South Korean tech companies have been slashing prices of Ultra HD (UHD) TVs in the global market, data showed Wednesday, as they vie for consumers amid stiff competition.
The latest price of the 55-inch UHD TV made by Samsung Electronics Co., the world's top TV maker, was $2,999 in the U.S. market, down 45.4 percent from $5,500 in August, market data showed.
The price for the same size made by LG Electronics Inc., South Korea's No. 2 tech giant, came to $3,500, also falling sharply from $6,000 in July last year when its TVs first tapped North America.
UHD TVs are produced at the same facilities as full HD models, which allowed the tech companies to cut costs in making additional investments, market watchers said.
UHD TVs, one of the highly anticipated sectors in the global display business, come with a resolution of 3840×2160, four times higher than the 1920×1080 in previous full HD models. It took nearly two years for the price of major full HD TVs to halve.
Market watchers said the sharp markdowns were part of tech players' efforts to garner larger slices of the market as the UHD TV market outlook is deemed promising.
The global market size was estimated at $2.8 billion in 2013 and expected to jump nearly three-fold to $8.7 billion this year, separate data compiled by industry researcher Displaysearch showed.
The neck-to-neck competition among Asian tech giants around the globe also induced South Korean firms to cut costs, market watchers said.
Sony took up 23.4 percent of the global UHD TV market in the third quarter of 2013, followed by China's Skyworth Group Co. and TCL Corp., which each held market shares of 17.9 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. Samsung took up 10.1 percent.
Global tech players are anticipated to continue to engage in a fierce battle down the road this year, with the demand for larger TV sets expected to rise further for the Sochi Winter Olympics and the World Cup in Brazil. (Yonhap News)
