May
13

Vizio LCD TVs Take No 1 Spot in LCD TV Market

Filed Under Cheap LCD TVs, Vizio LCD TV | Leave a Comment

Total LCD TV shipments were 6.3 million in North America during the first quarter of 2009. This figure represents an increase of 10.5% for the same period in 2008 year.

The growth is welcome, if a little surprising given that the weak economy has caused sales of other consumer electronics to tale a tumble so far in 2009.

The most surprising aspect of the sales figures is that Vizio sold 21.6 percent of total LCD TVs shipped in the first quarter of 2009. This is a big leap in their market share, as it’s about 50% up from the 13.8 percent Vizio achieved in the fourth quarter of 2008.

As such Vizio LCD TV has now become the top-selling LCD TV brand in the U.S and in becoming the top brand, Vizio has overtaken Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics and Sharp along the way.

Seeing how Vizio only started business in 2002, you have to say it has come a long way very fast.

US-LCDTV-marketshares-Q1-2009

Question: So why is Vizio now the number one LCD TV brand? Most likely it’s because consumers are looking for cheaper TVs. Certainly, since the onset of the economic downturn, Vizio’s share has risen dramatically.

 

Vizio has kept its market share rising by:

  • keeping its prices low, despite competition from other “no-name” brands and the big brandnames

and

  • getting into stores like Costco and Wal-Mart, so its products are available in places where people are buying.

Vizio-VW42LF-42inch-Class-LCDFHDTV

One of Vizio’s best selling LCD TVs in Q1 2009 was a 42-inch HDTV for an average price of $850 (the VW42LF - 42″ Class LCD FHDTV is currently listed at $829.99 on the Vizio website).

In comparison, a similar TV from Samsung was around $1,000, while Sony’s was a little more at $1,090.

On the other hand, you can read this LCD TV review where the conclusion was “although the Vizio looked good by itself, when compared side by side with the Samsung the (large) difference in price was justified.”

For me, if a Samsung LCD TV was $1000 vs a similar Vizio LCD TV at $850, I’d want to take a close look at the 2 TVs, preferably side by side before buying.

 

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Apr
19

Vizio LCD TV - Cheap LCD TV Update

Filed Under Cheap LCD TVs, Vizio LCD TV | Leave a Comment

Question: What do all these names have in common:

Vizio, Kenmark, Viewsonic, Kogan, Syntax, TCL, Polaroid, UMC, Olevia, Daewoo, Westinghouse, iLO, Goodmans, TEAC, Norcent and Zenith?

Answer: They’re all so-called, cheap LCD TVs.

Sometimes these are also called “no name” or “value” brand TVs. Some of these LCD TVs are only available in only one country, or just a few countries, whereas others are available around the world.

Important Note: Although they may be called cheap LCD TVs, they’re not necessarily cheaper than the major brands in every case. Especially in the current economy, where the big brands - Sony, Samsung, Philips, LG, Panasonic, Sharp etc - are becoming more price competitive.

For example in a recent review by Choice Australia of 42 inch / 106 cm LCD and Plasma TVs the cheapest was from Sanyo followed by a Samsung model than Panasonic and Philips.

The value TV in the comparison was a TCL brand model, which was placed 8th out of 10 in the overall ratings. However, the TCL was $650 more than the 2nd placed Samsung and $600 more than the 3rd placed Philips TV.

vizio-and-samsung-lcd-tv

Anyway the question of interest to most people about cheap LCD TVs is are they any good? And that is a tricky question to answer.

The issues behind that question revolve around what are the buying criteria that are important to you.

A low, or at least competitive price is obviously important to many people, but what do you trade off to get a lower pric?

If you read some of the reviews on cheap TVs, some people love them, others hate them. Others never have a problem, other have failures and then have problems with customer support trying to get their issues resolved.

Overall, assuming you find the picture quality and feature set acceptable, probably durability/reliability is the main gotcha with cheap LCD TVs. And reliability / customer support is one of those things its hard to really know how its going to be until you need it.

In the July 2008 issue of Popular Mechanics they compared the Samsung LN40A650 LCD TV against the VU42LF Vizio LCD TV. The Samsung was more than twice the price of the Vizio at the time of the review ($2700 vs $1100).

The reviewer concluded that although the Vizio looked good by itself, when compared side by side with the Samsung the (large) difference in price was justified.

So this reinforces our LCD TV buying guide tips:

1. Define your buying criteria - size, features, budget range.

2. Research on the internet to get a shortlist of which LCD TVs meet your buying criteria.

3.  Go and see the shortlist in the flesh, ideally side by side or at least within a short period of each other using the same source material

4.  Negotiate the best deal, remembering the internet is not necessarily the cheapest. Also remeber to watch out for internet shonks, there are plenty around.

Good shopping.

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