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Flat Panel TV Sales Suffer World Cup Hangover
DATE: 8th December 2006
The latest data from Meko on TV set sales in Europe indicates that the World Cup caused a longer hangover for TV manufacturers than suffered by those that watched the games in June. Reports from retailers of a boom in demand from consumers around the event were not in line with sales into the channel and this meant that whilst shipments in Q2 2006 were good, an over-supply in that period hit sales in Q3 hard. As a result, the increase in penetration (or share of the market) for flat panel TVs slowed down. These LCD and plasma TV sets increased their overall share of the market by only 1% to 48% of sales by volume. "Total shipments in Q3 were down on the previous period by 7% and only just crept above 8 million units. This is a year on year drop of more than 12%", commented Pete Gamby, Meko's director of research. "However, when we look at total sales in Q2 and Q3 for 2005 and 2006, the number of sets sold is about the same. This shows that the World Cup seems only to have brought forward some buying decisions rather than creating totally new demand". The decline in shipments of "traditional" CRT TVs also contributed to the overall drop in shipments. Sales of TVs using the old technology fell by more than 30% year on year. Despite this huge fall, there were one or two bright spots for the CRT makers. For example, Samsung has been able to grow sales of its new slim depth CRT TVs and 21" CRT sets are still the largest selling single size category in the European market, in volume terms. For the flat panel suppliers it was very much a "game of two halves". Those that are playing in LCD colours saw sales dip by only around 2% sequentially but the plasma team experienced a massive 22% decline in shipments in Q3. "Consumers are certainly putting their money firmly on LCD to win out in the TV market", notes Gamby. "We are seeing dramatic improvements in picture performance in the plasma market but this does not seem to be persuading customers to buy. It could be that plasma is now seen as 'old' technology in the flat panel sector and this could be damaging to sales growth". Meko expects the plasma TV makers to react though and consumers are likely to benefit from increasingly attractive prices. The US Thanksgiving holiday sales season has set the trend for price cuts and deals that have already been done for Europe suggest some very low prices in the coming months. By vendor, Samsung led the market overall and was one of only a few vendors to show sequential growth. It also reported more than 35% year on year shipment growth. Philips and Sony took second and third places respectively with LG having a tough time, dropping to fourth place on a more than 40% decline in sales. Further down the table, Sharp is showing signs of recovery following a couple of difficult quarters. It reported double digit sequential and year on year growth and did particularly well in the 32" LCD sector. -end- For more information, please contact Pete Gamby on +44 (0)1276 22677 or by email at peteg@meko.co.uk. If you would like to receive press releases from Meko as soon as they are available, please send a blank email to: ListServer@meko.co.uk, with the subject line 'Subscribe MekoNews'. |