HD and FHD TVs have been steadily losing global market share to 4K TVs since 2017. While high-resolution TV sets (4K or higher) held a 45.5 percent market share in 2018, they were forecast to account for over half of all TV sales worldwide in 2019.

What is TV resolution? Resolution is one of the most common specifications that customers come across when deciding on the make and model of a TV set. The term refers to the number of pixels in each dimension that make up the picture on the screen, with newer models sporting ever-increasing pixel ranges. 4K TVs revolutionized home entertainment in the early 2010s, when they quadrupled the average pixel size of FHD models and offered viewers a sharper and more detailed picture quality. As prices for 4K TVs have dropped significantly over the past few years, these devices are now reaching mainstream adoption. In 2019, over 108 million 4K UHD TV units were forecast to be sold worldwide.

The future of 8K TV With tech giants Sharp, Samsung and LG leaping into 8K technology, the new age of television is looming on the horizon. 8K models offer four times more pixels than 4K TV, but as their prices are significantly higher, this state-of-the-art technology is yet to reach mainstream penetration. By 2023, eleven million 8k ultra HDTV units are expected to be sold worldwide, with households in the Asia-Pacific region forecast to see the quickest adoption of these models.

The statistic shows the size of the UHD/4K panel market in North America from 2013 to 2024, broken down by application. In 2017, the UHD/4K TV panel market is expected to generate 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in revenue.

In 2008, approximately 26.5 million households in France disposed of one television or more. In 2017, the number of French households owning at least one television amounted to 28.6 million. Due to the implementation of new broadcasting resolution technologies, such as the 4K UHD, and to the growing affordability of high-end televisions, this figure could increase in the coming years.

Streaming and Internet TV

The advent of Smart TVs seems to have increased people’s fondness for television. The possibility of accessing online content through a television brought about a new internet-based broadcasting system. Companies such as the American Netflix profited immensely from this new technology. In France alone, Netflix recorded a 31 percent coverage among youths aged 15 to 24 years in June 2018. Moreover, among the total French audience, Netflix’s coverage increased from 7,7 percent in October 2017 to 14,3 percent in May 2018. Nevertheless, the United Kingdom remains the leading Netflix market in Europe based on subscription numbers: almost 7 million people in the country subscribed to Netflix as of December 2017.

The future of European cinemas?

The expansion of Netflix and other streaming services in Europe seems to have had an ambivalent impact on the traditional cinema industry. Even though Germany is only slightly ahead of France in matters of internet TV penetration, the number cinema goers in Germany has decreased from a total of 135.9 million visitors in 2015 to only 100.1 million in 2018. Germany also happens to be the second leading market for Netflix in Europe. On the other hand, in France, there was an increasing number of cinema admissions recorded between 2013 and 2016.