China’s TV buyers are voting with their wallets, and they keep voting for bigger screens. During the 618 shopping festival, online TV sales fell by almost 16% from a year earlier, but the real story was the shift in what people bought: larger, pricier sets kept taking share, with 75-inch TVs still on top and 85- and 98-inch screens moving fast behind them.
That matters because a weak sales event usually suggests cautious consumers. Here, it mostly suggests consumers were stingy about volume, not ambition. In other words: fewer TVs sold, but the average TV got larger, and the average price rose by 121 yuan.
75-inch TVs still lead the pack
The 75-inch category remains the clear favorite, accounting for about 25% of all sales and holding the number one spot for the third year in a row. Just behind it, 85-inch models reached 18.8%, narrowing the gap with the leader over the past year.
Put the broader picture together, and nearly half of the market, 47.9%, now sits at 75 inches or above. That is a big number for a market that used to treat 65-inch sets as the sensible upgrade and anything larger as a bragging right.
98-inch TVs are growing fast
The fastest-moving category is the ultra-large end of the shelf. Sales of 98-inch TVs climbed 43.3% year on year, a sign that the giant-screen arms race is no longer just a showroom flex for premium brands.
- 75-inch TVs: about 25% of sales
- 85-inch TVs: 18.8% of sales
- 75 inches and above: 47.9% of the market
- 98-inch TVs: sales up 43.3% year on year
Mini LED is pulling buyers upmarket
Mini LED sets are riding the same wave. They already account for about 40% of online TV sales, with an average size of roughly 79 inches, which tells you how the market is being redefined: bigger screens are increasingly tied to better backlighting and more premium pricing, not just extra centimeters.
The likely next step is more pressure on mainstream brands to defend mid-sized models, even as the premium tiers keep stretching upward. If this trend holds, the odd thing will not be how many 98-inch TVs are sold, but how quickly 75-inch starts feeling ordinary.