Samsung and LGE were still number one and two in the global LCD TV shipment rankings for the first quarter, with respectively 20.4% and 14.6% of the market shares. The positions of the two top Korean brands have been solid even though they did not engage in aggressive promotional activities during the off-season.

Going forward, Samsung and LGE intend to secure their rankings with a strong product lineup. Both have launched small-size, economical models and will be raising the shares of large-size and 4K models in their respective product mixes. In the high-end market, the two top vendors are also aggressively promoting products based on the quantum dot technology.

China-based vendors TCL and Hisense were in third and fourth place in the first quarter shipment rankings with 6.9% and 6.4% of the market shares. They together have managed to push the Japanese electronics giant Sony down to the fifth spot. The shipments of these Chinese brands were propped up by domestic demands generated during the Chinese New Year holidays. Moreover, their overseas shipments were generally steady and unaffected by the changes in the global exchange rates. On the whole, the Chinese brands saw their market shares edged up a bit compared with the previous year’s fourth quarter.

Sony performed well in 2014, but it has decided to modify its strategy for 2015. The company is now focused on high-end and niche markets rather than pursuing shipment growths for their own sake. Sony’s shipments in first quarter of this year reflected this strategy adjustment, and it ranked fifth place with 5.6% of the market share.

WitsView’s second quarter outlook for the LCD TV market is toward the conservative side, with the projected quarterly shipment growth of just around 2%. Samsung and LGE has revised their shipments downward as the euro and the Russian ruble remain relatively weak in the short term. Furthermore, the market drive created by this year’s Chinese Labor Day sales is expected to pale in comparison with the past years’.