Those of you hoping to snag an Apple-produced television set this holiday season might be out of luck. A new analyst report says there is no evidence to suggest that Cupertino will begin production of its own TV this year.
"Our research does not indicate any looming TV-related product launch, and our model does not incorporate any potential impact from a TV device at this time," JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote in a Thursday note to investors.
An Apple-branded TV set will likely appear "in years, not quarters," he wrote. Moskowitz pointed to the "strained" TV industry, which is struggling despite suitable offerings from Sony, Sharp, and Samsung.
"Overall, we would be surprised to see Apple enter a new market unless the value proposition could support double-digit operating margins," Moskowitz said. "In TVs, that bogey is rather elusive, in our view."
According to March data from NPD DisplaySearch, worldwide TV shipments dropped in 2011 for the first time since the firm started tracking global TV shipments in 2004. While LCD TV shipments jumped 7 percent to just over 205 million units in 2011, that was a substantial decline from the double-digit growth seen in 2010. Plasma TV shipments, meanwhile, dipped 7 percent - the largest decline yet - while CRT shipments fell 34 percent. As a result, "LCD growth was not enough to offset these declines," NPD said.
Moskowitz was skeptical that Apple could overcome these market challenges with a TV set unless it implemented "a radical change of the user interface, integration of the TV programming and data content, and use of gesture or voice control."
He suggested an NFC-enhanced "iPay" service that would allow users to buy TV content from their iPhone or iPad, tied to an Apple account.
"Until such time, we are skeptical that end customers would be willing to pay the Apple premium for a TV," he concluded.
That being said, Apple could differentiate itself without massive content-related deals, Moskowitz continued. "We acknowledge that an integral part of the user's experience is Apple's content offerings, but we think that the tight integration of hardware and software, industrial design, and ease of use are more important," he wrote.
Apple might decide to ease into the TV market - first with an expansion of its existing Apple TV to "more of a set-top box module." That, however, probably won't happen until 2013, with a full-blown Apple TV set by 2014, Moskowitz wrote.
Moskowitz's projections differ from that of Peter Misek, an equity analyst with Jefferies, who said in March that production on an Apple TV set could begin in May or June for a late-2012 launch. "We believe specialty components have begun to ship to Apple's Asia panel suppliers with polarized films, filters, and IGZO components starting to move in small quantities," Misek said at the time.
Rumors about an Apple-based television set have been making the rounds since last year after Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography mentioned that the late Apple co-founder was working on an Apple-branded TV before his death on Oct. 5. Apple, however, has made no announcements.
For more, see PCMag's review of the most-recent version of Apple TV, which incorporated 1080p, and the slideshow below.
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