Sales of high definition televisions have fallen in the first three months of 2009, with both LCD and plasma dropping back from the record sales experienced in the fourth quarter of 2008.
According to the Sony High Definition Benchmark compiled by GfK, sales of high definition LCD televisions fell from 417,903 in Q408 to 383,711, or 8 per cent, in Q109. Over the same period, plasma sales dropped from a record quarter of 155,796 to 121,157 or 22 per cent for the three months ending 31 March.
Unlike LCD which suffered a similar drop over the same period a year earlier, this is the first decline of this magnitude since high definition plasma was measured in Q105 when just 8,545 panels were sold.
The only category not to go backwards over the first three months of 2009 compared to the last three months of 2008 has been the set top box and PVR category, which increased by 27 per cent from 96,329 units to 122,316 units.
Other HD categories in decline were:
-Games hardware: 200,555 units (Q4 08) down to 108,676 units (Q1 09) or 46 per cent
-Games software: 1,751,233 units (Q4 08) down to 1,066,259 units (Q1 09) or 39 per cent
-Camcorders: 19,289 units (Q4 08) down to 11,439 units (Q1 09) or 41 per cent
-DVD hardware: 30,765 units (Q4 08) down to 26,320 units (Q1 09) or 15 per cent
-DVD movies: 343,541 units (Q4 08) down to 330,891 units (Q1 09) or 3 per cent
-Notebook Computers: 185 units (Q4 08) down to 102 units (Q1 09) or 45 per cent