Consumer 8K TV Buying Intentions are Up
Hub Entertainment Research has conducted a consumer survey on connected homes and found that consumers are increasingly aware of 8K TVs. Their buying intentions are also trending upward. The data is part of the company’s fourth annual Connected Home study, which surveyed 5,204 U.S. consumers in February 2022.
The report covers a number of devices in a consumer’s homes, including smart speakers and voice-capable TV remotes. 4K TVs and smart home devices have now achieved around a 50% home penetration level. The survey was also designed to determine which technologies are growing, like consumer 8K TV buying.
We reached out to David Tice, the lead researcher on the report to learn more about the methodology and the 8K results in particular. He explained that the survey was done online using a panel of consumers offered by a first party company (Dynata). Of Dynata’s 67 million consumers, Hub chose 5,200 aged 16-74 and profiled to match the U.S. population’s gender, ethnicity, income, and household size. Consumers are not paid to complete the survey, but they are offered points to help them purchase merchandise.
Such surveys ask consumers to provide information on their devices, but the results often tend to overestimate ownership and capabilities. Therefore, absolute results need to be slightly downgraded to match reality better. But if the survey is consistent in its demographic and questions from year to year, the trend data can be revealing and relatively accurate.
Among the findings were that 76% of households own a smart TV and that 64% of these households streamed on this device in the last month. Of all the TVs in the home, 57% are now smart, up from 45% in 2020. These numbers seem reasonable.
Drilling down into the TVs themselves, the survey found that 52% say they own a 4K TV, and 67% have watched 4K content.
For 8K, the survey asked the following question:
Of the <total number of TVs> TV sets you own, how many are 8K high-definition TV sets? These are the newest type of TV set and have a picture even better than a 4K set. 8K TV sets typically start at $3,000 or more and have only been sold for the past two years or so)
Note that they helped the consumer understand better what an 8K TV really is. The result was that 8% said they owned an 8K TV, up 1 % from the prior year. This number seems a bit high, but I think the question was clear enough.
They then asked about intentions to buy with the question posed:
We’d like to know if you or your household intend to buy any of the following media devices in the next 12 months. Will you be very likely, somewhat likely, or not at all likely to buy each device?
The results show an increase from 10% a year ago to 14% in this year’s survey. Again, these numbers are likely high, but still, it is encouraging data.
Tice also shared some data from a June 2021 survey that looked at informed awareness of various emerging TV technologies. This data, shown below, indicates that awareness is increasing across the board, but there is still a lot of education necessary on some of these technologies.
