Samsung
Samsung will provide operating system updates for its newer TVs for at least seven years, the company announced last week. The updates will first apply to some TVs released in 2023 and TVs released in March 2024.
According to Business Korea, Samsung made the announcement regarding the Tizen OS at the Digital Research Lab of Samsung Electronics’ Suwon Campus in Gyeonggi Province. As spotted by FlatPanelsHD, the announcement follows previously announced plans from Samsung to provide seven years of software updates for the Galaxy S24 smartphone series.
Per Korea Economic Daily, speaking at last week’s event, Samsung Electronics’ president of the Visual Display Business Division, Yoon Seok-woo, said: “With the seven-year free upgrade of Tizen applied to AI TVs, we will widen the gap in market share with Chinese companies.”
Samsung is the biggest smart TV seller in the world, but rival companies from China are close behind. According to numbers from Omdia, Samsung’s TV market share (based on units shipped) declined from 20.3 percent in Q1 2023 to 18.8 percent in Q1 2024. Market share for Chinese brand TCL, meanwhile, increased from 9.8 percent to 11.6 percent (LG’s market share was about flat at 11.8 percent in Q1 2024).
Market competition has gotten so fierce that the South Korean government reportedly pushed rivals Samsung and LG to cooperate so that they could stay competitive. This has resulted in Samsung selling TVs that use OLED panels made by LG Display.
Samsung hasn’t provided a specific list of each model guaranteed to receive seven years of updates. However, the company’s announcement suggests the news will apply to TVs with AI-based features that came out in the aforementioned release window. (Samsung has been pushing the term “AI TVs” lately and also says building AI features is a way for it to compete against Chinese brands.)
A step in the right direction
Samsung’s upgrades commitment comes amid growing concern about e-waste and expensive products suddenly no longer getting software updates, resulting in bricked, slowly operating, or buggy experiences.
Research suggests that the average TV lasts about seven years. However, as UK consumer advocacy group Which? has found, the average TV brand offers software updates for fewer than seven years. With Samsung being the world’s biggest TV brand, offering longer-term software support could encourage more in the industry to do the same. It could also help users keep their devices for longer. Samsung’s seven-year commitment is longer than what LG recently announced it would offer, which is four OS updates over five years (you can see LG’s webOS update plan here).
However, other TV hardware companies are doing better. Apple has provided updates for its first Apple TV since 2015, FlatPanelsHD pointed out, while Roku is still providing OS updates to Roku OS-based TVs released in 2014. However, in general, TV OEMs and streaming device makers could make it easier for prospective buyers to know how long a device will continue getting software updates before they buy it.