Many consumers don’t like 3D glasses.

SEPT. 9, 2010 • According to a report by The Nielsen Company, consumers who were surveyed about the future purchase of a 3D television returned some sobering responses. Of the 25% of those who said they were very likely to purchase a 3D TV, after a full demonstration, only 12% said they were very likely to buy a 3D television. About 89 percent of those surveyed for the Focusing on the 3DTV Experience report did not like 3D glasses because they felt they no longer could do other things they normally would do while watching TV, and 57 percent said they were “not likely” to buy a 3D TV set for that reason. The report was based on 425 randomly selected participants who had watched 30 minutes of 3D television in a simulated home.

Impact: We were actually surprised that Nielsen released these results, yet not the results themselves. The main issue was that after viewing the demo it seems a surprising number of consumers who were planning to buy changed their mind. Our own questions about how well consumers will respond to 3D televisions have been many. Consumer issues with 3D glasses are to be expected, but our read is that there isn’t a huge level of excitement for the concept of 3D viewing in the home in general. At least not enough excitement to drive sales of the flood of 3D sets hitting stores.  If in-store demos actually turn consumers off that is clearly not a good thing.