Flat panel HDTV sales increase in Q1 2009, research firms look stupid

It's perfectly understandable that none of us wanted to fork out the cash for a LCD or plasma as the global economic crash was fresh in the fourth quarter of 2008. According to research firm DisplaySearch though, a whole lot of us didn't care about the cash and credit crunch by the first quarter of 2009. In fact, the 7.2 million flat panels that evacuated shelves in the first quarter was a 23% increase from the first quarter of 2008.

This was helped along by aggressive pricing by second-tier HDTV brands like Funai and Vizio, the again-number-one LCD HDTV seller in North America, as top-tier brands like Sony and Samsung couldn't afford to keep up with price cuts. Not to mention the liquidation of Circuit City, a confirmed victim of the economic crisis, and its dirt cheap pricing of the thousands and thousands of HDTVs it needed to get rid of.

It just shows how unpredictable consumer electronics sales can be in an economic downturn. In the second half of 2008 ever industry analyst out there predicted a huge downturn in HDTV sales, but without knowing who will go bankrupt and what second-tier companies will be able to take advantage of price cuts, none of them could make an accurate prediction. Including DisplaySearch by the way. But what I want to know is this: are you planning on buying an HDTV in the second quarter of 2009?

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