Samsung hopes to kick off the summer season by promoting its flat-panel television unit starting later this month in attempt to gain moment for the rest of the year.
"2009 won't be an easy year but we plan to maintain market leadership with new products such as LED TV," said Sue Shim, Samsung Visual Display division VP in charge of sales. "(Our market share) will go up. The downturn in the market doesn't seem as severe as expected and we were able to outperform the market's growth (in the first quarter)."
Samsung hopes to sell 22 million LCD TVs in 2009, a 10 percent increase from 2008, Samsung internal numbers indicate.
Along with being the No. 1 global TV brand, Samsung also is the No. 1 maker of memory chips and No. 2 manufacturer of mobile phones, though Samsung will put a stronger emphasis on its TV business.
Analysts believe companies such as Samsung will be able to have a big second half of 2009, with manufacturers setting aggressive targets for their LED TV lines, according to DisplaySearch. DisplaySearch also said it expects LED TVs up to 32.4 million units shipped in 2015, which is a drastic increase from the 2 million estimated units expected to ship in 2009. Next year, DisplaySearch anticipates 7.3 million units shipped in 2010.
Even though there are high growth numbers expected in the coming years, LED TV units need to drop in price closer to the lower-cost LCD TVs.
