Sales of Samsung LED TV break 500,000 mark

MANILA, Philippines – The LED TV product of Samsung Electronics, which is setting a new milestone in the premium flat TV market, broke the 500,000 mark in its units sold.

Samsung said its LED TV, introduced to markets around the world, starting from Korea and Europe in March this year followed by North America, China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa, and CIS, sold 500,000 units as of June 23 in only 100 days from the product launch (based on the supply to Samsung’s distribution channels).

In other words, the relatively expensive premium TV sold 5,000 units per day, 208 units per hour or 3.5 units per minute.

This is well above twice the number of all the LED TVs sold in 2008 around the world (196,000), and is also more than LCD TVs sold (360,000) in 2003 when Samsung Electronics aggressively jumped into the LCD TV market.

This sales trend is similar to 600,000 units of Bordeaux TV in 2006 that led Samsung to the No. 1 position in the global LCD TV market, and 500,000 units of the Crystal Design Rose LCD TV last year that employed the dual-injection molding technology for the first time in the TV industry, both achieved in only three months from their market release.

The Samsung LED TV has shown steady sales growth since its introduction to the market with 200,000 units sold in six weeks, 250,000 in eight weeks and 350,000 in 10 weeks. Only four weeks later, 150,000 more were sold, bringing the total number of units sold to 500,000 in just 100 days.

The LED TV’s solid sales trend is largely thanks to its growing popularity in highly competitive TV markets such as North America, Europe and Korea, spreading to emerging markets like the Middle East and Africa, Southeast Asia, China and Latin America.

The product sold the most in North America (190,000 units), where 40-inch or bigger premium TVs are highly popular, and the European market, including the United Kingdom, Germany and France (210,000). It is gaining popularity in Korea as well with more than 18,000 units sold.

Large-sized, premium TV products are especially popular among Korean consumers as shown by the fact that 46-inch or bigger LED TVs account for 75 percent of all LED TVs sold (the same size group represented 22 percent of all LCD TVs sold in 2008).

This clearly shows that Samsung’s LED TV has established its position in the market with the successful creation of a new category in the TV market by providing the best value to its major vendors, retailers and consumers just like Sony’s Walkman and Apple’s iPod did.

Samsung Electronics gained an unchallenged market advantage in the United States’ 120 Hz/240 Hz LCD TV market with strong sales of its LED TV in May.

According to NPD, a market research agency, Samsung led the US’ 120 Hz/240 Hz LCD TV market in May with its market share of 62.1 percent in dollar amount, up nine percent from 53.1 percent a month before.

As for its market share in units sold, Samsung also held an obviously dominant position with 55.6 percent, up 9.1 percent month-on-month.

DisplaySearch projected on June 22 that the demand for LED TVs this year would be 3.67 million units. This is an 80 percent increase from its previous projection of 2.01 million units, which shows that Samsung Electronics seems to have influenced it with its creation of a new LED TV market.