Samsung

Our own Andrew van Til recently scoffed at the notion of debating the merits of OLED vs 4K TVs and trying to decide which one is more worthy of holding out for. It would appear that the folks at IHS iSuppli Research would probably agree. IHS is predicting that 4K TVs will represent an exceedingly small part of the market over the next five years, only reaching 0.8% of all TV shipments in 2017. The central thrust of IHS's argument is that the LCD-based 4K TVs creeping into the market right now exist only so that manufacturers can stake a claim on the nosebleed edge of the premium market. In order for 4K to go mainstream, not only will consumers need to be convinced of the benefits, but new technology is going to be necessary to reduce costs. IHL predicts that will require AMOLED panels, but LG and Smasung continue to struggle to make large AMOLED panels and Japanese firms are scrambling to find a competitive technology to match AMOLED. By the time the behind-the-scenes manufacturing details get worked out for these companies and their 4K offerings, standard OLED screens will probably have already had their make-or-break day in the market and everyone will already be turning their attention to what will come next.

The 4K television segment recently has garnered attention with Sony Corp. announcing an 84" 4K LCD-TV priced at $25 000. LG Electronics also launched an 84" LCD-TV for $20 000. Toshiba Corp. is offering a 55" model priced at $10 000. Chinese brands Hisense and Konka have also announced that they will launch 84" 4K TV-sets this year. However, IHS believes that neither consumers nor television brands will have the interest required to make the 4K LCD-TV market successful.

X-bit Labs

Samsung's relationship with Google has been on a slow burn for quite some time and Samsung's first Google TV device is still hovering on the distant horizon, but that hasn't stopped Samsung from continuing to flirt with Google. Samsung has added Chrome, YouTube, and Google Play apps to the Samsung SmartHub app store. Collectively, these three apps bring just about all of the Google experience one could hope for to the living room. It will be interesting to see how many of the Google TV apps in Google Play will play nice on Samsung TVs, but either way, it is a surprisingly bold move for Samsung to provide access to such a prominent app store competitor given how hard Samsung has worked to build up its SmartHub collection.

But those three apps arguably make up the entire Google TV experience: Chrome (without Adobe Flash support), YouTube (updated from its previous version to be much snappier and support keyboards), and most importantly the Google Play store (with "most but not all of the Google TV apps," according to a Samsung representative we spoke with).

The Verge

Samsung's decision to spin of their LCD unit into a separate company earlier this year was prompted by falling panel prices amid a worldwide component glut. The problem wasn't just the abundance of manufacturers pumping out lower quality, inexpensive panels, but falling demand for LCD TVs. That falling demand became even more evident in a recent NPD DisplaySearch report that showed LCD HDTV sales fell year-over-year for the first time ever. The market shrunk by a bit less than 3% from 2011 to 2012, and the market shrinkage seems to be accelerating with a drop of 8% in the first quarter of 2012. Samsung and Vizio were able to make lemonade out of the lemons that NPD was handing out thanks to another report from iSupply that showed Samsung holding onto its top spot as the global sales leader and Vizio leading specifically in the U.S. market. With margins and sales continuing to drop, it will be interesting to see at what point maintaining those sales leads actually become a drag on their bottom lines.

Global TV shipments fell by eight percent in the first quarter of 2012 and, compounding the bad news, total LCD shipments fell for the first time, by 2.53 percent. This time last year, total TV shipments had grown by one percent and LCD by eight percent.

The Verge

TP Vision wasn't the only company on hand at the IFA Global Press Conference in Croatia this week. Samsung was also there to outline its plans to continue to dominate TV sales. Like TP Vision, Samsung had a lot of praise to share for the growth of smart TVs, but Samsung was also sharing some less than encouraging news about the growth of 3D TV sales. According to Samsung's projections, 3D TVs will only account for about 30% of TV sales in 2012, compared to about 60% of sales for smart TVs. This is not to suggest that Samsung expects the lackluster response to 3D to impact its position atop the industry, nor does Samsung expect that its 3D TVs won't continue to outsell rivals' 3D-enabled sets, but it does suggest that 3D technology is not the upgrade motivator that the TV industry was hoping it would be as HDTV sales slow due to market saturation.

3D TV was supposed to be the HDTV industry’s next “High Definition”, the technology that encouraged existing owners to upgrade to a shiny new set. That, though, hasn’t really happened Samsung admitted today: speaking at the IFA Global Press Conference, the Korean company confirmed that predictions for 2012 3D TV sales is just 30-percent across the industry, despite the lashings of hype.

Slashgear