Ultra HD televisions are one of the fastest-growing segments in the history of consumer electronics. Within the first three years of shipments, 4K/UHD overshadowed HDTVs by nearly 4x with 16 million units shipped compared to 4.2 million units1. Since then, rapid penetration is occurring globally with 35 percent of all U.S. households forecast to have a UHD television by 2019, followed by the United Kingdom with 31 percent, 25 percent in the European Union, and 24 percent in China. Global units shipped reached 82 million in 2017 up from 53 million in 2016. .
The global 4K TV market is expected to reach 380.9 billion by 2025 due to enhanced graphics, the pressure for manufacturers to reduce prices and the popularity of ultra-high definition (UHD) content2.
The rate of growth of 4k shipments is at 70% growing from 83 million 4K devices in 2016 to 1.2 billion in 20213. While flat panel TVs are the largest segment of devices in 4K format, streaming media adapters, set-top-boxes, mobile devices, Blu-ray players, and game consoles follow closely behind. Following the popularity of 4K devices, there has been a growth of 4K content. Initially, 4K UHD content was available for live sports and some video on demand. Today, 4K content is seen as a premium offering albeit an expensive one with a digital copy of a 4K movie costing US $30.
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Revenue from the display market will grow from $18 billion in 2015 to $52 billion in 20204.
BT Sport was a pioneer of 4K broadcasts, and Netflix and Amazon were also early to the market to deliver 4K/Ultra HD content with hits such as Stranger Things and House of Cards. Today, most major broadcasting companies and content providers have joined to provide 4K/UHD content. AT&T has a DirecTV dedicated 4K channel including the MLB network with 4K baseball broadcasts, PGA tournaments, and UFC fights. The Olympics, Warner Brothers, BBC’s Planet Earth, Hulu and YouTube also offer UHD and HDR content.
Movies and TV shows display four times the resolution with UHD as compared to HD content5, and therefore, it has become the studios’ most valuable content requiring robust content protection.
Set-top-box makers provide 4K UHD set-top-boxes (although OTT content does not require a set-top-box to stream 4K content). While better hardware continues to be made available, the 4K UHD content is a major driver. For streaming media adapters, 4K video quality as an added feature is becoming the differentiator among streaming media adapter vendors. Most major vendors across both streaming media device adapters and players have launched 4K products.
