The 3D television industry is set to almost quadruple over the next seven years, with analysts predicting that the tri-dimensional display panel market will see worldwide revenues grow from US $13.2 billion (around £8.2 billion) a year to more than $67 billion (roughly £41.5 billion) a year by 2019.
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| 3D TV predicted to spur 3-D revenue growth |
Current worldwide shipments of 3D displays stand at roughly 50.8 million units, but this is set to increase to 226 million units by 2019, according to the latest report by market intelligence firm NPD DisplaySearch. Driving this growth would be a rising demand for 3D-capable HDTV sets, with demand for these products expected to grow to 180 million units per year by 2019, up from the current total of 25 million units.
DisplaySearch’s vice president of emerging display technologies Jennifer Colegrove acknowledged that their predictions are in stark contrast to the prevailing sentiments in the industry that 3DTV’s bubble had burst.
“We’re expecting demand for 3D to continue growing for a range of devices – not just TVs but also larger displays and portable devices,” stated Colegrove.
“The 3D display market has increased from less than 1 million units in 2008 to almost 51 million units by 2011, and we expect that trend to continue.”
NPD DisplaySearch said that it expects consumers to widely embrace 3D TVs in the coming years, to the extent that 50% of all households will own such a device by 2019. Currently, just 10% of households possess a 3D TV.
Two things holding back the widespread adoption of 3-D television are a lack of content (which is slowly being addressed by content makers), and a difficult set-up process. However, it’s hoped that emerging technologies will help to remedy this.
One of these technologies, auto-stereoscopic 3D, which is widely used on games consoles such as the Nintendo 3DS and does not require glasses, is some years away from becoming a reality in televisions due to the technology’s limitations in larger display sizes. However, we can expect to see a range of smartphones and tablet-sized devices adopting the technology starting next year. Meanwhile, the technology is also being experimented on public displays as a way of getting attention for advertising purposes.
