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GfK: The Third Dimension - 3D Home Entertainment to Enhance German CE Market (12/8/2010)

For some months now, 3D TVs, 3D Projectors, 3D Blu-ray Players and 3D Blu-ray Home Cinema Systems have been available on the market. But is the customer "3D ready"? Does the lack of 3D content, along with the higher prices and additional costs for 3D glasses discouraging the consumer to buy these products?

Well, the answer lies somewhere in between. On the one hand the aforementioned reasons, compounded by the lack of comfort when wearing the additional glasses, lead to a relatively low interest of consumers in 3D Home Entertainment. Indeed, a GfK Study from April this year showed that only one third of the population is showing any interest in this topic. That said, sales of 3D CE products are developing at a fair pace…

So far, 18,000 3D TV sets have been sold and around 17,000 matching 3D glasses. Compared to the total sales of Flat-TVs in this period (March - June 2010), this is marginal (less than 1%), but if we consider 3D Blu-ray Players and Blu-ray Home Cinemas, the picture is different. 3D Blu-ray Players already account for 17% of the Blu-ray Player turnover in June 2010. For Blu-ray Home Cinema, this share is 15%.

In addition, 3D Projectors are becoming increasingly important; in June 2010, already more than 6,000 3D projectors have been sold, which equates to 13% of total Projector Sales. This means, more and more customers are becoming "3D ready", even if many have yet to purchase a 3D TV yet. The expectations for the 3D market thus appear to be quite positive; the precondition for a great 3D development is however a comprehensive range of 3D content.

www.gfkrt.com/de