What They Say
Digitimes reported data from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) that highlighted good growth in TV sales in 2021, with volumes of TVs at 2.79 million sets up 20.9% year on year. Shipments of 4K TVs and OLED TVs were up 29.1% and 92.5% year on year for the first six months. In June, 4K TVs were 329K units with 74,000 OLED TVs, up 63.9%
The blog quoted that GfK is forecasting that sales for the year will get to 6.2 million, up from 6 million last year and 5 million in 2019. Demand for the Olympics has helped the market.
The global market is forecast to be up by just 1.4% for the year in 2021 to 220 million units.
A separate report from big retailers BIC Camera and Yodobashi Camera highlighted that OLED is particularly good for the motion in sports. Sales are up on last year, even though there was a boost from pandemic relief payments at that time.
What We Think
The Japanese brands are very strong in that country and with Sony and Panasonic having OLED at the premium end of their ranges, the technology is bound to be possible. Samsung is not popular in the Japanese TV market, as far as I know (I haven’t been for a while) and I checked the BIC Camera site. Along with Sony & Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba, the firm is selling TCL and Hisense as well as some LG sets, but no Samsung TVs as far as I could see. (BR)
