Receive all the digital news every dayIFA 2014, consumer electronics put on a show in BerlinThe battle for ultra-high definition (HD) television is in full swing.Extension of product ranges, reduction in prices, development of content on the Internet and Blu-ray… Manufacturers are taking advantage of IFA, the meeting place for consumer electronics, which takes place in Berlin (Germany) from 5 to September 10, to sharpen their weapons.Is this technology the long-awaited Eldorado?Not so sure.Launched at the IFA two years ago, ultra HD television offers 4K image resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels), four times the current HD.It is perceived as the providential remedy for the ills of the sector: market saturation in developed countries, trivialization of products and price erosion.Japanese and Korean brands are betting on this development to relaunch the renewal cycle, boost their margins and recover their health.A sector in the redWith the transition to flat screen and digital, television has become a commodity in the same way as the PC.Result: prices fall faster than productivity gains, despite the increase in size and the improvement of products.Thus, according to GfK, after peaking at 104.4 billion euros in 2010, global LCD TV sales fell to 99.8 billion euros in 2013, while sales volume increased. from 190 to 220 million units over the same period.And the movement should continue in 2014 and 2015. This explains the difficulties encountered by manufacturers in the sector and the exit from the market of historical players such as Philips or Pioneer.Sony is the brand that suffers the most, with a cumulative loss of nearly 9 billion dollars over the last nine years in this activity.Even the Chinese TCL, world number three in the market behind Samsung and LG, reputed to be one of the most profitable players, ended 2013 in the red.It is to straighten out its accounts that Sony has made ultra HD its hobbyhorse.This technology already represents 30% of its turnover in television in the first half of 2014. This leaves Kazuo Hirai, its boss, to expect a return to green of this activity during the current fiscal year to close on March 31 2015. In other words an event!But this positive reversal risks being a short-lived respite.A regularly broken marketBecause the Chinese manufacturers are playing troublemakers by trivializing ultra HD, exactly as the Koreans Samsung and LG did in HD at the expense of the Japanese manufacturers.After having conquered their local market, they are now attacking the international market with a weapon that is their strength: lowering prices.At the IFA, they present ranges extended to 39 inches (while ultra HD is initially planned for more than 50 inches) and prices falling below 500 euros.Something to make Sony, LG or Samsung dizzy.According to DisplaySearch, China accounted for 83% of the global ultra HD TV market in 2013, and it was China's Skyworth, not Sony, that dominated the world.LG seems to take the measure of the risks.This is why it favors OLED television, a segment in which it is the only one to market ultra HD models.This drop in prices, faster than expected, led the firm to revise its projections upwards twice.Now, he expects the sale of 12.7 million ultra HD televisions in the world in 2014 (instead of 7 million originally forecast) and 62 million in 2017 (instead of 23 million forecast initially).The Digitimes Research firm sees an even faster evolution of the market with the sale of 18 million ultra HD TVs in 2014 and 90 million in 2017. Positive prospects in themselves but which are likely to benefit especially the Chinese TCL, Skyworth, Hisense, Changhong , TPV, Haier and other Xoceco, bringing the Japanese and Korean brands back to square one faster than expected.* Comments posted on L'Usine Digitale are moderated by the editorial team.Every day, the news of the digital transitionThe government is injecting 20 million euros into Anssi to strengthen its support for […]A European first for medical transport by drone took place in BelgiumStarlink and T-Mobile partner to cover white areas in the United StatesMeta will create a customer service to help Facebook and Instagram users recover […]Your appointments not to be missedEnsure and maintain GDPR complianceIn the same sectionPhilips televisions still lead Hong Kong's TPV TechnologyWill Samsung still be the king of smartphones in 2015?Can you still make money selling smartphones?Samsung withdraws from Windows PCs in EuropeHospitals, ESN, biotech, cities… In the midst of a health crisis, hackers are relentlessHow new forms of mobility will shape the city of the futureTo be safe, the city of the future will need resilient and "future-proof" infrastructureXiaomi presents CyberOne, a humanoid robotIn a BMW plant, vehicles move autonomouslyA robot dog similar to that of Boston Dynamics turned into a gun