APAC: UHD TV market doubles in last year
May 11, 2016
Amidst a slightly weakened TV market in the Asia Pacific region in the first three months of the year, a shining star in the form of the Ultra HD segment turned in a stellar performance. Nearly 590,000 of the most advanced and high-end TV models were sold across the 11 markets surveyed, translating to over one (12 per cent) in every 10 TV sets.
In January to March 2016, the APAC TV market was valued at around $2.4 billion, generated by sales of 4.9 million units across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand. This represents a slight decline by 2 per cent in both volume and value terms compared to the same period last year.
Four of the markets in the region—Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea and Hong Kong all reported positive performances, with Taiwan and Vietnam leading with double digit sales volume growth of 21 and 12 per cent.
“Although some TV markets turned in lackluster performances, there were others reporting healthy growth which helped to balance out the region’s overall performance,” noted Gerard Tan, Account Director for Technology, Asia. “Generally, the latest focus in TV is on the UHD technology, also known as 4K TV, where we see rising take-up in every single market in the region.”
According to latest GfK findings, individual markets in the region registered between 50 to 555 per cent demand surges in their respective UHD segment, with Vietnam and Korea being the fastest growing and largest markets respectively. Singapore and Hong Kong are the top two markets with highest sales penetration of UHD models – over one in three TV sets purchased by consumers in these two countries in the first quarter of the year was of UHD technology. The segment has also become the biggest contributor of total TV sales revenue in these two markets, at around 65 per cent for both.
“Receptivity towards UHD TV technology is growing at a fast pace, thanks to several key factors such as the increased number of model offerings and consumers’ becoming more knowledgeable of this technology and its benefits,” said Tan. “The price and competition factor has also helped pushed sales as the product has become more affordable compared to a year ago.”
The region’s consumers tend to prefer UHD TV with large screen sizes 55 inch and above. Over half (53 per cent) of all UHD TV sold are of this size, although some growth was evident in the 40 – 45 inch segment in the past year. Countries which sold the greatest proportion of the 60 inch and above UHD TV models in the first quarter were Australia (37 per cent), Malaysia (27 per cent), and Korea (27 per cent).
“The availability of more UHD-subscribed content being launched in Asia will certainly help to continue spurring the robust growth of the UHD TV segment,” Tan said. “The overall TV market for this year is expected to be positive—with the anticipated 4 per cent growth by Southeast Asia’s emerging economies contributing to the Asia region’s forecasted growth of 2 per cent to reach 18.6 million sales units,” he concluded.