The big numbers of the television

The TV set is a household appliance widely diffused in dwellings worldwide but its primacy is menaced by alternative systems that offer its same services at lower costs.

The research agencies DisplaySearch and IHS, historically reference sources for the data concerning the TV set market, have been joined by various others, which have released evaluations and news about market trends, the presence of the appliance in single houses and especially about the typology. The multiplication of sources has however had a serious negative consequence: the available figures often do not agree one another.

In the two tables, we have mostly reported the surveys by the two above-mentioned agencies. For some nations, like Germany, United States and Japan, we provide instead the official data by the respective trade associations.

In the first table, we have omitted the presence percentages of the TV set in houses, since these exceed 95% in all mentioned nations, with the exception of Mexico, with 94%, and of India, where the percentage drops to 53% according to the most reliable evaluations.

The fleet of TV sets installed in the world is evaluated in different ways by the various sources. We range from a minimum of 1.5 billion appliances to a maximum of 1.8 billions.

Sales

The TV set market is living a very critical phase. After an uninterrupted growth on a world scale until 2010, in 2011 started a negative trend that, even if with some interruptions, lasted until 2015 and seems likely to continue in the next years, too.

In a four-year period, the world market has decreased by 8.0%. The downturn actually affects all developed Countries, and Mexico, too. The neatly rising economies are an exception: China, Brazil and India. A case apart is Japan, where in four years they registered the 74.2% downturn: an unprecedented fall.

The causes of this crisis are various. The main one is the competition of internet systems, which allow watching movies or other entertainment programmes through the PC, with the addition of the growing diffusion of tablets and smartphones, practical to use and at low cost.

TV set manufacturers have tried to solve this problem offering appliances at lower and lower prices: the adopted measure was not sufficient to hinder the market fall.

In terms of typology, nowadays we witness the almost complete replacement of plasma screens with LCD ones, which in 2015 represented about 98% of the total. Inside this process, 4K and UHD televisions are more and more gaining ground, since today they represent 11% of the total. Smart TV, which allow connecting with internet, are steeply rising; according to some estimates, they are likely to represent 50% of the market, with peaks exceeding 60% in United States, China and Japan. The available data on the matter are however very controversial and conflicting one another. Consequently, it is not possible to grant their reliability.

Finally, today the general trend goes towards bigger and bigger screens.

The sales per inhabitant are obviously correlated to single Countries’ situations. We range from one appliance sold every 8 inhabitants in USA to an average of one every 10-12 in Western Europe nations, then rising to higher numbers in Far East, with the peak of one every 83 in India.

Producers

Samsung and LG are the undisputed leaders of the world market: together, they constitute a good 45% of it. Behind them, the big Japanese manufacturers Sony and Panasonic and the United States Sharp complain about the rising difficulties owing to the low-cost competition of the two leaders and to the growing presence of new Chinese brands, like Hisense, Skyworth, Changhong ad still others. The latter are constantly expanding and steal market shares to Japanese and Americans.

Prospects

Today a serious crisis affects the TV set market due to the competition of computers, smartphones and tablets. Only in the poorest nations, where not all own this appliance, yet, sales are expanding. On the other hand, however, the diffusion of Smart TV acts as a counterweight, leading several consumers to rediscover the television.

The next future is therefore dubious: which of these two opposite trends will prevail? Research agencies diffuse contrasting forecasts and it is difficult to judge their reliability. On balance, a globally stable market seems the most likely hypothesis in the course of next years. In its ambit, Smart TV will further consolidate, causing the drop of sales and prices of conventional models.

market shares of the major producers in the world– 2015

Source: our processing of DisplaySearch data

sales of tv sets in 2011 and in 2015 (million pieces)

Sources: trade associations, national statistical Bodies, CIA, DisplaySearch, IHS Research