Vizio has announced that they have surpassed Sony as the second-biggest seller of HDTVs in the United States, as of the 4Q 2008.
According to figures from iSuppli, Vizio accounted for over 14 percent of LCD and Plasma shipments, up 3.11 percent from the Q3. Sony fell 0.42 percent to 13.5 and Samsung remained the leader at 20.2 percent despite a small drop of 0.62 percent from the Q3.
Panasonic rose 3.12 percent for the quarter to settle in fourth place.
“Vizio’s success in the fourth quarter was partly due to increasing brand recognition, courtesy of the company’s strong marketing efforts and retail strategy,” iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel added.
“This is an indication that in the present tough economic climate, consumers are becoming less brand conscious and prefer televisions that they perceive to have good picture quality and that are less expensive compared to the competition, rather than seeking models with a lot of extra features,” Patel concluded.
Result for: tv sales
According to the daily Japanese Nikkei paper, it appears Pioneer is on the verge of completely exiting the TV market.
Back in March the company said it would halt Plasma production to focus on LCD production. “We have judged that maintaining the cost competitiveness of plasma display panels, or PDPs, at projected sales volumes will be difficult going forward,” Pioneer said at the time.
Despite the great commercial success of its Kuro plasma line, the company has been losing money for a few quarters now on TV sales. If the report holds true, then Pioneer will cut their losses and move completely out of the market, instead joining forces with Sharp to make a stronger move into the DVD and Blu-ray standalone business.
Pioneer declined comment on the report but did note that they have been “actively evaluating” the company’s TV business since at least last March when it decided to cut out PDP production.
Result for: tv sales
According to DisplaySearch, Sony has jumped ahead in holiday quarter LCD TV sales while Vizio has dropped.
This quarter marks the first time Sony has been on top of LCD sales and DisplaySearch said the lead was built upon “top showings” in the 40-44″, 45-49″ and 50-54″ categories.
Vizio, which has been on top for a few quarters now, fell to third place yet still posted 250 percent growth year over year and kept its share lead in the 37″ HDTV market, selling almost twice as many TVs as the next closest competitor.The market itself remained very close, with Sony leading at 12.8 percent of the market. Samsung was second at 12.3 percent, Vizio followed at 10.7 percent and Sharp rounded out the top four at 8.4 percent.
Sharp fell furthest for the quarter seeing almost flat quarter growth. Sony grew over 80 percent and Samsung grew over 50.
