2010 the year of connected TV, but not 3D?

2010 will certainly see the launch of the first 3D televisions, but according to the analysts at DisplaySearch, that doesn't mean they will appear in many our front rooms.  Instead, connected TVs are much more likely to take off in the near future:

• In 2009, 140 million TVs were sold across the whole world
• In 2010, the total volume of sales of 3D TVs should reach 1.5 million--or 1% of total sales, according to Display Search.

Those numbers seem like pretty conservative estimates to us, especially given news from manufacturers like Sony, which is moving most of its new models over to 3D.  But who knows: perhaps the analysts already know about the planned prices, which could easily be high enough to prevent a rapid adoption by consumers.

Instead, DisplaySearch reckons the biggest trend in 2010 is going to be towards connected TVS.  Almost 40 million such models, which can go online to download content from the web or access music, photos and videos from your computer, are set to be sold this year, almost twice as many as last year.  These charts show the predicted growths of the two markets: connected TVs first, then, on a different scale 3D TVs:

Watch out for our report on what we can expect from TVs in 2010 soon!