After digging deep into their wallets to pay for shiny new 4K UHD TV sets, consumers want content, and they want it now. DirecTV has made a slew of 4K announcements this year around broadcasts of sporting events from baseball to golf and beyond, but many consumers are still looking mostly to streaming services like Netflix and Amazon for their 4K fix.
Other pay TV operators ramping up their own 4K delivery plans will be interested in some brand new sales estimates that came out on Thursday by way of DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. It reported in its “Third Quarter 2016 Home Entertainment Report” that an additional two million 4K ultra HD TVs were sold in the U.S. market in the quarter, which it said to be up 104 percent from the same period a year ago. DEG estimated the total number of sets purchased at 9.9 million.
While adoption projections continue to expand, another research firm, Strategy Analytics’ Intelligent Home Group, pointed out in a report released in September that many viewers might be confused about what ultra HD actually is. In a survey of 6,000 U.S. and European consumers, 15 percent of respondents claimed that the services were currently available to them from their TV service, and 8 percent claimed that they had watched ultra HD programs. These figures were much higher than expected given that few ultra HD services are presently available, and suggested that considerable confusion exists over what ultra HD means, Strategy Analytics said.
“The TV industry has put a great deal of effort into establishing the next generation of TV technologies,” David Mercer, Strategy Analytics VP and principal analyst, says. “The challenge now is to communicate the benefits of these enhancements to viewers and to reduce the uncertainty which could stall growth of new services.”