D-Matrix: China's Flat-Panel TV Online Retail Market Monitoring in the First Half of 2014

According to the latest data from D-Matrix, the overall size of China's flat-panel TV online retail market decreased by 5.8% month-on-month in the first half of 2014, but increased by 47.2% year-on-year compared with the first half of 2013.

From the overall market trend, the first half of 2014 achieved a year-on-year growth of 47.2%. The market size is gradually expanding, and its growth mainly comes from the three platforms of JD.com, Tmall and Suning.com. In the comparison of the year-on-year growth rates of each month, the market sales growth in June was particularly prominent, achieving the highest year-on-year growth. 49.6% of the market sales growth in the first half of the year came from the growth in June.

In the first half of 2014, the sales volume of Chinese flat-panel TV online retail market remained fierce, with Hisense, Sharp, Skyworth, Konka and Sony ranking the top five, with a cumulative market share of 53.9%. Compared with the first half of 2013, Sharp's share increased by 2.2%, rising to the second place; Konka's share decreased by 4.9%, falling to the fourth place.

In the first half of 2014, JD.com accounted for half of the sales in China's online retail market for flat-panel TVs, with a sales share of 50.5%. Tmall and Yixun ranked second and third, with sales shares of 19.1% and 17.3% respectively. Compared with the first half of 2013, the shares of JD.com and Yixun decreased by 7.0% and 4.4% respectively, while the shares of Tmall and Suning.com increased by 5.4% and 4.7% respectively. It can be seen that JD.com's dominant position is showing a downward trend, and the gap in the share of the top four platforms is gradually narrowing.

Flat-screen TV

In terms of market price fluctuations, the average transaction price of China's flat-panel TV online retail market was RMB 2,949.6 in the first half of 2014, and fluctuated between RMB 2,700 and RMB 3,100 from January to June. Compared with the first half of 2013, there was a certain degree of decline.

From the overall promotion situation, the top five brands in terms of promotion frequency in the first half of 2014 were Hisense, TCL, Changhong, Konka and Sharp. On the other hand, Hisense, TCL and Changhong all maintained large discounts, at 77.6%, 84.5% and 85.4% respectively. It can be seen that the top three brands in terms of promotion frequency are also the three brands with the largest discount rates.

In terms of sales ranking of online retail stores in the flat-panel TV market in the first half of 2014, JD.com’s self-operated stores ranked first, followed by Yixun.com’s self-operated stores, Suning’s self-operated stores, Gome Online’s self-operated stores and Hisense TV’s official flagship store ranked 2 to 5. The top four self-operated stores accounted for 77.9% of the market share.

Judging from the SKU sales ranking of China's flat-panel TV online retail market in the first half of 2014, Hisense LED55EC-280JD TV and LeTV X60 TV ranked the top two, while LeTV S50 TV, Sharp LCD-40DS20A TV and Philips 50PFL3040/T3 TV ranked 3rd to 5th.