Smart TV sets continue to be highly popular with German consumers.
In the first three quarters of 2019, around 3.5 million smart TVs were sold – 3% more than in the same period of the previous year, reports German industry association Deutsche TV-Plattform with reference to figures from GfK Retail & Technology.
The share of smart TVs in the overall TV market was 80% in the first three quarters (2018: 76%). A total of around 35.6 million smart TVs have been sold in Germany since 2012.
The majority (over 90%) of the sold units support the HbbTV standard and thus the use of interactive services via the red button on the remote control. The trend towards larger screens also continues: 40% of the TV sets sold by the end Q3 2019 have a diagonal of 50 inches or larger (2018: 36%).
“The continuously increasing market penetration of internet-capable TV sets opens up additional opportunities for all content providers to offer their services – especially through the HbbTV standard, in the development of which Deutsche TV-Plattform was involved from the outset,” said Andre Prahl, chairman of Deutsche TV-Platform.
“By defining minimum requirements for HbbTV devices, we were able to set the course this year for the future development of HbbTV services and the expansion of the broadcasters’ HbbTV offerings,” added Prahl.
