It was huge news a few months ago when Vizio, a company that didn't even exist a few years ago, took over the top spot in the HDTV sales rankings. At that time, some writers were crowing about an "American" company vaulting to the top of the sales charts, all the while ignoring that none of Vizio's TVs were American made or even made by Vizio. On another thread, I compared Vizio with Apex Digital, because both companies basically operated as virtual companies that rebadged products made by outsource manufacturers. I also predicted that Vizio would probably fade back once the price points for more established brands began to erode Vizio's price advantage.

Fast forward to Q4 2007 - iSuppli has now projected that both Samsung and Sony vaulted ahead of Vizio during the holiday shopping season. Both brands were very aggressive with their promotional pricing over the holidays, and it apparently paid off. Samsung is now the leading LCD TV producer with a market share of 14.2%, while Sony's market share went up to 12.5%. Vizio's market share fell from 13.0% in Q3 to 12.4% in Q4.

I don't see this changing because Samsung and Sony both maintain their own manufacturing facilities and produce their own LCD panels (although I think that Sony's LCDs are made thru a joint venture with Samsung). Vizio has no control over their outsource vendors. Vizio can lower their price points, but their outsource manufacturers might wind up cutting a lot of corners to meet Vizio's bid price and specs.

Shockingly, (to me at least) Sharp had a huge market share decline. Their market share went from 12.0% to 8.3%. At one point, Sharp was the best positioned LCD manufacturer in the business -- they were already multiple generations in when most companies were entering the LCD flat panel market, and they had the most manufacturing capacity. I haven't checked their price points as of late, but I have to assume that they've not been able to match Samsung and Sony's price points.

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36053/118/