20% with a record 856,000 units shipped in the latest quarter. Panasonic remained the dominant supplier of 1080p PDP plasma panels, accounting for 70% of units shipped.

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Marketnews: “Full HD” 1080p resolution has helped fuel plasma TV growth worldwide during the second quarter of 2008. According to DisplaySearch, a division of the NPD Group, plasma shipment units increased 1 per cent quarter-over-quarter (Q/Q) to 3.5 million units, but 54 per cent year-over-year (Y/Y).

1080p also helped to drive revenues up 28 per cent Y/Y and six per cent Q/Q. The results show that 1080p now accounts for 21 per cent of all plasma shipped. 

More than 70 per cent of all 1080p plasmas shipped were from Matsushita (Panasonic), which also enjoyed a 7-point revenue share jump to 36.8 per cent, representing 23 per cent Y/Y growth.

Panasonic was also the only supplier of 1080p plasmas at the popular 42” and 46” screen sizes. On the smaller size of the scale, however, things are declining.
Overall, 1080p plasma volume grew 89 per cent Q/Q and a massive 333 per cent Y/Y.

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Engadget: The term “widescreen” is one of the most notoriously confusing monikers (this side of Full HD) used to describe a display’s specifications.

Widescreen generally translates to a 16:10 aspect ratio when discussing computer LCDs (monitors or laptop displays) or 16:9 if your talking about the living room TV. Of course, it can also refer to the 2.35:1 ratio often used for films or something entirely different if you’re Apple touting the wonders of your new widescreen iPhone.

Fortunately, we’re trending towards at least some convergence around the 16:9 aspect.

DisplaySearch predicts that by 2010, 16:9 panels will make up 90% of new laptop displays and 67% of new monitors. Acer has been at the forefront of this transition with products like its Gemstone Blue laptops and the Acer P224W monitor pictured above.

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New York Times: A new report from DisplaySearch, a consumer electronics research firm, warns the industry that if it wants to keep improving HDTV sales, it will need to quickly install some features that are now extra-cost add-ons available only in high-end models.

Built-in Internet access, 1080p resolution, PVR capabilities and upgraded HDMI connection standards need to become standard fare by next year, the director of research at DisplaySearch, Calvin Hsieh, said. “Our research shows that the growth of the market will peak between 2009 and 2011. Thereafter, growth will be limited without the development of new, enhanced features for TVs,” he said.

Fewer than half the digital TVs sold in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East with screen sizes larger than 40 inches have 1080p resolution (Japan has the highest penetration, at 90 percent). And while Internet access is beginning to show up in sets from Panasonic, Sharp, and Sony, among others, once network connections are integrated right into a chip instead of requiring an ungainly add-on box, we’re likely to see more applications that take advantage of the connectivity, Mr. Hsieh said.

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The Register: If you’ve got a Samsung LCD TV at home, then the South Korean giant owes you some thanks, because the company’s now led the global LCD TV market for the ninth consecutive quarter.

According to market watch DisplaySearch, Samsung controlled 20.8 per cent of the market between January and March this year – with sales of around 4m sets. The quarter was also the first time Samsung’s share of the market had topped 20 per cent.

Samsung saw a 70 per cent jump in LCD sales during the period globally, and in the US it also accounted for 14.3 per cent of all LCD TVs sold.

Just behind Samsung, during the same period, came Sony with a 13.2 per cent share, followed by LG and Sharp with 11.6 per cent and 7.3 per cent of the market, respectively.

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HiddenWires: DisplaySearch believes the outlook for plasma TV cost reductions and performance improvements are closely tied to improvements in luminous efficacy as outlined in its recently introduced 2007 PDP Technology Report. Luminous efficacy can be simply expressed as the relationship between luminance (brightness) and power consumption. As luminous efficacy improves, higher brightness can be achieved at the same power levels, and lower power can be achieved at existing brightness levels. DisplaySearch’s new report goes into great detail explaining how higher luminous efficacy levels can be increased, when they are likely to occur and quantifies the anticipated impact on cost reduction and performance improvements.

According to DisplaySearch’s YS Chung, Director of FPD Material and Technology and Analysis and co-author of this new report, “It will be critical for plasma manufacturers to increase luminous efficacy to improve their competitive position with LCD TV manufacturers who continue to target larger and larger sizes where the plasma share is highest. We believe a doubling of luminous efficacy to 5.0 lm/W will happen this decade and can reduce plasma panel manufacturing costs by 9-11% vs. 2.5 lm/W costs primarily due to reductions in address and sustain voltage levels and resulting increases in circuit integration. In addition, further improvements in luminous efficacy to 10 lm/W could reduce costs by as much as 40%.”

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Evertiq: DisplaySearch has released its Q3’07 Quarterly LCD TV Value Chain Report, which states that 23% of the 20.1 million LCD TV units shipped in Q3’07 were made by external OEMs such as TPV, Jabil, AmTRAN, Quanta, Proview, Vestel and Wistron. Many LCD TV brands outsourced 100% of their LCD TV set manufacturing, such as Grundig, HP, Polaroid, Vizio, ViewSonic and Westinghouse.

Philips outsourced more than 60% of its LCD TVs shipped in Q3’07 to OEM makers. Some brands intend to increase their outsourcing share for certain regions and products as the market expands, while other brands intend to bring more volume in-house as they expand into new regions. The Quarterly LCD TV Value Chain Report is an excellent means of tracking these trends by manufacturer.

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