Omdia: “8K TV ownership slow, but OTT will boom”
November 18, 2021
By Chris Forrester
María Rua Aguete, Senior Research Director/Media & Entertainment at Omdia, told delegates to the 4K/HDR Summit in Malaga that 8K television ownership will be extremely modest.
“8K will grow very slowly, even slower than we thought last year. Even in Japan, the only country that has launched an 8K channel, there is no clear commercial lineup,” Rua Aguete pointed out during her keynote. “In the medium term, the situation is unlikely to change: by the end of 2025, only 9 million households worldwide will have an 8K TV.”
“We do not believe that 8K will be a ‘home format’ but will be a performance format and not one enjoyed by viewers at home, at least for the next five years. 8K shipments accounted for just 0.2 per cent of all TV shipments.” By 2025 Omdia expects total global shipments of 8K sets to be around 1.5 million.
By 2025, Omdia expects total global ownership of 8K sets to be around 1 million.
Rua Aguete added that it was most unlikely that mainstream 8K services would launch within the forecast horizon. She said that Q2/2021 saw 90,600 8K TVs shipped, down from the 96,000 shipped in Q1/2021. Samsung shipped 70 per cent of these 8K sets.
Japan was still the only country with an 8K channel and despite this service 8K ownership remained “super low”.
She also highlighted that “all of the growth [in video subscriptions] will come from streaming media” amd said that there are 5359 streaming services (as at Q2/2021),whilst “there will be 500 million net new OTT additions over the next 5 years”.
Rua Aguete was equally optimistic about 4K saying that already more than 50 per cent of all TV shipments were 4K. China is leading the way with more than 70 per cent of TVs shipped being Ultra HD (although Chinese ownership on a per-home basis was still not going to reach 50 per cent until 2023). Western Europe also has high levels of ownership although Q2/2021 had seen a shortage of some sizes because of the Covid pandemic. US UHD ownership will reach 77 per cent in 2025.
As to 4K channel growth she was blunt. While admitting that there was now a direct shift to 4K availability on a per-programme basis, it was clear that US pay-TV providers have been unconvinced by the business case for UHD services. “Consumers love the quality, but broadcasters are finding it difficult to monetise that investment,” said Rua Aguete.