TV manufacturers across the world are stunned with dropping sales of TV sets. In US, the sale of LCD TV’s dropped by 3% in 2012, but manufacturers did not see it as a trend or a serious problem till they found that the trend is continuing in the first quarter of the year 2013 as well. Sales of TV sets have gone down by a whopping 11% in the 1st quarter as compared to the sales figures in the 1st quarter in 2012. These figures have been released by consultancy firm IHS.
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Only a couple of years ago, TV manufacturers were a happy lot with sales booming all around the country and the world. This was when most of the consumers were busy replacing their old cathode ray tube TV sets with modern, sleek, and stylish LCD television sets. However, by the end of 2011, more than 2/3rd of the American households had at least one HDTV. This meant that most of the families owned more than a single TV and this is when manufacturers should have seen the alarm signals. TV is not a commodity that people need to buy every year. A TV is bought only when the old device is giving trouble or when one has a desire to buy something very advanced and attractive. Thus, with more than a TV set in the home, TV sales started to stagnate in the country.
This trend of falling TV sales is not confined to America alone as sales of TV have been stagnating and plummeting worldwide. In 2012, the sale of TV sets fell by more than 6% around the world and analysts are predicting that it may not be possible to touch the high figures of 2011 before the year 2015. In US, this sort of recovery is just not possible until 2017, says technology consultant IHS.
TV manufacturers have been desperate to find an answer to the dropping TV sales. They have tried to lure the customers
with sales gimmicks and new technology such as Internet TV, 3D TV, HDTV, etc but nothing seems to be working for them. Despite bombarding the consumers with ads claiming superiority of high definition TV’s, it is expected that not more than 1 million ultra high definition TV sets may be sold in the country this year. In total, the sale figure may remain below 37 million, much below the expectations of the TV manufacturers. Even 3D technology has failed to motivate customers to buy new TV sets.
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With everything else seems to have failed at attracting consumers, it is perhaps the size of the TV set that still has the potential to make consumers go for new sets. This may be a back to basics approach that has earlier worked wonders with the consumers. If one looks at sales of large screen TV sets, he finds that this is one segment that has remained immune to the dropping sales of TV sets. Where internet and 3D have failed, size has proved to be easy to communicate with the consumers.
