Despite the corona crisis, GfK Retail & Technology reports that 2.7 million televisions were sold in Germany between January and May 2020, slightly more than in the first five months of the previous year (2.65 million). The proportion of smart TV sets, which enable the use of apps or media libraries via HbbTV and the Internet, continued to rise and stood at 85 percent - around six percentage points more than in the period January to May 2020 (79 percent). In total, almost 40 million smart TVs have been sold in Germany since 2012.

Of these, over 90 percent support the HbbTV standard and thus the use of interactive services via the "red button" on the remote control. The trend towards larger screens continues: 58 percent of the Smart TVs sold from January to May 2020 have a diagonal screen size of 50 inches or larger (2019: 53 percent).

Andre Prahl, CEO of Deutsche TV-Plattform: "The stable overall market and the high market penetration of smart TVs offers the media industry a very good basis for new and innovative non-linear services. 10 years after the adoption of the specification, we are particularly pleased about the success of the HbbTV standard, whose introduction has been accompanied by Deutsche TV-Plattform from the very beginning".