TV sales in Australia have slumped during the past 12 months despite rampant discounting by retailers, according to GFK data the Australian market is down more than 10% overall. Bucking the trend is Samsung.During the past year, global TV shipments fell by 0.3 percent to 247.7 million units in 2011, marking the first time global shipments experienced a decline since NPD DisplaySearch began tracking them in 2004.
One Company that is not feeling the effects of the downturn is Samsung with their global flat panel TV revenue increasing in Q4’11 to 26.3%, which is a record level for any brand and a three percentage point increase from Q3.
Samsung was also the revenue market share leader in both LCD and plasma.This was the first time that a brand other than Panasonic led in global plasma TV market revenues.
Samsung was also the top brand in 3D TV and LED TV shipments. LGE was the #2 brand worldwide at 13.4% and, besides Samsung, was the only other top five TV brand to see revenue growth Y/Y in Q4’11. Sony rounded out the top three at almost 10% revenue share, but saw a more than 30% decline in revenues Y/Y
3D Shipment Share Continues to Rise, Increasing to 14% of Global TV Shipments in Q4’11.
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3D continues to show gains worldwide as a percentage of TV shipments, posting gains in every region including Asia Pacific.
LCD TV shipments increased by 7 percent to just more than 205 million units in 2011, which was still significantly slower than in previous years DisplaySearch said.
The technology that is dragging the segment down along with brands like Panasonic is plasma with shipments falling 7 percent in 2011 to 17.2 million units, the largest decline for the category to date.
Paul Gagnon, NPD DisplaySearch TV research director, said that the declines were well below expectations, and were largely due to “excessive inventory levels early in 2011 as well as a sharp drop in demand in markets like Japan following the end of the government sponsored Eco-Points program that caused a surge in replacement activity during 2009-2010.”
The fourth-quarter 2011 shipments were down 4 percent year to year globally, to 74.2 million units, with LCD TV shipments rising just 1 percent, which was another low point since NPD DisplaySearch began tracking shipments.
Plasma TV units were down 8 percent for the quarter.
