HdtvSales
Latest
Samsung's Q2 profit drops 26 percent due to sluggish TV sales, demand for phones explodes
You may or may not have noticed, but we're once again in the thick of earnings season, and today Samsung's in the hot seat. The company has reported that its second-quarter profit fell 26 percent year-over-year to 3.7 trillion won ($3.5 billion), largely thanks to underwhelming sales of flat screen TVs and, to a lesser extent, semiconductors. That's a shade worse than the whiz kids over on Wall Street were expecting, according to Bloomberg. In fact, the demand for televisions was so disappointing that it overshadowed what was actually an impressive quarter for the outfit's mobile division -- sales of feature and smartphones quadrupled year-over-year to 19.2 million units, putting the company on track to further narrow the gap with Nokia, the world's bestselling handset maker. All told, this balanced out to a modest growth in revenue -- an uptick of 2.9 percent to 39 trillion won ($36.7 billion).
Report: UK couch potatoes switch to HD in growing numbers
According to Ofcom's latest Communications Market Report, 24 million HDTV sets were sold in the UK over the past 12 months, meaning about 20 percent of the population took home a new box in the past year. Yet despite watching nearly four hours of "telly" a day in 2009, in first 3 months of 2010, nearly a third of all households with internet access used on-demand catch-up services like the BBC's iPlayer, which represents an 8 percent growth over the same period last year. This data isn't all that surprising though considering the how much HD content has been made available in the UK over the last few years through free options such as Freeview HD, or premium services like Sky HD or Virgin Media. It's also still far behind US HDTV penetration, which stood at 33 percent back in 2009 and saw 5.5 million HDTVs sold during the 2008 / 2009 holiday season alone. That fact shouldn't stop electronics manufacturers from diving Scrooge McDuck style into their newly acquired money bags, or prevent newly minted British HD households from marveling at how ugly Jeremy Clarkson is in 1080p.
Did you take advantage of the Super Bowl?
Well, the game is only a few hours away and if you haven't got your new HDTV yet, you better have a big truck and be able to find one in stock. We all know by now that this last week is huge for HDTV sales, but we are curious to know if you bought one because you are a true fan or because the true fans bring down the price for the rest of us.Don't get us wrong, there is nothing wrong with taking advantage of a great sale, but did the Super Bowl really have any barring on purchasing a new HDTV? There really was some great sales to be had, and we are sure the retailers and manufacturers are going to announce "record HDTV" sales in a few weeks, but did you take advantage of it?Me? No. I love the Super Bowl and football alike, but it did not drive me to purchase a new HDTV. Maybe if I was hosting the party this year, a bigger one would be cool, but not this time around. Maybe next year though.
