14 DAY TRIAL // LCD technology has been around for a fairly long time and had displayed an ascending trend in its level of popularity, but it seems that TV sets based on this technology are a lot more popular than previously thought. Thus, the latest market study from DisplaySearch has unveiled not only that customers from all around the world purchase more TV sets, but also that they're favoring LCDs above all others.
First and foremost, the study reveals that global TV shipments grew 21% Q/Q (quarter to quarter percent change) and 5% Y/Y (year to year percent change) to 60.8 million units, which brought 2007 total shipments to almost 200 million units worldwide. For the full year in 2007, TV revenues exceeded $100 billion for the first time, with Q4'07 revenues climbing 10% Y/Y and 26% Q/Q to a record $32.9 billion.
Furthermore, DisplaySearch reported that LCD TV shipments worldwide overtook CRT TV shipments for the first time, after rising 56% Y/Y to a record of more than 28.5 million units or 47% of the world TV market. This very serious growth was caused by several important factors, as for example share gains in all regions, the fact that LCD technology represents the natural replacement for CRTs (since LCD TVs are available in sizes ranging to 20 inches and below). On the other hand, CRT has fallen from 77% of global TV shipments in Q1'06 to 46% in Q4'07, even with LCD prices at a 224% ASP premium for 32" and smaller screen sizes.
It's also interesting to note that, in spite of the natural replacement of the CRT TV market, LCD has also made strong share gains against plasma and RPTV technologies with new larger LCD panel fabrication units optimized to produce larger screen sizes in a more cost-effective manner. Thus, the LCD share of TV sets with diagonal sizes of 40 inches and above has grown from 44% to 65% Y/Y on a unit basis while PDP TV has fallen from 40% to 31% and RPTV is down from 16% to 3%.
And since we're on the subject of plasma displays, the report also points out that PDP TV shipments were up a more modest 29% compared to LCD TV, but exhibited the strongest growth of any technology at 43% to 4 million units in Q4'07. This brings 2007 total shipments to 11.3M units, 22% higher than 2006. On a revenue basis, PDP TV growth was not as robust with 28% Q/Q growth, but a 3% Y/Y decline in Q4'07 to $4.8 billion.
The conclusion (all figures and percents aside): go LCD! They're more affordable and a lot more successful than plasmas (albeit quite a lot of people claim that PDPs are a lot better in terms of color reproduction and "feeling").
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