Sony who last week, were telling retailers that Samsungs LED TV technology was a myth, have been soundly beaten in the Australian LCD flat panel TV market by Samsung, according to the latest GFK data for week 18.

The Japanese manufacturer of Bravia TV’s, who spent last month giving away Blu-ray players in an effort to pump up their flat panel TV sales, was pushed into second place in the highly competitive LCD TV section by Samsung who grabbed 29% of the “value” market. Sony only achieved 18% with LG coming in third with 13%.

Samsung was also number one in all flat panel TV sales covering LCD, LED and plasma TV sales.

An LG executive quipped “Maybe they will give away a Sony PSP next time as they only have 10% share of the handheld gaming market and they need all the gaming help they can get”.

Sony, who believe that by charging a premium for their Bravia LCD TV’s will help them win points in the GFK rankings, are shortly set to launch a new range of Bravia LCD TV’s up against a new range of plasma TV’s from Panasonic and a new range of LED TV’s from Samsung.

In the US last week, Sony was pushed into third spot by “bargain brand” Vizio who failed to make it in the Australian market. 

They were beat out by Samsung, formerly in the No.1 slot, taking 21.6 percent of the market, vs. Samsung’s 19.9 percent stake. The other leading manufacturers, according to iSuppli, were, respectively: Sony, with a 16.6 percent share; LG Electronics, with 10.7 percent; and Sharp with 9.4 percent share.