Survey: East European Market to Grow 30 Percent by 2012

New market research suggests that the global TV market will grow 24 percent within the next four years, as shipments climb from 42.9 million to an estimated 53.1 million units.

Data analyst DisplaySearch said the increase is driven by the formerly depressed Eastern European market. This region is forecast to expand by more than 30 percent—to 15.4 million flat-panel TV sets—by 2012. Many, but not all, the flat-panel units will be HD.

“Eastern Europe, including Russia and Turkey, is the fastest-growing television market in the world today,” said Paul Gray, DisplaySearch’s director of European TV research. “The rate of uptake of flat-panel [sets] is as fast in Eastern Europe as it was in Western Europe and Japan in 2005 and 2006. As a result, we are seeing a rapid transition to LCD and plasma technologies and the market has accelerated the adoption of larger sizes, especially 32-inch, as they have reached mass-market price points.”

For the first quarter of 2008 across Western and Eastern Europe, Samsung led in units shipped with a 31-percent share, followed by LGE (13.4 percent) and Philips (12.7 percent) in the first three months of 2008.