With CES starting next week, manufacturers are beginning to intentionally leak announcements concerning their CES rollouts.  HP is making waves with “pre- announcements” that are conspicuous with what they leave out - new products based on DLP.  Samsung, on the other hand, has announced that it intends to launch a new MDTV based on DLP that is much thinner than traditional DLP-TV.  Samsung at least, thinks this will help to make MDTVs more competitive in the face of stiff competition for flat panel TVs. 

Ken Tompkins
Insight Media Analyst

Pacific Media Associates recently confirmed what we have seen in our pricing survey - that Panasonic’s new aggressiveness to stem the tide towards LCD-TV has resulted in average price drops as high as 25% in one month (November).  Furthermore, V Inc. announced the imminent launch of a sub-$2K, 47-inch LCD-TV.  The model, called the GV47LF, is said to be already shipping, although as of this writing we didn’t find any evidence of that online.

Falling prices have resulted in LCD-TV’s coming out on top in 2006 holiday sales.  NDP asserts that LCD-TV made up 11% of the $8.75B of holiday POS spending in the US (Nov. 24 through Dec. 24), while PDP-TV was in fifth place with 4.5% of sales for the season.

As the FP-TV portion of the sales pie increases, those based on projection technologies are becoming less emphasized.  HP has decided to dedicate its entire new-product line-up at CES to FP-TV.  In particular, HP will focus on its MediaSmart television, which bridges the gap between the living room’s television, the study’s PC and the Internet using wireless technology and a Media-Center-type interface.

The Samsung announcement specifies a rear-projection product that can be hung on a wall but that is less expensive than the flat-panel television (FP-TV) alternatives.   Historically, Samsung’s dent in CE market share is primarily based on acceptable performance at price points that open the pocketbooks of less-than-wealthy consumers.  The products that Samsung will announce next week at CES will include 50- and 60-inch televisions at prices lower than similarly sized FP-TVs.  Samsung believes that many of these sets will be hung on walls, although they are approximately 10 inches deep.

The new products are based on DLP, which has seen its outlook somewhat dimmed recently as manufacturers begin to focus increasingly on FP-TV of extremely low prices and the resulting higher volumes.  The FP-TV battle between PDP- and LCD-TV and the increase of new FP-TV production capacities have caused television products based on these technologies to fall to new ASP lows.

With excitement building for new, low-priced FP-TVs at CES, Samsung’s announcement may seem like a bit of an anachronism.  However, the interest in FP-TVs is built in large part on falling prices.  If Samsung’s projection televisions can be successfully marketed as flat-panel at much lower prices, the manufacturer may be on to something.   Samsung’s success relies on how low its price will be and whether the new set will have a “chin”, something that doomed previous efforts at ultra-thin MDTV.

Most interesting about both of these announcements is their lack of emphasis on DLP, despite the Samsung announcement.   The future of television technologies is beginning to take shape, and the future looks brightest for flat panels, at least in the near term.