Samsung Electronics Co expects the penetration rate for smart TVs in Taiwan to reach as high as 40 percent this year, with the company planning to launch 15 LCD TVs here this year, more than 90 percent of them smart TVs.
Smart TVs feature Internet access, multimedia sharing with different handheld devices and application offerings.
Aaron Chen (陳志龍), a senior manager at Samsung Taiwan’s visual display group, said the “penetration rate [for smart TV] in Taiwan would be similar to that for the rest of the world.”
About 30 percent to 40 percent of LCD TVs around the world this year will be smart TVs, Samsung Taiwan president Moon Sung-hyun said yesterday. He did not provide last year’s figure.
However, Maxwell Chang (張乘維), an analyst with Topology Research Institute (拓墣產業研究所), said it “will surprise me, if the penetration rate for smart TVs reaches 10 percent in Taiwan as prices are still expensive for most people.”
An entry-level Samsung 32-inch smart TV costs NT$33,900 (US$1,130), 60 percent more than the average NT$20,000 for an LCD TV, Chang said.
Chang forecast that only 20 percent of the 115 million LCD TV units shipped this year would be smart TVs with demand mostly from developed countries in North America and Europe, thanks to widespread Internet access.
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