When you sell big, flat TVs cheaper then everyone else, you’re bound to attract customers.

Vizio, which recently moved its headquarters to Irvine from Costa Mesa, showed up on the scene four years ago selling in stores like Costco. Now, it’s the number one seller of LCD TVs in North America! This is from the latest research report from DisplaySearch.

Even DisplaySearch folks were surprised:

“One of the biggest surprises was the shake-up in North America TV brand rankings in (second quarter 2007). Vizio, which has only been in the TV market since mid-2003, became the #1 LCD TV brand for the first time, rising from #4 in Q1’07 to #1 in Q2’07, with more than 70% quarter-over-quarter and 400% year-over-year unit growth and overtaking Samsung…”

Samsung is still pretty huge and is ranked No. 1 worldwide. It’s also the biggest TV company in North America because of higher revenue (read: prices) and other TV technologies, such as rear projection.

For plasma TV sales, Vizio ranked #4. Combined with LCD TV sales, that put Vizio at #1 in North American flat-panel TV sales with 11.9 percent of all units sold versus Samsung’s 11.3 percent.

However, overall TV sales were flat, while actual units year-over-year have declined 5 percent. Weak results came from lower sales of traditional CRT TVs and the above-50-inch category because more people are buying the big TVs around Christmas.

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