What They Say
Advanced Television reported comments by María Rua Aguete, Senior Research Director/Media & Entertainment at Omdia from the4 K/HDR Summit in Malaga that 8K television ownership will be extremely modest.
“8K will grow very slowly, even slower than we thought last year. Even in Japan, the only country that has launched an 8K channel, there is no clear commercial lineup,” Rua Aguete said during her keynote. “In the medium term, the situation is unlikely to change: by the end of 2025, only 9 million households will have an 8K TV.”
“We do not believe that 8K will be a ‘home format’ but will be a performance format and not one enjoyed by viewers at home, at least for the next 5 years. 8K shipments accounted for just 0.2 per cent of all TV shipments,” she added
By 2025 Omdia expects total global ownership of 8K sets to be around 9 million.
On the other hand, UltraHD/4K sets are becoming standard with 70% of new set sales in China already at that resolution, but the installed base will not be over 50% until 2023. By 2025, the US, which likes big sets, will have 77% ownership in the installed base.
What We Think
I’m not surprised by the conservative estimates for 8K. There is, after all, still little to no content available outside Japan and streaming services. As a production format, 8K makes quite a lot of sense to me, but until we get properly wall-sized TVs at low prices, and everybody has hundreds of megabits of broadband access it will remain niche.
There were some confusing numbers quoted in the article, so we have reached out to Omdia for clarification. Either way, the firm’s view is radically different from that forecast by Strategy Analytics earlier this year.
(The firm got back to confirm the 9 million number and said it expects shipments at around 1.5 million in 2025) The Strategy Analytics forecast is for around 35 million! My view is that Omdia is more reasonable than the Strategy Analytics version. (BR)
