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Richa Mishra

NEW DELHI, May 19

HOW flat is flat, as far as your television goes? The colour television (CTV) market, which has been characterised by intense competition on product features, is now seeing a game of oneupmanship among its players, in terms of the degree of flatness of the picture tube in their models.

The market players moved from standard rounded screens to flat square tubes, to full and flat square tubes and subsequently to the 100 per cent flat or pure flat screens.

Apart from these features, the narrowing of gap in prices of a conventional TV and a flat TV is one of the reasons for the rising demand experienced by the segment. "The gap has narrowed down to a difference of close to Rs 1,000," a Consumer Electronics and TV Manufacturers Association (Cetma) official said.

Elaborating further, an official told Business Line, that the entry-level flat TV is priced little less than Rs 10,000. Even regional players are shifting to manufacturing flat TVs, and with indigenous manufacturing of flat picture tubes already starting as the volumes build up the price will come down, sources said.

A recent trend shows that flat TV market has grown to 373.5 per cent between January-March 2003. Sony India, Samsung and LG are the dominant players in the flat segment. In March 2003 alone the flat TV segment grew by 389.1 per cent, with Samsung leading the race with a market share of 27 per cent, followed by Sony at 20.1 per cent and LG at 19.9 per cent.

As per the ORG report in the period January-March 2003, Sony enjoyed a market share of 24.7 per cent followed closely by Samsung with a market share of 24.3 per cent, and LG with a market share of 19.7 per cent.

Giving the multinationals a competition was Onida with a market share of 10 per cent during the period registering a growth of 504.5 per cent. Both Samsung and LG registered a growth of 722.2 per cent and 722.7 per cent respectively during the period.

Product innovations pioneered by any brand have been picked up quickly by competition, a study on the Indian Consumer Durables Industry by ICRA Ltd reveals. The flat TV market was estimated at around 215,000 units during 2001. The market represents less than four per cent of the total CTV market in the country. "The bulk of the flat TV demand is in the 21" segment followed by 29" and then the 25"," the industry analysts said.

"The advantages accruing out of flat-screen TVs would become more obvious with the availability of digital programming. However, pure flat screen TVs are significantly more expensive than the others," ICRA study revealed.

Commenting on the reason behind the success of the flat TV, industry experts said, "With greater degree of flatness, the viewing angle becomes wider and the corner to corner stretch of picture content increases. In addition to having a curvature, standard tubes are not very popular these days as they have been found to emit high doses of radiation, which is quite stressful on the eyes."

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