Samsung retained its leadership position in the global Smart TV market amid the competitive holiday season of Q4 2013 with a 26.4 percent share, according to Strategy Analytics. The report estimates that Samsung's nearest competitor, LG, registered a 14.4 percent market share of Smart TV shipments. Although Sony ships fewer Flat Panel TV (FPTV) units than LG, it has been aggressive in its efforts to add Smart TV capabilities to nearly all models it currently offers, which helped Sony capture another 14.3 percent of the Smart TV market.



David Watkins, Director of Connected Home Devices at Strategy Analytics, said: "As Smart TV becomes a more standard feature in TVs, dictated both by the vendors' desire to raise ASPs and consumers' desire to future-proof their big ticket purchases, Smart TV market shares will begin to more closely resemble that of the overall FPTV market. We see this fluctuation sorting itself out among the Japanese vendors which came to the segment early and fast-growing Chinese vendors like TCL."