UHD SPECIAL - AUTUMN 2017 UHD_AUTUMN 2017 | Page 16

GfK: UHD now leading TV set sales
D
espite there being no major sporting
event in 2017 such as the European
Football Championship Finals or the
Olympics to drive sales of Ultra HD TV sets,
UHD is now the dominant HD type, according
to Nick Simon, Account Director/Consumer
Electronics, GfK.
Delivering a Keynote Address at the SES
2
Ultra HD Conference in London, Simon
suggested that this was particularly the case
in the >£350 (€382) and 44-inch and above
categories. He nevertheless noted that prices
were not declining as much as analysts would
have expected. “Prices are not going down
anything like the freefall before,” he noted.
He also said that UHD was getting to
2 UHD overtook Full HD in volume in November 2016
UHD is over two thirds of TV turnover
UHD value share
the stage where it was approaching other
categories in volume terms and was some
two-thirds of TV sales. “Compared with
previous conferences, it’s no longer a case of:
‘It’s going to happen’, it’s happening. It’s the
currency of TV sales now,” he declared, noting
that UHD overtook ‘Full HD’ in volume terms
in 2016.
Value shift was a year earlier
80
MAT2015
MAT2016
MAT2017
70
Average screen size
60
38.6”
50
37.1”
40.7”
40
30
21 27 24 28 35 44 48 50 54 57 55 59 67 67 67
20
10
£10.
0
UHD Value Share
UHD Volume Share
Dec-14 Mar-15 Jun-15 Sep-15 Dec-15 Mar-16 Jun-16 Sep-16 Dec-16 Mar-17
© GfK June 21, 2017 | Title of presentation
17
BT to show live UHD
rugby at IBC
BT Media and Broadcast, the
digital media and broadcast
solutions arm of BT, is to
broadcast live coverage
of two Aviva Rugby Union
Championship matches
in UHD at broadcast
technology show IBC over
the weekend of September
16-17, using the latest High
Efficiency Video Coding
(HEVC) equipment from NTT
Electronics, supplied by
A
Full HD Value Share
Full HD Volume Share
HD Ready Value Share
HD Ready Volume Share
© GfK June 21, 2017 | Title of presentation
19
its UK partner, Garland,
as well as BT Media
and Broadcast’s most-
advanced hybrid fibre/
satellite UHD links truck.
The matches kick
off at 4pm CET, with
delegates able to view the
coverage on BT Media and
Broadcast’s Stand (O.D02).
The match on Saturday
is Leicester Tigers vs.
Gloucester, with Sunday’s
game featuring Wasps vs.
Harlequins.
Vivicast: Confident of further
US UHD deployment
my Shapiro, Vivicast Media’s VP/
acquisitions, broadcast and
syndication, speaking at the SES Ultra
HD Conference in London, forecast a buoyant
future for the fast-growing technology.
She told delegates that April 2016 saw
DirecTV’s initial deployment of 4K/UHD
channels, and Memphis-based Vivicast has
since licensed a large number of titles to the
pay-TV operator. “Only last week we finalised
an agreement for a brand-new extreme
sport series from a well-known documentary
filmmaker that is specifically designed for
DirecTV,” she revealed.
Shapiro explained that DirecTV’s current
portfolio of UHD channels comprises one
movie channel, a sport channel and the
‘general entertainment’ channel which Vivicast
is helping to fill.
16 ADVANCED TELEVISION
However, at the end of 2016, Vivicast
started talking to US cable and IPTV
operators to target UHD programming for
them, and currently have signed up more than
25 companies to a series of trials, or pulling
down signals carried by SES and these equate
to over 25m potential subscribers and which
cover 90 per cent of all the paid households
in the US.
“4K compatible set-top boxes are finally
being made available in the US, and to date
this has been a major hold up. From all of
our discussions, I can see the potential for
multiple cable and telco operators deploying
4K channels this year and I see more following
suit in 2018. We at Vivicast are currently
supplying seven UHD channels. I expect a
major cable network to enter the market soon,”
she concluded.