World Cup fever: Southeast Asia TV sales surge 15% in May

Almost 1 million units were sold.

Television manufacturers and retailers are raking in a lot of cash from the world’s most anticipated sporting. In football-crazed Southeast Asia, almost 957,000 units were sold just in May 2014.

According to a report by GfK, demand for TV in May this year surged significantly; by 15 percent more than the average sales volume achieved in the non-peak months of February, March and April for all markets in the range of 4 to 31 percent.

“Thailand showed the greatest spike, followed by 19 percent in Vietnam, and 16 percent in Singapore. It is worth mentioning that the 232,000 TV sets snapped up in Thailand in May was the highest monthly sales achieved by the market in 2014 so far,” the report revealed.

Here’s more from GfK:

Retail sales tracking by leading global market research company revealed that more TV sets are being sold in every single market across the region in the month prior to the commencement of the game in June.

GfK retail audit of TV sales for May 2014 reported nearly 957,000 units sold for the combined markets of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand.

“It is interesting to highlight that this trend of higher demand for TVs in the month leading to World Cup was also observed four years ago,” said Gerard Tan, Account Director for Digital World in GfK.

“GfK’s weekly retail audit for TV sales further showed apparent spikes in take-up volume in various June weeks for Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand to achieve the highest weekly sales since January.”

Overall TV sales in the region have slowed down after several years of rapid growth in developing markets where large number of households were upgrading to flat panel TV from the traditional CRT. With the near completion of the switchover, consumers are now focusing on new features and technology, as well as bigger screen sizes instead.