What They Say
Strategy Analytics said that it saw 8K TV sets reaching 70 million households by 2025, with only just under 350K being sold globally in 2020. The sales level should rise to more than 1 million this year and around 4 million by 2022. By the end of the period, the US will be the biggest installed base with close to 25 million households with at least one 8K set.
What We Think
Market researchers like to publish positive forecasts, and forecasting on the basis of the installed base (cumulative sales) often gives a chart that looks more positive.
As you would expect, the forecast is based on sales by set size, with 8K dominating the ultra-large segment by the end of 2025. By that time, 8K panels are expected to be ubiquitous in large sizes. As David Barnes used to say “For LCD makers, pixels are free”. OLED is likely to continue to struggle to get good yields in 8K mainly because of backplane complexity. It’s feasible that Samsung’s commitment to 8K in large size LCDs allied with QD-OLED might help drive on backplane development, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. (BR)
