United

Kingdom
Statistical
Information
Televisions
 Demographics

Ü Population: 61,015,000
Ü 26,560,100 households

Ü Growth Rates: 0.276%

Ü Literacy Rates: 99%

Ü Languages spoken: English, Welsh, and

Scottish form of Gaelic

 Health of the Economy
Ü GDP: $2.787 trillion with 1.1% growth

Ü Gross National Income Per Capita: $37,400

Ü Comparative Unemployment Rate: 5.5% and slowly edging

upward
Ü workers in the UK must work nine hours to produce the
same output that Germans achieve in eight and
workers in France in seven. Growth of productivity has
also slowed, reflecting a low capital-labor ratio, low
efficiency in the use of capital and labor inputs, and a
lack of innovation.

Ü Comparative Inflation Rate: 3.8%

Ü Consumer spending is weakening as a result of problems in

the housing market and the financial crisis. In 2007,
consumer borrowing reached a level roughly equal to
annual economic output.
 Annual Income
Ü Annual Income: $31,818 yearly

Ü Exchange Rate: 0.55 per U.S. Dollar

Ü Consumer Confidence Trends

Ü Oct ‘08= 3.0 Jan ‘09= -8.0

Ü End of the house price boom making consumers feel poorer
Ü Mortgage credit becoming increasingly unavailable, and
rising interest rates have made mortgage repayments
less affordable
Ü Rising fuel and food price squeeze disposable income
Ü Costs of gas, electricity, and basic food items are on the rise,
and food price inflation surged to 9.5%
Ü Consumers spending more time at home
Ü Having to spend a growing proportion of their income on
mortgage repayments has left many consumers with
little income for socializing. It has boosted value sales of
home furnishings, including appliances and flat screen
TV’s.

Ü
 Political Environment
Ü Stability of country
Ü The Irish Republican Army has ordered an end to its armed struggle
promising to abandon paramilitary activity and organized crime.
Ü The general desire to reform the country’s long rejected health
service has become a political issue. Education and transport
are also in a troublesome state.
Ü Relations with the U.S. are not quite as strong as before since the
UK decided to withdraw its troops from Iraq.

Ü Government
Ü Constitutional Monarchy
Ü Queen Elizabeth II
Ü Prime Minister James Gordon Brown
Ü Cabinet of ministers appointed by prime minister
Ü Elections to the House of Commons took place May 2005

Ü Legislation
Ü Persistently low unemployment rates, the introduction of a
minimum wage and reforms to both the tax and welfare systems
did a great deal to reduce the level of absolute poverty in the
UK, which increased TV and household appliance ownership to
95% in 2007.
Technological Environment

Ü Media Available
Ü Newspaper: 11 national newspapers
Ü T.V.: 5 national T.V. stations
Ü Radio: 16 national stations, and two national
digital radio multiplexes
Ü Magazines: 3,391 consumer titles, 4,894
business titles

Ü Adoption of Technology
Ü Homes with internet: 17.2 million or 64.9%
Ü Homes with TV: 18.6 million or 70%
Ü Homes with personal computers: 19.3 million or
72.5%
 Direct Competitors
Ü Companies freely determine their prices in the UK

Ü In 2006, Philips was the leader in the UK televisions

sector with market share of 11.2%, followed by
Panasonic (9.7%), Sony (9.7%), and JVC (8.3%). The
combining of JVC and Panasonic gave overall market
leadership to their Japanese parent Matsushita
Electric Industrial Co Ltd.
Ü Sony underestimated consumer demand for its flat-
screen televisions, which resulted in declining
market share that has not yet been recovered.
Ü In 2006, Sharp and LG recorded the highest increases
in market share in the television sector, with volume
shares of 7.8% and 6.4% respectively due to the
emphasis of HDTVs.
 Industry Forecast: World-
Ü Increased competition wide
among major companies
may cause declining unit prices world-wide.

Ü 9.13% growth after 2007

Ü The most dynamic growth in the in-home

consumer electronics subsector of the world
came from sales of high-definition televisions,
especially flat-panel displays.

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Television 158.43 172.9 188.68 205.91 224.71
Sales billion billion billion billion billion
 Industry Forecast: United
Kingdom
Ü Sales of televisions are expected to grow
during the forecast period at a rate of 6.3%,
and reach sales of $11.974 billion in 2012
within the UK.

Ü Switching to digital television service is a large

determinant of future sales, along with
uncertainty about picture quality and
product lifespans.

Ü 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Televisio 9.712 10.466 11.22 11.974 12.728
n billion billion billion billion billion
Sales
Recommendation: Enter the
UK?
Ü Flat-panel and plasma TVs are not yet common
in the UK, which could make for tremendous
potential in sales.

Ü Volume sales are forecast to grow by 316%

over the forecast period (2007-2012).

Ü With the switch to digital television, and

decreasing prices in HDTV, it would be smart
to market to the United Kingdom.
 Recommendation: Target
Market

Ü Families
Ü Since families are spending more time at
home, trying to save money for food and
mortgage payments, it would be smart to
target towards families and creating “family
nights” of getting together and watching
movies in HD.


 Additional Research
Ü Additional Secondary Data
Ü MarketResearch.com
Ü Television industry research reports $395-$4,000
Ü ConsumerReports.org
Ü Best rated TVs from consumer reports $26/month

Ü Primary Data
Ü Interviews with managers of electronic stores to see
what brands are selling best and why
Ü Our own consumer reports to determine what
potential customers may want (phone surveys,
email and mail delivered surveys)
Ü
 Sources
Ü The World Factbook
Ü http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html

Ü GMID
Ü http://www.portal.euromonitor.com.libpdb.d.umn.edu:2048/passport/Resul
aspx

Ü http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=285

Ü http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=256

Ü www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/efsr0107.pdf

Ü www.gfknop.com/customresearch-uk/pressinfo/releases/singlearticles/00

Ü http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/country_profiles/1038758.stm

Ü http://www.radio-now.co.uk/national.htm

Ü http://www.ppamarketing.net/cgi-bin/go.pl/data-trends/article.html?uid=