Samsung: "We're weathering the sector's downturn thanks to our high-end offering."

Samsung Spain's Vice President of Consumer Electronics explains the current situation in the television and white goods market.

After years of growth and prosperity driven by the pandemic, the shutdown of SD channels and major sporting events, television sales will begin to decline in 2025. "What we are experiencing now is a readjustment of demand to pre-Covid levels. At the end of April, the drop is 27%, and the second quarter of the year is forecast to close with declines of between 20% and 30%. I won't venture to give figures for what will happen the rest of the year; it's an unknown," explains Álvaro Uriarte, Vice President of Consumer Electronics for Samsung Spain.

Given this situation, the Korean company recently announced its new high-end devices in Spain, with a strong focus on image quality and, specifically, artificial intelligence. Uriarte also asserts that Samsung is managing to reduce the impact of this decline precisely thanks to these types of technologies. " We are experiencing a noticeably smaller decline, around 15%, because we are well positioned in other growing segments such as OLED and QLED . Thanks to this, we are weathering the market decline better, although it affects us all, and we are also experiencing a decline in overall volume," Uriarte insists.

However, the Samsung executive points out that there is a small segment of televisions that is not only resisting declines, but is actually growing. These are high-end sets, specifically those with larger screen sizes. " Devices larger than 75 inches are growing 26% so far this year, and in this segment, Samsung has a 50% share," he points out.

The premium range of televisions, priced over €1,500, is also weathering the decline with slight increases, and Uriarte claims that Samsung has a market share of over 45% in this segment.

Consumers are also beginning to focus on superior technologies, partly motivated by the analog blackout in 2024. "Within this trend, QLED technology is growing in the market by 8.9%, while other technologies such as OLED (the premium technology preferred by Spanish consumers) and MiniLED are experiencing significant growth," he notes. Specifically, while the market has fallen 7% so far this year, Samsung's OLED equipment sales have grown 25%.

Amid this readjustment, as in the rest of the technology sector, television manufacturers are betting on artificial intelligence. Samsung has unified its artificial intelligence strategy for its televisions under the umbrella of Vision AI, its plan to make the television viewing experience smarter. Unlike previous years, where artificial intelligence was already present in televisions, in 2025 Samsung has introduced new, more user-friendly features in the high-end and premium segments.

"Many of the artificial intelligence functions that were previously available in mobile phones are already beginning to be transferred to televisions. We're at the dawn of these types of tools, and the trend will continue to be to add more functions," notes the vice president of Samsung Spain.

The company has launched its new NeoQLED 8k and OLED TVs with tools like Click to Search, which allows you to search for an actor to obtain information about them while you're watching TV. Other examples include simultaneous translation and environment adaptation and energy saving, which detects when no one is in front of the TV and can lower the brightness or perform other actions autonomously to save energy.

Samsung Spain's Vice President of Consumer Electronics, Álvaro Uriarte, is also responsible for the company's home appliance segment, where artificial intelligence is also gaining significant prominence. In contrast to the declines in televisions, the white goods sector is experiencing slight increases, returning to pre-pandemic figures after suffering a decline last year. "Demand has already been readjusted, and we are now seeing increases of around 3% to 4% in home appliances. In this segment , there are also two clear trends driving sales: more energy-efficient appliances (A, B, and C labels) and high capacity, both in washing and cooling," he explains.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to gain interest for consumers, especially as a tool that can help save energy. Even so, Samsung is introducing very striking new features, such as laundry detection in its washing machines to choose the perfect wash program, or incorporating artificial intelligence into its refrigerators that can suggest what users should make for dinner with the contents of their refrigerator.

"The goal is to be able to use any device, be it your phone, TV, or refrigerator, as the control center for your connected home. It's not about having a single device as the hub; it's about making artificial intelligence available and controllable from multiple locations. This is possible thanks to SmartThings, our open platform that integrates hundreds of other products from brands other than our own, allowing control of multiple devices from a single interface."