14 DAY TRIAL // After the flop that the 3D display market turned into (despite the almost raving endorsement by every maker of displays), people can be excused for thinking that the Ultra-High Definition LCD market would experience a similar false start.
This is not what has happened, according to certain parties cited by news and rumor website Digitimes. In fact, UHD TV are selling very well indeed, and will account for a tenth of the whole market this year.
At the beginning of 2014, market watchers estimated that television sets with a native resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels would account, shipment-wise, for 6% of the worldwide TV market. That would have put them at 16-17 million units by the end of 2014.
Now, however, Innolux believes that the real figure will be closer to 20 million, which suggests a 10% penetration instead.
The disparity is, partly, a result of expectations on the part of Korea TV vendors that OLED TVs would take some of the spotlight. The products did get a lot of attention during the 2013 late-year shows (like IFA 2013), and CES 2014 (this year’s Consumer Electronics Show). This did not come to pass, due to high costs.
Samsung and LG are the companies experiencing the steadiest UHD TV sales across the world, although Japan and China haven’t been exhibiting as high an interest in them, on the part of consumers, as the rest of the planet.