Global shipments of LCD TVs, including sales of much-anticipated curved display TVs from Sony along with South Korean and Chinese brands, are expected to grow by 3 percent next year to 209 million units, ending two years of decline, research group TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) forecast.
This year, worldwide LCD TV shipments are expected to shrink by 1.7 percent to 203 million units because of weak demand due to the slowing global economic recovery and China’s suspension of a subsidiary program on cost-efficient TVs.
To answer the growing market demand for curved displays, Taiwan’s two biggest LCD panel makers, Innolux Corp (群創光電) and AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) are expected to begin shipping curved display machines in the second quarter of next year at the earliest, WitsView, a TrendForce LCD research team, said on Wednesday.
Curved display TVs are expected to account for about 1.4 percent of overall LCD TV shipment numbers of 209.1 million units next year, WitsView said, adding that leading South Korean and Chinese TV manufacturers would be the first to release the displays.
South Korea’s Samsung and LG are likely to retain their No. 1 and No. 2 global rankings next year with market shares of 21.8 percent and 14.1 percent respectively, WitsView forecast.
Sony is likely to come next with a market share of 6.7 percent, it said.
Shipments of ultra-high-definition, or 4K, TVs will skyrocket to as high as 18 million units next year, from this year’s 2.2 million units, thanks to Chinese TV brands’ aggressive promotional strategies, WitsView analyst Burrell Liu (劉陳宏) said.
That would increase the 4K TV share of the market to about 8 percent next year, Liu forecast.
Slim TVs with screens measuring 50 inches or larger would take a bigger share of the market, up to 17 percent next year from this year’s 12 percent, Liu said.
That would help bring the overall average size of TVs up from 39 inches this year to 40.8 inches next year, as South Korean and Chinese TV makers are set to aggressively market bigger TVs, according to a separate report released by WitsView on Thursday.
As a result, the total amount of LCD panels sold next year by area is expected to grow by 5 percent, WitsView said.
The researcher did not provide detailed figures.
Another market researcher, DNP DisplaySearch, was more optimistic about overall LCD panel demand.
The US researcher on Wednesday predicted that overall demand for LCD panels would grow 10 percent annually to 15,400m2 next year, compared with 14,100m2 this year, due to growing demand for bigger TVs.
Global shipments of 50-inch TVs would grow by about 19 percent to 32 million units next year, from 27 million units this year, NPD DisplaySearch forecast.
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