The penetration of thinner and power-saving light emitting diode (LED) backlight TVs may grow slowly to 2 percent this year and to 11 percent by 2012, because the economic recession and some technological obstacles could limit the growth, Taipei-based researcher LEDinside said yesterday.
In a forecast by WitsView, a liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel research house, about 2.28 million units out of 114 million LCD TVs would be equipped with LED backlights, replacing widely used cold cathode fluorescent lamps as the backlight source, LEDinside said.
This year, LED TVs may make up only 1 percent of overall LCD TV shipments despite expectations that a growing number of LED TVs are expected to hit the market this year, the research house said.
Samsung, the world’s biggest flat-panel TV maker, said it started selling 40-inch, 46-inch and 55-inch LED TVs last month in Europe and is scheduled to sell a full line of its LED TVs, from 32-inch to 55-inch models, in Taiwan in June.
The South Korean company said its LED TVs could save up to 40 percent in power consumption compared with LCD TVs of the same screen size.
As prices for LED TVs were about 60 percent to 80 percent higher than those of LCD TVs, it would take a while for LED TVs to gain traction, LEDinside said, adding that there were technological barriers such as heat dissipation.
Though TV manufacturers have set ambitious goals in LED TV output, LEDinside held a conservative view about the LED TV market because high-end LED TV sales would be limited by the global economic recession this year.
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