3M Corporation (St. Paul, MN) (www.mmm.com) is looking at the TV market through its newly integrated acquisition of Corning Precision Lens (CPL). The former CPL unit is one of the largest suppliers of projection lenses for CRT-based RPTVs worldwide - and 3M thinks there will continue to be strong demand for its lenses in the near future.

The company thinks that consumers will continue to select CRT RPTVs because of the price differential between these sets and alternatives such as microdisplay-based RPTVs, PDP TVs, LCD TVs and even front-projection options. These alternatives accounted for just 10% of the big-screen (>40-inch) market in 2002, says 3M. Microdisplay-based RPTVs in particular won't gain much market share until they are within 20% to 30% of CRT RPTV pricing, thinks Larry Iram.

In early March, 3M will have more detailed data about its predictions for the big-screen market. What it will show is that for the US in 2003, 3M forecasts a total of 3.2M big-screen TVs (>40-inch, not including direct-view CRT or front projection) will be sold.

Digital CRT RPTVs and microdisplay-based RPTV sets will account for 2.7M units, moving up considerably from the 1.7M units sold in 2002. Microdisplay-based RPTV sets will triple sales over last year to more than 100K sets, but still fall well below CRT RPTV sales levels. Analog CRT RPTVs will decline from 681K units in 2002 to 300K sets in 2003 and completely disappear by 2004. Iram feels that manufacturers of display systems over 40 inches will simply include an ATSC tuner/decoder to comply with the FCC mandate, so analog RPTVs go away by 2004. While this will add some cost to the sets, he feels manufacturers will keep prices even to offset this cost instead of following a continual price reduction curve.

3M thinks only perhaps 250K units of PDP TVs and LCD TVs will ship in 2003 in the US.

3M, Larry Iram, 513-753-2097, leiram@mmm.com

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