Growing demand for lcd tvs driven by emerging markets

The market analyst says that aggressive pricing has opened up lcd tv to virtually all consumers. However, as a result, price margins for premium brands have become diluted as the market has grown saturated with 'upstart' vendors looking to become involved in the market. iSuppli analyst, Riddhi Patel, said: "Adding new features to lcd tvs not only helps to differentiate the sets, it also increases the possibility of charging a premium for the sets." iSuppli believes that IETVs will emerge as a key feature that consumers will demand in the coming years. However, only 14.7million IETVs were estimated to have shipped in 2009. "This is because brands have been focusing more on promoting other features, such as LED backlighting and 120Hz/240Hz," noted Patel. "Just the same, promotion of IETVs will grow in the coming years as brands strive to slow the rate of price declines and entice consumers to replace their current generation flat panel tvs with new sets." As a result of this, iSuppli forecasts IETV units will grow to 149.0m by 2014, rising at a compound annual growth rate of 58.9% from 14.7m units in 2009.