With the 2008 Summer Olympics coming to Beijing, China, most are predicting an up tick in interest in HDTV and flat panels. What may be a little surprising is the very large growth this market will experience, at least according to a report in the China-based subsidiary of the newspaper, Fuji-Kezai. It conducted a survey of production and consumption trends for AV and other display equipment in Mainland China and found that flat-panel television technologies (LCD and plasma) currently make up only 8% of the television market on the Mainland. In the year of the Chinese Olympics however, that figure is expected to jump to 24%.

Ken Tompkins
Insight Media Analyst

Chinese nationalistic pride in seeing the Olympics held in China for the first time is expected to make this a very popular televised event — one that will propel sales of TVs. But will the estimates above come true or will there be a let down in sales the way there was after the World Cup? Ten days ago marked the two-year countdown to the opening ceremonies in Beijing.

According to the survey, the growth in flat panels will come at the expense of CRTs, which are expected to fall precipitously from 48M units to 37M. At that time, LCD television unit sales will exceed those of CRTs. LCD-TV is expected to rise to 42M units in the Olympic year — 5M more than CRT.

China’s crossover from a market of CRT television to one of primarily LCD television will be a momentous event for both the Chinese and worldwide television markets. When China first began to reopen to the West in the 1970s and 1980s, CRT television was considered one of the five "electrics" that any self-respecting Chinese citizen must have if he or she were to be considered a successful member of the new society. In this new society, based on "socialism with Chinese characteristics," market economics allowed millions of Chinese to own the land and other means of production. Thus, "socialism with Chinese characteristics" was no longer socialism, regardless of the rhetoric from political circles in Beijing.

As these millions were lifted out of poverty by the free markets, one of the means by which people could show friends and relatives that they lived on the cutting edge of the new society was in being the first in a village or neighborhood to own a color television set. Later, ownership of such an appliance became de rigueur . Not owning a color television risked the loss of "face" among one’s relations and friends.

The television never lost its power as means by which Chinese show their status as individuals or households that "had arrived." In the period after color television became ubiquitous, ownership of a large-screen television became the new method of flaunting prosperity. No longer would a 19-inch CRT achieve this goal. Nothing less than 50 inches would suffice, and at the time, this meant CRT rear-projection. These are a few of the reasons that CRT RPTV became a major part of the television market on Mainland China, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.

From this, one may erroneously conclude that the momentum in favor of rear-projection television would favor the market adoption of the new microdisplay products. Such a conclusion would ignore another aspect of conspicuous Chinese consumption. Today, CRT rear-projection television has gone the way of CRT tube television as a way to show that the spirits of prosperity have visited one’s household.

All things being equal, many Chinese would prefer to showcase appliances of the latest technologies in their houses. Microdisplay television, when turned off, does not have the undeniable look of new technology. Even when MDTVs are turned on, the current paucity of HDTV signals in China does not help the cause of microdisplay sales there. Instead of "oohs" and "aahs" from friends, neighbors and relatives, the response to an MDTV in a Chinese living room is more likely to be one of pity about the owner’s inability to afford one of the late-generation LCD-TVs, for instance.

The stage has been set for FPD television, and LCD-TV in particular, to take the world’s largest single market by storm. And this is a game of Olympic proportion! -KT