Full-HD and Link Functions lead the market towards year-end sales increase

We would like to show the forecast of the year-end sales battle by exploring the impact of Full-HD and Link Function on the digital home electronics market. According to the BCN Ranking this September, sales percentage of Full-HD flat-styled TVs was 25% and flat-styled TVs with attached Link Function was 60%. The total unit sale was up 140% in July from the previous year. Sales for digital camcorders with attached Full-HD picture quality were 40% and HDD-DVD recorders with attached Full-HD picture and Link Function was 60%.

Flat-styled TVs with Full-HD and Link Function had solid sales since May

The sales of flat-styled TVs, from October 2006 to September 2007, are running at 130%. The sales amount is also running at 120% compared with the previous year and it may continue to year-end. On the other hand, the percentage of Full-HD or Link Function models has increased since May. In May, 18.4% of LCDs attached Full-HD picture (compared with 19.9% for Plasmas) and 50.9% of LCDs attached link function (compared with 75% of Plasmas). Each ratio increased this September. LCDs with Full-HD were up 24.5% and LCDs with Link Function were up 63.3%. As for Plasma TVs, the percentage of Full-HD models was 27.3% and Link Function models was 76.1%

The average sales price of flat-styled TVs has been stable. The price is running about ¥130,000 for LCD TVs, and ¥230,000 for Plasmas. However, the price of larger sized TVs such as the 40”-50” models continue to decline.

LCD TVs shifted into Full-HD screen and Plasmas attached the Link Function

When Japanese consumers want to buy a flat-styled TV, they choose the product based on two points, the screen size and price. However, Full-HD and Link Functions were recently added to those two points.

When we focus on models over 50,” 100% of LCD TVs have attached Full-HD picture and 94.4% of LCDs have attached Link Function. The same size Plasma TVs with attached Full-HD picture was 67.3% and 78.3% had attached Link Function.

40% of camcorders attached Full-HD and 60% of DVD recorders attached Link Function

Digital camcorders also started to attach Full-HD picture recording. This July, the percentage of Full-HD products exceeded HD products. In September, Full-HD models took over 40% of market sales share. Accompanied with the strong sales of Full-HD camcorders, the type of media recording also changed. The mainstream for media is HDD with 40.8% share this September. When we look at the types of media camcorders by each maker, Sony installed HDD into 65.5% of its camcorders. On the other hand, Panasonic focused on SD memory card models (67.9%), Hitachi focused on HDD-DVD models (92.4%) and Canon mainly adopted DVD models (62.8%).

The monthly unit sales of HDD-DVD recorders are running about 80% from October 2006 to September 2007 compared with a year earlier. According to the sales amount, HDD-DVD recorders continue to gain 100% sales compared with last year.

Sales of compact digital cameras are weak, but demand for PC parts rose drastically since February.

When we look at the digital camera market, the sales of digital SLRs are still strong but digital compact cameras are now declining. The most popular picture size is 800-1000 mega pixels and it had 44% of sales share this September. Models with over 1000 mega pixels had a big impact when they launched, but sales share is just running at 10% since June.

In the case of PCs, both laptop and notebook sales were flat. Unit sales were running at 90% after the launch of Windows Vista. Sales amount are still at 90%, but are declining. However, the market for PC parts, such as CPUs or motherboards continues to do well. Both markets had 100% to 140% sales compared with the previous year. With the good sales of PC parts, we may say the PC market is performing relatively well.