High Definition on track in Ireland

GfK Retail and Technology: Ireland, Consumer Electronics

Like many economies in Europe, Ireland is a tough place to do business at present. Inflation and unemployment rates have risen, property prices and crucially the volume of house moves have declined. In these conditions many of the traditional Consumer Electronics markets have struggled. However there are increasing signs of a High Definition revolution beginning to take shape. This is starting to give a vital boost to both retailers and manufacturers alike as well as a fantastic experience to the consumer.

There are many pieces to this jigsaw puzzle. As always in Consumer Electronics they depend on each other. In this case we talk about the display hardware (Televisions), the content hardware (Blu Ray Players and HD Camcorders) and the software or content itself (Blu Ray films and HD broadcasting).

In Television, the road to HD started with the introduction of the HD ready Flat Panel Television. In the last 12 months alone, 450,000 Flat panel televisions were sold to consumers in Ireland. Of these, 81% are capable of receiving and processing an HD signal. The proportion of HD ready products sold increases every single month. What is not HD ready are generally small sets destined for bedrooms and kitchens, not the main screen of the house.

Full HD products capable of displaying images with 1080 lines is a rapidly increasing percentage of this HD ready block. Full HD TVs sold in June were 24% of the value of the Flat Screen TV market. This is up from 15% in March 2008 and from 7% in the same month last year. This proportion will inevitably climb further as many manufacturers’ new ranges are just beginning to appear on shelves containing a much higher number of Full HD models both in Plasma and in LCD technologies.

What is helping the trend to product capable of showing a higher quality picture is the move towards larger screen sizes in Ireland. 32% of the value of screens sold are 40″ in size or more compared to less than 27% a year ago. The bigger the screen the more need for a better quality of picture. Larger screens are in turn fuelling continued growth in the Home Theatre market in Ireland, up 11% by value in last 12 months.

On the content side, both Blu Ray Players and HD Camcorders are now beginning to develop. For Blu Ray the value of the market is now exceeding 100k Euros per month, a dramatic rise on just a few months ago. Part of this is down to more affordable hardware (average price now 427 Euros – compared to 750 Euros just 1 year ago) and products will become more affordable still. In addition the increasing availability and affordability of Blu Ray film software will hasten these developments.

The Camcorder market is developing in a similar way in that a small but rapidly growing HD sector is starting to be significant with consumer value in the last 2 months close to half a million Euros. This in turn will increase further with more affordable products coming and the influence of the whole interconnected HD product chain.