Worldwide television unit sales during the first quarter were little changed from a year earlier as a drop in demand for TVs 40 inches or larger caused a plunge in the sale of rear-projection TVs.

Cathode-ray tube TV sales also dropped as customers in developing regions such as Latin America replaced them with flat screens.

Samsung and Sony remained market-share leaders in dollars spent.

Overall, TV makers shipped 46.1 million units, up 1% from a year earlier, NPD Group unit DisplaySearch said in a statement. Customers spent $24.8 billion, up 8% from a year earlier, as more flat-screen TVs were sold in Russia and the Middle East, DisplaySearch said.

The rear-projection TV market share was negligible, as unit sales dropped 79%. Sales of cathode-ray sets fell 21%, marking the transition away from larger TVs and toward mid-sized flat screens.

Still, unit sales growth of LCD sets slowed to 45%, the slowest since LCD data has been tracked, as the slumping economy and the maturing of the high-definition TV market in the U.S. caused demand to flatten slightly.

About 20% of the first-quarter dollars spent on televisions were for Samsung, while Sony had 13% of the sales market. That was the third straight quarter that the companies held the top two spots among TV brands, DisplaySearch said. LGE, Sharp and Panasonic made up the rest of the top-five selling brands and combined for about a quarter of the worldwide market in dollars spent.

(Editor: Jensen)