A shortfall of widescreen televisions has hit Australian retail shelves with overseas manufacturers underestimating consumer demand and local models being slow to hit the market.
"We're unable to satisfy demand at this stage," Wayne Campbell, franchisee of Harvey Norman's Auburn store in Sydney told ZDNet.
"I'd be very surprised if we had more than three or four units available to sell at any one time," Campbell said. "Demand is ten times that."
The Auburn store mainly supplies Philips and Panasonic models, both assembled outside of Australia, and claims to have about twenty widescreen televisions currently on back order.
"Philips underestimated customer demand," Campbell said, adding that Panasonic also has "limited distribution" of widescreen televisions.
Domayne is currently struggling to meet orders and Bing Lee's Fairfield store said it's also trying to support the demand for widescreen televisions.
Panasonic and Sharp are the only television assemblers in Australia to date.
Sharp hasn't expressed an interest in the widescreen market and Panasonic's TV factory in Penrith only started assembling 76cm widescreen TVs last month.
Harvey Norman's Campbell is a keen supporter of seeing more Australian models go to market.
"We would much prefer to supply Australian brands than those from overseas," Campbell said, "but we've got no option."
There are only five big players in the widescreen TV space at the minute - Sony, Panasonic, LG, Philips and TEAC, according to Digital Broadcasting Australia (DBA).
"There aren't a lot of suppliers in the market at this stage," DBA's Tim O'Keefe said.
"Suppliers have all got back orders," he added. "They're selling them before they even come into the country."
Samsung, LG and TEAC have plans to introduce fully integrated Standard Definition digital widescreen televisions (SDTVs) for the Australian market later this year, according to DBA.
Hitachi and Sony will also be introducing widescreen models with a range of different features and price levels over the coming months.
"The main drivers for this move to widescreen have been the commencement of free-to-air digital television and the booming sales of DVD players," O'Keefe said.
"People who want to future-proof their television purchase today are looking more closely at widescreen and they like what they see."
