LCD TV Center

The flat panel and “advanced” TV market is big business. For example, in the United States the total value of the market was approx. $29 billion in 2007.

LCD TVs took almost 48% market share in 2006 and in 2007 overall unit sales for the LCD TV category shot up by 74% from 2006, generating $19.9 billion in revenues. This suggests the LCD TV market share is now more than 60%.

IMS Research predict that worldwide TV set shipments will reach nearly 211 million units by 2011, with approximately 68% of the TVs shipped comprising of flat panel displays.

Right now Sony and Samsung are neck and neck for the top spot. Samsung was the leader for most of 2007 with Sony overtaking them at the very end of the year and early 2008.

Laser TVs
What comes after Plasma and LCD TVs?

Well a small group of companies are finalizing a laser TV technology that beats LCDs and plasma displays on many fronts. The laser TV claims major benefits such as
- doubled color range,
- improved brightness and contrast rates,
- lower cost,
- less weight
- thickness reduced to half;
- 75% less power consumption and a 50,000 hour operating life

During the last quarter of 2007 and January 2008, Sony took over from Samsung as the top LCD vendor in some countries such as a Taiwan, on the back of big price cuts it made in Dec 2007.

Recent data from the market-research firm DisplaySearch, has shown that Sony overtook Samsung Electronics as the world’s biggest manufacturer of LCD televisions with 19.5 percent of the global market share in the last quarter of 2007. Samsung had 19.3 percent in the same period and Sharp was ranked as No. 4 with approx. 10 percent of share.

To meet growing demand Sony has said it is planning to also buy television LCD panels from its rival Sharp during 2008 to diversify its procurement channels to meet growing demand and cut costs.

Sharp will provide 10th generation 40 inch High Definition LCD TVs from its plant in Sakai, Osaka prefecture, which is slated to start operating this year.

Historically, Sony sourced a major part of its LCD TV panels from S-LCD, a manufacturer of LCD TV panels based in Tangjeong, South Chungcheong Province in South Korea. S-LCD is jointly owned by Samsung Electronics and Sony.

Samsung Electronics and Sony jointly established the LCD maker with an investment of 2 trillion won in 2003. Since then Samsung has been buying half of S-LCD’s output and Sony the other half.

Panasonic has also recently announced plans to diversify away from its current a plasma-centric business and build a new manufacturing plant for LCD panels in and to strengthen a three-way partnership with Hitachi and Canon.

The fight for market share and dominance among the world’s leading LCD TV makers has taken on a new direction with these panel procurement deals between Japanese firms.

These initiatives have happened at a time of management turnmoil at Samsung Electronics ― the world’s No. 1 LCD maker in recent years - where executives are preoccupied soothing investors’ worries over the deepening bribery scandal involving the Samsung Group.

Industry estimates suggest that global demand for LCD TVs will reach 155 million units in five years, up from 74.8 million in 2007, primarily driven by strong sales in China and the United States.

By the fall of 2008, you can expect to buy 52-inch LCD TV sets at the current price of 40-inch LCD TVs, based on industry trends and price projections.

According to the market researcher DisplaySearch, the price of 52-inch LCD TVs will fall to $2,300 by the third quarter of 2008.

Home appliance makers have targetted 52-inch LCD TV as the major item for the flat-panel TV market for the next year and they are competing to get their share of the market.

Samsung this year sold around 790,000 52-inch LCD TVs, but expects the sales to grow to 1.95 million units next year aided by new products based on 120Hz technology and equipped with LED backlights.

LG Electronics has added wireless transmission and PC connectivity features to its lineup of 52-inch LCD TVs

Samsung’s LE52F96BD’s 52-inch LCD TVs is a leading example of the category. It uses Samsung’s Digital Natural Image engine to improve colour saturations/tones and fine detailing, as well as providing further boosts to black levels and motion control.

The most interesting capability of the TV though is LED backlighting using an array of LED backlights, which are all individually controllable.

The advantages of this approach are much deeper black levels and a jaw-dropping contrast ratio of 500,000:1.

With HD DVDs dark scenes like the opening shots of Ocean’s Thirteen on Blu-ray look spectacular and dynamic because the range between the screen’s peak whites and deepest blacks is huge and because the darkness contains more subtle detailing helping the picture look more full of depth.

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