Accoridng to report Weekly TV Tracker, which studies the North American TV market and is published weekly by Displaybank, Samsung was selected to account for the largest number of hit products of the top 50 hit products in 4 major U.S. TV distributors. Of the total hit prodcuts, LCD TV accounted for 84% and greately preceded other TV devices. In terms of resolution, full-HD products accounted for 60% and led the market.
The top 50 hit products in North America was explored by brand to find that Samsung accounted for 30% in January 2009 and continuously maintained a high product share for the past month. It appeared to compete against Sony and Panasonic. In addition, the leading makers in TV market such as Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, LG, and Toshiba accounted for 60% of hit products of the week. These makers continuously accounted for more than half of the product share for an entire month.
The top 20 hit products were explored by major distributor.
At BestBuy, a representative retailer specialized in electronics, Samsung brand TV accounted for 65% of product share. It was followed by Sony (10%), Dynex (15%), and Insignia (5%).
Next, we will look at Walmart, which is widely known as the lowest price distribution channel. It was found that products by RCA, Sanyo, and Sony accounted for 20% respectively. Walmart appeared to stress on sales of inexpensive products and strongly correspond to the distribution channel's characteristic of the lowest price. Most leading makers except for Sony showed relatively lower sales results compared to the inexpensive brands.
In terms of Sears, Samsung accounted for 40% and led the product share which was followed by Sony (25%) and Vizio (20%). This shows a severe competition condition between distributors that even a department store cannot win the competition with brand name products.
In terms of Amazon, an on-line distributor, next, Samsung accounted for 70% of the product share and was followed by Sony (15%) and Toshiba (10%).
This study showed that LCD TV and Full-HD products accounted for more than half of the total hit product share and led the market. It is significant because it displayed the movement of customers' preference in the North American TV market toward LCD TV products with higher resolution along with the flat panel TV price decline.
