Isee3D Inc ISEDF

Samsung May Up 3D TV Sales Forecast

[nhorsley]

Samsung May Up 3D TV Sales Forecast; Joins Hands With James Cameron
SEOUL -(Dow Jones)- Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) said Friday it may raise its 2010 sales forecast for three-dimensional television sets to over 2 million units as demand booms, triggering its decision to team up with James Cameron, the director of Twentieth Century Fox's blockbuster 3D film "Avatar," to create more content for 3D televisions.
The world's largest maker of flat-screen televisions by volume, which is trying to replicate its success with flat-screen TVs in the still-nascent 3D market, said its 2010 sales of 3D TVs may outpace last year's sales of its more traditional offerings even as it struggles to cope with the surge in demand.
"Demand for 3D TVs is very strong, but supply is falling short of such strong demand due to (light-emitting-diode) panel shortages. We may be able to sell more 3D TVs this year than the LED-backed TVs we sold last year, which was around 2.6 million units," Visual Display Division President Yoon Boo-keun said at a press briefing. Yoon expects the shortage to ease in the second half of this year.
Samsung joins its other Asian rivals in placing a big bet on these high-end TVs, sales of which are expected to zoom from an estimated 2.5 million units this year to 85 million in 2015, according to Displaysearch.
Samsung's hometown rival LG Electronics launched its 3D TVs in March and said it expects its sales of such TVs to reach more than 1 million units this year. Japan's Sony Corp. also plans to launch its 3D Bravia models in Japan in June, while Sharp said it will start selling 3D-ready TVs before this summer. Toshiba Corp. said it will launch 3D models around the same time.
However, the lack of content tailored for 3D TVs, along with its price and the inconvenience of viewing it through glasses may hurt demand, analysts say.
"Samsung Electronics understands the importance of 3D content and will continue focus on expanding it going forward," Yoon said.
Together with James Cameron and his crew, the company said it will also join hands with the South Korea's top entertainment agency, SM Entertainment, to film the music video and concerts of the country's young artists using 3D technology.
"Obviously Avatar was a big hit around the world, largely because of its 3D. For the first time in history television has caught up to the way human senses actually work," said James Cameron at a joint press conference with Samsung in Seoul.
"But still, even right now, we are only talking about relatively few titles, all of which have been successful in the last few years...but there still only relatively few titles and few hours of contents available," he added. "We now need a rapid development of content production in 3D."
-By Jung-Ah Lee, Dow Jones Newswires; 822-3700-1907; [e-mail]
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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[JohnnyWang]

Again......more useless posts from Nigel and still hasn't answered any questions.