More than eight million 4K Ultra HD TVs have been sold to date, research has revealed, with 1.4 million of those sold in the United States.
4kThat means that sales are up an impressive 119% from Q2 2015, according to the Digital Entertainment Group.
As for HDTV, penetration in the US is approaching the number of households, the report said, with DEG estimating that 95 percent – 104.1 million — of all US homes have at least one HDTV.
DEG also found that 4K is also driving consumer spending on home entertainment, which was up 6% in the second quarter to reach $4.3 billion. Consumers purchased about 288,000 4K Blu-ray Disc copies of the 45-plus titles that were released, meaning that Blu-ray sales were up 35%. Electronic sell-through of both digital and physical content combined was $1.7 billion, up 4%, while digital sell-through specifically grew 9%.
Video on demand (VOD) platforms continued to grow in the period, up more than 7% for the quarter, consistent with first quarter growth.
Meanwhile, spending on content rentals at both physical stores and online combined was down 6.5% to $1.2 billion.
The 4K results dovetail with predictions that 2016 is the breakthrough year for the Ultra HD TV market. A recent Consumer Technology Association’s (CTA) forecast shows that, driven in part by the market introduction of next-generation technologies like HDR, shipments of 4K/Ultra HD displays should reach 15 million units (a 105% increase year-over-year), and revenue will exceed $12.9 billion (a 69% increase). CTA adds that new to the market in 2016, 4K/Ultra HD Blu-ray players will further build the ecosystem with 700,000 units sold and $63 million in revenue.
CTA adds that overall the TV market will remain on par with 2015, with unit sales estimated to reach 39.7 million units in 2016 (down 1%) and revenues expected to reach $20 billion (up 3%). LCD TVs, the category leader, will contribute 38.9 million units (a 1% decline) and $19.2 billion (up 2%). Key areas of growth are large screen sizes, 4KTV and smart TV displays
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