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Global shipments of TVs were down in 2017 but robust sales of 4K/Ultra HDTVs will push worldwide demand for television back into a growth mode in 2018, according to U.K.-based Futuresource Consulting.

The recovery of several markets linked with a transition to 4K UHD TVs will increase market value by 5 percent, pushing it to $85 billion, according to the firm’s Worldwide TV Market Report.

"We believe 4K UHD TV sets will ship over 100 million units this year, equivalent to two-thirds of the entire large screen market," said Futuresource market analyst David Tett. "Consumers increasingly want larger screens, and this is playing nicely into the 4K UHD proposition."

Although world's two largest markets — China and the U.S. — both experienced declines last year, they have a positive outlook in 2018 with a significant mix of large screens and 4K UHD sets.

"They have been ahead of most other markets in terms of adoption of 4K UHD and large screens generally,” Tett noted. “Over three quarters of sets that sell in the U.S. and China this year will be over 40 inches. However, other regions are now catching up and Western Europe is on course to match the 44 percent Chinese household ownership of 4K UHD TVs by 2022.”

The growth of 4K UHD TV households is also having a positive impact on availability of 4K content. "Our “Living with Digital” consumer research shows that there has been a significant step-up in the proportion of 4K UHD TV owners who say they have watched this content at home,” Tett said. “This is the result not just of an expanding number of SVOD (subscription video on demand) subscribers, but also a growing choice of content via linear TV.”

The Futuresource report described voice control as the “latest weapon being deployed by the biggest vendors in the heated battleground of premium TV.” The most popular voice assistant platforms, Google Assistant and Amazon's Alexa, are being incorporated into the latest TVs from LG, Hisense, TCL, and Vizio, while Samsung uses its own Bixby platform in its 2018 QLED TVs. As smart home and IoT (Internet of Things) become a focus for many brands, the inclusion of voice control in TVs is expected to grow rapidly in the future.

High dynamic range (HDR) capability is also expected to find its way into 60 percent of 4K UHD TVs this year. HDR10 remains the most common platform but the availability of several other incompatible technologies — HDR10+, HLG, Advanced HDR, and Dolby Vision — is creating confusion among consumers.