EL SEGUNDO, CA — The global television market is rapidly changing, and so are the rankings among the global leaders, according to iSuppli Corp.

First quarter leader TTE Corp. of China fell to third place in the unit-shipment rankings in the second quarter, supplanted by LG Electronics Corp. and Samsung Electronics, which took the first and second, respectively.

TTE’s market share for global television unit shipments dropped to 9% in the second quarter, down from 11.2%. LG's share rose from 9.7% to 11 %. Samsung achieved the biggest gain, rising to 10% from 8.6%.

TTE’s loss was the result of a slowdown of television shipments in its home market in China, where the second quarter is slower due to the end of the Chinese New Year gift-giving season. Meanwhile, Samsung surged in the LCD- TV arena and LG took the top spots both in CRT and plasma display televisions.

“The shift at the top of the leader board reflects the radical changes throughout the television industry,” said Riddhi Patel, principal analyst for television systems. “The rapid decline in CRT television shipments is rippling through the market as flat-panel TVs become increasingly price competitive.

“Furthermore, DTV demand is beginning to take shape and more consumers are making the transition from analog in order to make their home-entertainment systems future proof," Patel added. “This also is causing consumers to buy more flat-panel televisions in the 40" size range, as opposed to 27" to 29" televisions a few years ago.

iSuppli predicted 5.7% growth in worldwide television unit shipments in 2006, to 187.7 million units. By 2010, the global television market will expand to 226.6 million units.”

CRT TVs will lose their historical dominance of the TV market in 2009, when they will account for about 42% of unit shipments, while LCD-TVs share will grow to 47.9% that year.

Competition sharpens

While the ranking among the top LCD-TV OEMs remained the same for the second quarter, a shake-up among the dominant manufacturers may be coming, as Sharp Electronics Corp. saw its nearest competitors come dangerously close to surpassing its leadership position.

Sharp had 15.2 percent of the LCD-TV unit shipment market share in the first quarter of 2006. This number dropped to 14.5 percent in the second quarter, drawing Sharp closer to the No. 2 position. Samsung increased its LCD- TV market share from 12.4 percent in the first quarter to 14.2 percent in the second quarter, only a fraction of a percentage point behind Sharp. Sony Corp. also increased its market share to 13.8 percent in the second quarter, up from 12.2 percent in the first.

iSuppli’s second quarter rankings for LCD television shipments are shown in Table 2 below and attached.