Roughly three months ago, my family and I moved from Jacksonville, FL to Fort Worth, TX. My husband initially made the move by himself about a month before the rest of our family and had none of our belongings. Naturally he insisted that he needed a TV for the house (I can’t say I blame him), and knowing that we were now going to be living in Texas (where “everything is bigger” from what they say) we decided it was time to finally upgrade our aging TV to a more Texas-sized screen with better features.
So off I went scouring gap intelligence’s TV Pricing and Promotions report to find the perfect new Texas-sized TV for our new Texas-sized house. After keeping an eye on the Merchant Pricing Trends tab for a couple weeks, the decision was made to upgrade from our 55” Samsung TV that we owned for about five years – and wasn’t even 4K, can you believe that? – and went with the 70” LG 70UK6570AUB from Sam’s Club. Seventy inches?? Whoa! I had the audacity to ask my husband if it was TOO big. You can imagine the response I got – “No Way…but can it fit in my car?” The answer to that was no, but a very friendly couple used their Texas-sized truck to deliver it to our house. Talk about southern hospitality!
With my recent TV upgrade, and being the Data Specialist for the TV category at gap intelligence, I started wondering about some current TV trends, specifically in regards to screen resolution and screen size. It’s clear that 4K is the new thing, and screen sizes do seem to be trending larger, so I took a look at how much of an uptick TVs with these two specifications experienced over the past few years.
4K TV Placements
After downloading data from January through August of the past 3 years, it reaffirmed my belief that ultra-high-definition TVs, or 4K TVs, have indeed become more and more popular. In 2017, over 36% of TVs that launched did not have 4K resolution. Comparing that to the first 8 months of 2019 shows that only 20% of the TVs launched lack a screen resolution of 4K or higher. Higher you ask? In 2017 and 2018 resolutions did not go higher than 4K. However, in sticking with the better resolution trend, 8K was introduced to the market in 2019 and there are currently eight 8K models in gap’s data.
Screen Size Placements
Screen sizes of new TVs that launched in the past three years have noticeably changed as well. Using the same data from the above chart, I found that there were nearly two times the number of new TVs launched in the first 8 months of 2017 that were smaller than 50” compared to the same time period of 2019. Nearly 200 TVs with these smaller screen sizes came out in 2017 with just 109 debuting so far in 2019 as this segment drastically decreases.
In contrast, as our society (me included) gravitates towards bigger and better screens, the largest screen sizes of 70-79” and 80”+ have grown substantially. Product launches in the 70-79” screen size range have steadily increased, going from just 35 unique TV models in 2017, to 40 in 2018, and 45 in 2019. Additionally, the absurdly big 80”+ screen size range has tripled during the last three years, growing from just seven models two years ago, to 21 separate SKUs for shoppers to choose from this year.
When looking at the charts and the data it’s obvious to see that the TV market is shifting and that screen resolution and screen size are trending toward getting better and getting bigger. It will be interesting to see if 8K resolution is a feature that continues to grow, or if because of the hefty price tags, these TVs don’t stick around for long. As for screens continuing to get larger and larger, I wonder how much bigger they can actually get for the average consumer. Not even a house in the state of Texas will be able to hold a TV much bigger than the 80 inches!
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