Flat-Panel TVs
Consumers Intrigued with Flat-Panel TVs
From the very beginning, consumers have fallen in love with new flat-panel TVs – including plasmas displays and LCD TVs – but exorbitant prices restricted sales to affluent early adopters. In recent years, improvements in mass-production techniques combined with an influx of new Asian brands have helped price tags drop dramatically. As a result, sales of both plasma and LCD TV products have ratcheted upward. These products are capable of enhanced definition or high-definition resolution, measure 4-inches deep or less, and have screen sizes ranging from 13-inches to more than 80-inches.
As more retail stores added flat-panel TV departments and the ranks of flat-panel manufacturers grew in 2004, industry sales swelled. Sales of plasma TVs grew 149 percent from 342,000 to 853,000 units in 2004 and are expected to climb 67.9 percent to 1.4 million units in 2005, according to CEA estimates. Factory dollar volume for plasma displays is forecast to reach nearly $3.5 billion for 2005, up from $2.5 billion last year. The average price of a plasma set is expected to decline from $2,952 in 2004 to $2,485 in 2005, according to CEA Market Research.
LCD TV sales during 2005 will total $3 billion up from $2 billion in 2004. Unit sales are expected to rise 49 percent from 2.6 million in 2004 to 3.8 million in 2005, as the average price of an LCD TV climbs to $799 due to stepped up sales of larger screen sizes.
Analog TV Sales Squeezed
Based on CEA estimates, sales to U.S. dealers of stand-alone analog direct-view CRT televisions will decline a whopping 56.6 percent to 8.6 million units in 2005. This is due to the acceleration of the FCC’s DTV tuner mandate, which will require half of all sets with screen sizes measuring 24-inches to 35-inches to include digital tuners by July 1, 2005, making them digital television sets. Even before the mandate hits, sales of non-H/DTV direct-view television sets for 2004 (including TV/VCR and TV/DVD combo units) were down 6.5 percent, at 23.5 million units. Stand-alone analog direct-view color CRTs declined 4.1 percent to 19.9 million units.
Still, about 80 percent of all televisions sold in 2004 were non-H/DTV “analog” direct-view TVs with CRT picture tubes. Replacement and additional set purchases for analog direct-view color TV represent more than 90 percent of all sales.
This shows that despite the allure of high resolution pictures in digital television models, a majority of consumers remain motivated by bargain price points. The average price for an analog direct-view TV is expected to drop to $152 from $176 in 2004. Meanwhile, manufacturers have fine-tuned analog TV technology to get superior pictures out of inferior (by DTV standards) signal sources.
Flat is in for Analog TVs, Too
To mark a change in an otherwise mature category, manufacturers are placing more emphasis on styling designs – making trusty old analog picture tube sets resemble their new high-tech DTV cousins. Perhaps the biggest trend in analog and digital, direct-view CRT designs in the last five years has been in the rise of sets that include picture tubes with virtually flat screens. Some manufacturers have begun phasing out lines of curved glass, direct-view sets altogether, in favor of the popular flat-glass models.
