2014 Screen Futures: 40% of TVs Will Have Net Connections

In five years, almost 40% of televisions produced for the U.S. market will have at least one TV set in the home with Internet connections and services.

Media research publisher Futurescape says this will amount to 43 million U.S. television homes out of 115.9 million overall U.S. TV homes. Other research suggests that 57 million U.S. TV homes will be viewing -- at some time -- regular full-length TV programs from online sources on their TV sets.

U.S. numbers register at a slower pace than global TV trends, where it is expected that 54% of all flat-panel TV sets that will be shipped in 2014 -- 148.3 million -- will have Internet-connected TV services.

Aggressive TV maker Samsung says 70% of all its TV sets will be Internet-connected in 2014. Right now, the TV set maker says 17% of its production is Internet-connected TVs.

In Europe, the 4 million Net-connected TVs in 2009 will jump to 47 million in 2014. Germany seems to be a particularly fast-moving market -- 36% of all TVs sold in the country in the first half of 2010 had Internet connections. By 2015, estimates are that 61% of German TV homes will be Internet-connected.

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In Europe, the number of Blu-ray players is also expected to climb -- up from 5 million in 2010 to 66 million in 2015.

The study says 63% of TV viewers want Internet connections for their TV -- to access show information, talk about entertainment on social media sites and shop online.

Futurescape says the growth of social media areas is pushing the move for more Internet-connected TVs.

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