While the consumer electronics market also dipped as a whole, the decrease in plasma TV sales was a 16 percent dollar volume drop in February when compared to the same period last year. This was the first ever year-over-year decline in revenue for plasma units, according to the NPD Group.
NPD attributed the drop to continuing price declines that drove the category down more than 35 percent from February of 2006. The average price of a plasma TV in February was $1,688, according to the NDP, which represents the second lowest price in three years, just shy of November's $1,672.
"Unlike LCD TVs, plasma TVs have not been able to offset lower average prices by reaching high volumes in their larger screen sizes," said Ross Rubin, the NPD Group's director of industry analysis, in a statement.
"While these lower prices have allowed plasma manufacturers to reach out to a broader consumer base with a differentiated display technology, it's still not enough to keep revenue on the rise."
However, they have tried to increase the quality of their displays. Panasonic, for example, on Tuesday announced plans to make a 42-inch plasma HDTV , the first HDTV plasma of that size.
February's decline also came despite a 30 percent uptick in actual unit sales, the NPD Group said. Best-selling screen sizes for the month included 42-inch plasmas followed by 50-inch models, which are continuing to grow in popularity. Fifty-inch plasmas were also the top revenue producers for the month, with an average price of $2,040.
Despite a slow down in most CE categories and an 18 percent drop in overall TV unit sales that month, televisions continued to dominate the space, bringing in over $900 million in revenue. As expected, LCD TVs showed the highest revenue growth with a 58 percent dollar volume increase over February 2006.
Copyright 2007 by Ziff Davis Media, Distributed by United Press International
Related stories:
LG Electronics De-Emphasizing Plasma TVs
On Friday, LG Electronics said it will scale back on production of its PDP (plasma display panel) screens later this year in order to improve the business performance of its display operations.
Online holiday shopping soars
Online holiday sales jumped this year, with one prominent survey reporting a 30-percent increase over last year's cybershopping.
LCD Panel Prices Slide
iSuppli/Stanford Resources published a report on LCD panel prices.
Prices for large-sized LCD panels for notebooks and
LCD monitors have begun declining this month, bringing an end to a five-quarter period of consecutive increases.
Panel makers are cutting prices, as they attempt to burn off their inventories, which are rising due to increased production levels and a slowdown in present and expected system demand, which partly reflects a disappointing outlook for back-to-school PC sales.
Panel prices began to increase in April 2003, and rose about 21-28% from that time until last month. The price of 15-inch notebook and LCD monitor panels in the XGA format increased to the US$230 to US$235 range in June, up from US$180 to US$190 last April.
Meanwhile, 14-inch panel prices increased to US$220, up from US$171, during the same period.
Panel price reductions starting in July brought some relief to panel buyers who have been battered by rising costs over the past few months.
Japan's top film rental chain offers high-definition downloads
Japan's top film rental chain Tsutaya on Thursday unveiled a download-on-demand broadband service, letting customers rent titles from home without going to the store.
New efficiency record for solar cells
Physicist Bram Hoex and colleagues at Eindhoven University of Technology, together with the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany, have improved the efficiency of an important type of solar cell from 21.9 to 23.2 percent (a relative improvement of 6 per cent). This new world record is being presented on Wednesday May 14 at a major solar energy conference in San Diego.
LG Showcases World’s Highest 30,000:1 Contrast Ratio Plasma Panels
LG Electronics, a major player in the global flat panel display market, will unveil its new "G Platform" plasma TV panels with upgraded picture quality at FPD International 2007, the flat panel display exhibition held in Yokohama, Japan, from October 24–26.
Mitsubishi’s new Blu-ray converts your movies into 3D
Mitsubishi recently revealed a new Blu-ray player that can convert existing 2D movies into 3D in real time. The company showed off the technology to a few tech journalists at the Barclay’s PGA Tour at Westchester Country Club, and plans to market the product to consumers in early 2008.
Swarming starlings help probe plasma, crowds and stock market
Researchers at the University of Warwick’s Physics Department’s Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics have found a powerful technique that could be used to detect precisely when ordered patterns form in everything from plasma in the solar wind and fusion reactors, to crowds of people, or flocks of birds. The technique could even be used to find unusual patterns in stock market behaviour.
