Televisions are dated back to an age where electricity was a luxury. Electronic Televisions were discovered back in the early 1900’s and the first broadcast followed shortly after, however the first colour television was not introduced till 1960’s. CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) televisions were first introduced in India in the 90’s and at that time, there existed bulky television which were generally not affordable by the common man. These were considered a product of luxury and were priced between Rs. 20000 and Rs. 40000.

Fully Flat Televisions introduced by Sony, BPL and Onida followed the CRT’s that had captured everyone’s imagination The LCD LED and Plasma culture was only introduced in the Indian market post the turn of the century. Since then, television has evolved by leaps and bounds, bringing in the OLED, Curved and 4K range.

Even in rural India, where one television can cater to the whole village, we see a rise in demand for LED TV’s, and with electricity being provided to remote areas, in a consistent fashion, television is being treated as more of a need than a want, as was earlier This burgeoning demand for televisions has led to network service providers trying to reach out to these large numbers as well as TV cable network reaching remote areas and connecting the country like never before

In the earlier times, televisions were one of the few sources of entertainment that bought the community together, despite the limited number of channels that were telecast then. I’m sure everyone has a story related to it, especially memories of watching it together with one’s family, neighbours etc. With time, there had been a rapid growth in the number of channels and programmes being broadcast, with TV becoming more and more affordable. This led to a time when people started taking televisions into their bedroom’s and away from their living rooms- one of the major reasons being an increase in the number of nuclear families in the country. Therefore, there was tremendous growth for the television and consumer electronic vertical in late 1990’s in India and since then TV became a household product as opposed to the luxury product it once was.

From 1980’s to 2000’s there was no major or noteworthy change in the CRT technology. The only major changes were slim televisions or 29” flat TVs. For almost 2 decades without any major shift in the technology to recapture people’s attention, we saw a major dip in the sales of televisions. There was a big turnaround after LCD/LED’s were launched, and this led to re-engagement with the masses once more. Today technology is changing at lightning speed and with that the pool of screen sizes has also increased and varies from anywhere between 24” to 102”.

Newer technologies like 4k and OLED have a long path to cover in India, as they come under the premium segment and are yet to mature in the country

Earlier televisions, were fairly basic as opposed to the advanced technologies available now. Smart televisions have become popular recently and are yet to surpass the demand for vanilla TVs. The delta between a smart and a basic television of the same screen size is usually around 3000-4000 rupees with regards to affordable brands. This delta can be seen increasing when it comes to multi-national brands. Prices of Smart TVs have been lowered by 12-15 percent in the past 2-3 years and this has corresponded with the disposable income of the service class category increasing. The coming together of these two factors have slowly, but surely led to an increase in demand for Smart TV’s as a source of entertainment.

Today the kind of software’s available on TV has opened a new chapter in the television industry. Smart TV’s are the way of the future and with an increased demand for the same in the Indian market as well as increased internet service coverage and VoD (Video on Demand) apps such as Netflix and Hotstar becoming highly popular, it would be the perfect time to incentivize the development of this and best use it to gain an advantage in this competitive industry.

At a global level, there is already a major shift from Vanilla to Smart Televisions. The prime reason for this is that the consumer wants better variety and want their viewing experience to shift from smaller to larger screens. The USP of a smart TV is ‘Miracast’, where you can connect your mobile with your television. In today’s fast paced world, where customers want to change their TVs in 3 to 4 years, they always want something new to enhance their daily viewing, something which we are constantly striving to develop for the Indian market.

The average selling size in India is 32” in rural areas and 40” in the urban market. We are witnessing a demand for bigger sizes increasing, as the prices are gradually becoming more affordable. By the end of 2020 the average TV size will become 50” and it wouldn’t be remiss to say that 80% of the market share will be catering to smart TVs.

Newer technologies like 4k and OLED have a long path to cover in India. They come under the premium segment and these technologies are yet to mature in the country. The availability of content is very limited for technology of this magnitude and we can safely assume that only by the year 2022 will half the world convert to 4k and content creation for the same would follow suite. As of today, the content for 4K is very limited and the Smart Television industry will have to wait a while, before being able to truly capitalize on it and usher in a new revolution that may change how we view entertainment, for a long time to come.