Industry analyst DisplaySearch has been forecasting continued strong growth for LCD HD products for quite a while, but is now growing some original predictions even further.
Due mainly to strong LCD HD shipments in the second quarter of 2009 in “key markets like China and North America, and the prospect for continuing growth during the remainder of [this] year,” DisplaySearch said it’s increasing its 2009 global LCD TV shipment forecast to 130 million units — up 3 million from its earlier estimates of 127 million.
The revised LCD forecast would represent a jump of about 24 percent annual growth, the analyst said.
However, it also is revising downward by about 3 percent its original forecast for overall TV shipments for this calendar year, which would now represent a projected decline of all TV sales of 5 percent over 2008. The reason: Older technology CRT (tube) sets are declining even faster than previously envisioned, and the additional growth projected for LCD units will not be enough to compensate for an overall loss.
Another big reason for an overall decline in TV sales is the global economy. “The 2009 U.S. holiday season will be a critical measure of how confident consumers are with the economic recovery, and how far brands and retailers are willing to go in order to drive store traffic,” said DisplaySearch in a statement this week.
