Is plasma TV soon to become a thing of the past? The display technology, which was once the number one choice for buyers of flat-screen televisions, has just seen its market share slump in the USA to a new 15-month low, as its long and drawn-out fall from grace continues in the wake of LCD TV’s dominance.
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| Plasma market share hits 15-month low as LCD TVs dominate |
The latest IHS iSuppli U.S. TV Price & Specifications Market Tracker report showed that sales of plasma TVs in the United States have slipped to their lowest level since the first quarter of 2011, commanding just 13.3% of the market last July, down from 14.9% in the previous month and 15% just twelve months ago. This represents plasma’s worst performance since March 2011, when its market share slipped to just 11.6%.
Despite being able to offer deeper blacks and a superior contrast ratio, plasma televisions have played second fiddle to LCD TV displays for several years now, with LCDs benefiting from advances in LED backlighting and motion compensation technology. Add to these the lower power consumption and weight of LCD TVs, and it’s not difficult to see why plasma has been left trailing in its dust.
Pricing is one key factor that IHS Suppli highlighted in their latest report. Rising costs have led to a disincentive among buyers to purchase plasma TV sets, whose average retail price in the US climbed to $1,621 in July. While this is still cheaper than the $1,649 price tag in May, it is significantly higher than pricing levels seen in Q1’12, as manufacturers focus on making larger and higher quality plasmas.
Plasma television prices also compare poorly to the price of similarly-sized LCD TVs, whose average retail price fell to just $1,171 in July from $1,194 in June. LCD televisions saw prices fall over the last month in all categories – including Smart TVs, 3D models, thin-panel LED models and HDTV sets – as retailers and brands competed aggressively in the run up to the London 2012 Olympics.
So what does the future hold for plasma display panel (PDP) technology?
In the long term things are not looking good, especially with OLED TV set to become the next big thing in display technology. Short-term however, plasma might just experience a mini-revival as prices could well come down in the next few months. In the first half of last year, PDP experienced a similar decline in market share only to bounce back in the third and fourth quarters as TV makers and retailers offered significant discounts for Christmas. December saw prices fall to an average $1,494 and the resulting sales pick up a notch or two, something that is likely to be repeated this year as winter draws close.
This is such a shame since I will NEVER buy an LED-LCD due to them being absolute garbage compared to Plasma. Plasma has BY FAR to best picture, contrast ratio and motion processing compared to LED’s.
Chris – yes it does, that’s a widely-known fact in the industry (I’m a display technology journalist). However the strength of LCDs is that they can be a. smaller than plasmas, and b. thinner. The modern notebook would never work with a plasma screen.
Plasmas underwent a bit of a revival when the recession hit, because they were cheaper than LCDs and gave a better picture – a lot of techy people use plasmas because of their quality. However they’re also less efficient and bulkier, so as the price has gone down most people have begun to buy LCDs.
When OLED TVs become affordable in a few years time LCDs will die a much faster death than plasmas are now – the quality of the image and sizxe of the TV is pretty amazing, even on the prototype units shown at CES this year.
I just bought my first flat panel TV (two weeks ago)- because finally the quality of the picture and the underlying technology matured enough to meet my standards – and yes it was a VT50 series Panny plasma. I would never buy LCD because it’s colors are artificial (skin tone for eg), edges are over sharpened, motion is nowhere perfect. Tom you wrote that it’s a big benefit of LCDs that they are slim. Well this unit of mine is 4cm thick at the thickest point while around its edges it is like only 2 cm thick, which looks stylish. I think in the future high-end demanding people will buy plasmas and manufacturers who focus on higher quality higher priced models will survive and make a good profit on this segment.
Yeah I do see that around 82-120 cm screen size which is the most popular here in Europe, the average people will buy the cheap ugly pictured LCD screens, because they are simply driven by the cost factor and maybe would not even appreciate the high quality picture of a top plasma screen.
I am on the opposite end. I have been a plasma guy for so many years now. IU dont watch tv in the dark so extreme black levels are great but not the very decisive factor isnce with some light, poor black levels are some how masked. The reason why I would hestate to buy another plasma is that over a short period of time, the picture fades badly. Atleast with my Sammy D8000, this si what I have experienced and it is so frustrating. But the sammy colors can be calibrated to industry standard without a problem and I must say it was the first tv after calibration that made what I was missing all the years that I have watched a tele. If I waswatching just movies, in a darker environment, surely, plasmas will be good enough. But for me who watches tv for some hours, I just feel that plasma is letting me down. Again the nedd to recalibrate the tv after a short period of time makes it a problem. I have my own spectro and tri-stimulus so no additional costs there. However because my sammy has dimmed quite a bit, in order to raise the brightness, i have to raise the green gain a bit higher therefore driving the tv to its limits. That is the problem that I have
fantastic TV from samsung company welthan.