4K UHD Sales Set To Surge Worldwide

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Consumer demand for TV sets is poised to return to growth in 2018.


Why? The recovery of several markets linked with a transition to 4K UHD models will drive trade value up by 5% to $85 billion.

That’s according to the latest Worldwide TV Market Report from Futuresource Consulting.

“We believe 4K UHD TV sets will ship over 100 million units this year, equivalent to two-thirds of the entire large screen market,” said Futuresource Consulting Market Analyst David Tett. “Consumers increasingly want larger screens, and this is playing nicely into the 4K UHD proposition.”

The world’s two largest markets, China and the U.S., both saw dips in 2017. But, each nation has a positive sales outlook in 2018, with a significant mix of large screens and 4K UHD sets.

“They have been ahead of most other markets in terms of adoption of 4K UHD and large screens generally,” Tett says. However, other regions are now catching up and Western Europe is on course to match the 44% Chinese household ownership of 4K UHD TVs by 2022.

With a substantial installed base of 4K UHD TV households to target, content is now becoming available across markets.

Says Tett, “Our research shows that there has been a significant step-up in the proportion of 4K UHD TV owners who say they have watched this content at home. This is the result not just of an expanding number of SVOD subscribers, but also a growing choice of content via linear TV.”

Inclusion of voice is the latest weapon being deployed by the biggest vendors in the heated battleground of premium TV.

The most popular Voice Assistant (VA) platforms, Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa, are being incorporated into the latest TVs from LG, Hisense, TCL and Vizio. Samsung, meanwhile, will be utilising its in-house Bixby assistant in its 2018 QLED range. With Smart Home and IoT becoming a focus for many brands, Futuresource expects the inclusion of VAs to grow rapidly in TVs.

Also, in pursuit of better margins, most vendors have introduced either QLED or OLED display technology to larger screens.

“The two largest TV vendors are currently on opposing sides; Samsung is the driving force behind QLED and LG is OLED’s primary backer,” Tett says.

Futuresource expects a 41% CAGR between 2018 and 2022 of these technologies, resulting in around 8 million sets shipping in 2022.

Among other findings, the report shows that HDR is expected to be present in 60% of 4K UHD sets this year.

HDR 10 is the most commonly found solution currently across vendors but the availability of a range of technologies including HDR10, HDR10+, HLG, Advanced HDR and Dolby Vision is leading to some consumer confusion worldwide.