What They Say
Broadband TV News reported a talk by Paul Gray of Omdia at the HbbTV Symposium in Prague in which he forecast that 2023 would be a quiet year with a weak start following 2022’s World Cup where manufacturers had been very cautious with their promotions. 2024 would then see a recovery, boosted by the Paris Olympics and the European Football Championships.
According to the report, around 30 million units were sold in Western and Eastern Europe in 2021, on a par with 2020.
Gray believes that the market is more or less independent of economic conditions.
“Even if there is no recession then consumers’ euros in their pockets will. If we go back 25 years there is no strong link between the tv market and the economy. You may not go out for a meal or go to the cinema, but TV represents very good value. They may not get exactly the TV set they wanted to buy but this is a very resilient business.”
The Russian market may come under pressure because of an erosion in disposable income.
What We Think
Gray has been around the TV market a long time – I first met him when he was a research manager at NXP and have learned a lot about the TV market, and Europe in particular. I remember him saying to me, on the subject of the resilience of demand because of replacements “If your TV breaks, you don’t start reading more books”. He was not wrong and when I was forecasting the market, the main process was to look at macroeconomic developments such as the growth in the number of households, along with replacement time cycles. (BR)
Paul Gray of Omdia in Prague
