External Environmental Analysis - The U.S. Television Manufacturing Industry

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to determine and identify the “attractiveness” of the U.S. television (TV) manufacturing industry, i.e. to analyze the opportunities and threats that a company and its industry face due to the external environment. This external environment project will therefore after defining some key terms, analyze the dominant economic characteristics, the driving forces, and the competitive environment of the U.S. television manufacturing industry. To simplify matters the analysis will be performed from the point of view of an audio and video equipment producer, who is planning on entering the television manufacturing industry.

Key Terms

For a better understanding of the report this section will provides definitions of some important key terms used in the TV industry.

- CRT: cathode ray tube, the primarily technology used for TVs
- LCD: liquid crystal display, newer technology used for flat panel TVs, called LCD TVs
- PDP: plasma display panel, relatively new technology used for flat panel TVs, called plasma TVs
- DLP: digital light processing, relatively new technology used for rear-projection TVs
- LED: light-emitting diode
- OLED: organic light-emitting diode, technology, which is commonly used in mobile phones and digital cameras but is also applicable for TVs and computer screens
- FPD: flat panel display, including amongst others LCD, PDP, DLP, and OLED
- Analog TV: encodes TV picture and sound information as an analog signal
- DTV: digital television, “is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound by means of digital signals [1]”
- HDTV: high definition television, “is a television broadcasting system with a significantly higher resolution than traditional formats [2]”