Global TV shipments slide in second quarter
Research firm DisplaySearch says Samsung has 22.6 percent market share, easily eclipsing second place TV maker LG.
The global television market hit some tough times during the second quarter, a new study released today by research firm DisplaySearch has found.
According to DisplaySearch, worldwide TV shipments hit 55.5 million during the second quarter of 2011, representing a year-over-year decline of 1 percent. During the period, only LCD shipments were up over the prior year, jumping 6 percent to 44.5 million. Plasma shipments were down 6 percent to 4.2 million, while CRTs dropped 31 percent to land at 6.8 million worldwide.
During the first quarter of 2011, television shipments were up 1 percent compared to the same period in 2010. However, 55.2 million televisions shipped during the period.
Although things didn't look too great for the television market during the second quarter, DisplaySearch said that the market's decline was due mainly to tough comparisons against last year's figures. DisplaySearch vice president of TV research, Hisakazu Torii, said in a statement that the second quarter of 2010 was a strong growth period for the market because of "greater price erosion and more confident consumers."
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"Due to weakening macro-economic conditions, similar to what happened during the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, the TV industry is becoming somewhat pessimistic and reducing inventory, especially in North America and Western Europe," Torii said in a statement.
Those issues have, however, hurt flat panel TV makers. According to DisplaySearch, the top three companies--Samsung, LG, and Sony--saw their year-over-year figures decline by 10 percent, 1 percent, and 11 percent, respectively.
Even so, Samsung doesn't need to be too worried. DisplaySearch reported that the vendor's market share hit 22.6 percent in the second quarter, up from the 22.1 percent market share it nabbed in the first quarter. LG secured 14.4 percent of market, down from 14.5 percent in the prior quarter. Sony's market share jumped from 11.4 percent in the first quarter to 11.7 percent in the second quarter, DisplaySearch found.
Panasonic and Sharp rounded out the top five in global television shipments with 9.4 percent and 7 percent market share, respectively.
Finally, DisplaySearch looked at the technologies the televisions are shipping with. According to the firm, LED-backlit LCDs represented 43 percent of all LCD TV shipments during the second quarter. The company also found that 3D capability was available in 9 percent of all the televisions shipped, and sets with the technology accounted for 23 percent of TV revenues.