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Roaring gains for flat-panel TVs in
China
BEIJING - The Chinese
TV market is in the early stages of a switch to
flat-panel display models, with many of the
country's increasingly affluent TV buyers
leapfrogging the older CRT-based (cathode ray
tubes) units in favor of liquid crystal display
(LCD) or plasma display panel (PDP)-based flat
panel TVs, both of which have seen spectacular
increases in sales in recent months.
In
the first four months of 2005, China's LCD TV
market generated a total sales volume of 215,000
sets, worth 2.05 billion yuan (US$247.6 million),
rocketing by 378% and 310% year-on-year,
respectively. The lion's share of China's LCD TV
market was taken up by domestic brands. In
February through April, all top seven retailers
were domestic enterprises, making up 66% of total
market share in February and 70% in April. Three
domestic TV giants, Skyworth, Hisense and XOCECO,
ranked the top three, with total sales accounting
for more than 37% of the total.
In terms
of the production mix, large-screen LCD TVs became
mainstream in January through April, with 32.6% of
the market taken up by 32-inch or larger TVs. Out
of the large-screen market, the share of 32-inch
TVs registered the fastest growth, at 18% in
January and 23% in April. Simultaneously, the
market share of 30-inch units shrank. The market
share of 20-inch LCD TVs dropped slightly,
reaching 11% in April. Along with rapid growth in
sales, the prices of LCD TVs dropped sharply. The
price of 40-inch TVs dropped by 49.3%; that of
42-inch units by 26%; 37-inch TVs by 16.7%;
32-inch TVs, by 9.2% and 30-inch TVs, by 15.2%.
PDP unit sales up
In the first four
months of 2005, China's plasma display panel TV
market sold 128,000 sets, worth 2.73 billion yuan,
soaring by 236% and 110% year-on-year,
respectively. This far exceeded previous
predictions of only 170% growth. Domestic brands
raised their total market share by 2.7 percentage
points to reach 49.1%, while that of Japanese
brands dropped by 5.3 percentage points.
In terms of production mix, the 42-inch
TVs took about 94% of the total market share while
50-inch TVs took 3%. The market share of 42-inch
high-definition PDP TVs accounted for 11% of the
total, the same as at the end of 2004. In terms of
average price, that of 42-inch PDP TVs dropped by
12.7%, averaging 18,455 yuan in April; that of
50-inch TVs down 17.9% to reach 44,946 yuan in
April.
The market share of PDP TVs with an
average price lower than 15,000 yuan accounted for
only 13% in January, but it reached 28.2% in
April. Plasma units in this price range became the
mainstream choice and were mostly domestic brands.
The market proportion of PDP TVs with prices
ranging from 15,000 to 20,000 yuan reached 43% in
April, whereas overseas brands, including
Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba and LG took the lion's
share of sales.
(Asia
Pulse/XIC) |
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