Flat-panel TV sales up, but profits not
At a time when the global economic slowdown is pushing down sales of electronic products ranging from personal computers to mobile phones, flat-panel televisions are proving the exception.
According to a report from the research firm GFK, shipments of flat-panel TVs in China reached 4.76 million units in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 70 percent over the same period in 2008.
That’s a steep jump from a first-quarter 20 percent to 30 percent growth rate predicted earlier by analysts.
“China’s flat-panel TV market grew 40 percent last year, so many analysts had predicted that the market would grow at a slower rate this year because of the financial crisis,” Ye Ping, a GFK analyst, wrote in a report accompanying the research firm’s findings.
“But it turns out that the market grew much faster than most had expected,” Ye wrote.
As one of the world’s larger electronic markets, China’s flat-panel TV industry grew rapidly in recent years as Chinese consumers in mostly urban areas began replacing their old, bulky CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs with new, flat-screen LED (light-emitting diode) sets.
Research firm DisplaySearch recently projected that China’s demand for flat-panel TVs will increase 76 percent this year to 23.6 million, accounting for 19 percent of world demand for flat-panel TVs.
That has encouraged most of the world’s larger flat-panel TV makers, including Samsung, Chi Mei Optoelectronics Co and BOE Technology Group Ltd, to consider establishing LED factories in China.
Chen Hsuan-bin, CEO of AU Optronics Corp (AUO), a Taiwan-based flat-screen TV maker, said last month that China will overtake the United States to become the world’s largest LED TV market in 2010 or 2011.
He said there are still 500 million CRT TVs in the country, which he expects eventually will be replaced by flat-screen TVs.
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