Defying challenging economic conditions, the global LCD-TV market is expected to continue its rapid growth during the coming years, causing it to become the largest segment of the consumer-electronics industry by 2012, according to iSuppli Corp.
Speaking yesterday (9th October 2008) at iSuppli’s North American Briefing event, Sheri Greenspan — senior analyst, consumer electronics for iSuppli — predicted worldwide OEM factory revenue for LCD-TVs will rise to $110.8 billion in 2012, nearly double the $61 billion in 2007.
In 2012, LCD-TV revenue will exceed that of consumer appliances, marking the first time that the vast appliance sector has not been the top money generator in the consumer-electronics industry since iSuppli began gathering data on this market.
At present, LCD-TV is the second largest revenue-generating segment of the 20 consumer-electronics product categories tracked by iSuppli.
“Consumers want their electronics, in good times and in bad,” Greenspan told the audience at the event. “Because of this, the consumer-electronics market will continue its incremental growth over the next four years, driven by LCD-TVs, along with consumer appliances, digital Set-Top Boxes (STBs), digital still cameras and video game consoles.”
Factors driving LCD-TV shipment growth include the global transition to digital broadcast, rapidly declining prices, and consumer preferences for high-definition displays and thin form-factor sets.
Greenspan noted that global consumer-electronics OEM factory revenue rose by 2 percent in 2007 and is expected to increase by another 6.5 per cent in 2008.
In parallel with the rise of the LCD-TV market will be the expansion of the digital STB segment.
“Global digital STB factory revenue is expected to grow to $25.6 billion by 2012, rising at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 11 per cent from $15.2 billion in 2007,” Greenspan said. “Consumers continue to upgrade their televisions with new premium services, like high definition and Video on Demand (VoD), requiring new STBs.”
Greenspan added that shipments of STBs also will be driven by consumer demand for Digital Video Recording (DVR), which increasingly is becoming standard in set-top boxes.
Other consumer-electronics growth areas include digital still cameras, whose revenues will rise to $26.9 billion in 2012, expanding at a CAGR of 6.6 per cent from $19.6 billion in 2007.
“Growing demand for the higher-priced digital SLR cameras is helping drive overall pricing up, as is continued consumer interest in higher resolution and video-capture capability,” Greenspan said.
Video-game-console revenue is expected to grow to $14 billion in 2012, rising at a CAGR of 5.9 percent from $10 billion in 2007. Mass market adoption, new game titles, accessories and price reductions are helping drive demand, along with evolution of game consoles into media centers, Greenspan said.
Greenspan noted that a massive number of consumer electronics products are prime candidates to undergo a convergence of functionality. She noted that more than 800 million individual consumer electronics products shipped worldwide in 2008 potentially could be affected by some form of convergence, a number that will rise to 1.2 billion by 2012.
“Elements driving the convergence trend include peer pressure and the ‘coolness’ factor,” Greenspan said. “It also will help consumers to save money as it often costs less to buy a device with converged functionality, rather than buying several devices.”
She identified several product segments that are undergoing convergence with each other, including:
* Portable Media Players (PMP) and mobile handsets.
* Video game consoles and Blu-ray Disc players.
* Blu-ray Disc players and Set-top Boxes.
iSuppli Corp