Overall numbers dropped to 10.7 million shipped units, with LCD leading the way with 8.9M units, 200.000 less than 12 months ago. LCD TV shipments increased 9% when comparing Q3 to Q4, though. Retailers and etailers didn’t want to build up stock in fears of potentially catastrophic Q1’09, but this LCD drop was off-set by massive 28% increase in shipments of Plasma units. Manufacturers shipped 1.3M Plasma TV units, making it a new record for quarterly shipments. What makes Q4’08 really interesting is the fact that LCDTV saw sharp increase in sales of 40-52″ models, while Plasma TV went up in the 50″ segment – both cases were credited to excellent deals for these models during Black Friday sales.

Brand-wise, Samsung rules the roost on North American continent. For the first time, this Korean giant has more than 20% of overall market share – winning in both LCD and Plasma worlds. Sony is second with 14.2%, growing by three points to crack the 14% share. However, Sony only ships LCD models, so these numbers are quite impressive. On the other hand, Vizio scored 3.3% market share increase, up to 12.3%. It seems that Americans are really fond of this brand, especially in the beyond-40″ segment.

Overall, incouraging numbers – but it will be interesting to see what will happen with Q1’09 shipment and sales results.

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