DTV equipment, including HDTV monitors and receivers, is flying off the shelves of U.S. retailers at a rate of 28 devices per minute, according to a new publication from the Consumer Electronics Association.
In “Washington Insider Series: The HDTV Transition Version 2” published this month, the association reports that more than 40,000 DTV products are sold each day. That translates into about 15.3 million digital television devices in 2005.
According to the CEA, DTV equipment sales will hit 24.3 million units next year and nearly 32.1 million in 2007. By 2008, U.S. homes will have about 135 million DTV products.
The CEA report calls DTV growth as being “especially dramatic” when compared to the first 10 years of color TV availability — between 1956 and 1966 — when 5 percent of U.S. homes purchased color TVs. In the first seven years of DTV product availability, 17 percent of U.S. homes have acquired digital television equipment, and that figure is expected to reach 75 percent during year 10 of DTV’s existence, the report said.
Other findings include:
- At least 5000 hours of HDTV programming is telecast each week.
- The price of DTV equipment has declined 66 percent since its introduction in the late 1990s.
- Since 2002, flat panel sales have nearly doubled annually.
- By 2008, nearly half of all DTV products sold will be flat panel displays.
- HDTV ranks in the top 10 on the association's annual holiday gift buying survey.
For more information, visit www.ce.org.
