The worldwide smart TV shipment volume is estimated to reach around 88 million units in 2015, about 41.2% of the worldwide LCD TV market, according to MIC.

"Consumers' high acceptance of high-end products drove the Japan Internet TV penetration to over 50% in 2014," said Cindy Gu, industry analyst at MIC. "In western Europe where broadcasters have deployed open standard interactive platforms such as Hbb.TV and aggressively introduced Internet TV services, the penetration rate reached nearly 40%."

In China, not only traditional TV vendors but also new players such as LeTV and Xiaomi have spent a great deal of effort on smart TV development, leading to an increase in the China smart TV market. China currently holds the largest share of the worldwide smart TV market, accounting for 60%, said MIC.

By comparison, smart TVs in the US have attracted few consumers due to the availability of a wide range of Internet TV services provided through various hardware devices such as Apple TV, Roku Media Player OTT STB, and Xbox game consoles, hence lower smart TV penetration. However, the US market has still reached over 30% penetration as leading TV vendors Samsung and Vizio have integrated smart TV functions in their mainstream models.

Due to lower consumption power and incomplete broadband network infrastructure, smart TV penetration in emerging markets has only reached 20%. The environment will become friendlier towards smart TVs as broadband infrastructure in emerging markets improves. In the meantime, brands will continue to enhance user interfaces of their products, enrich multimedia content and application services, and reduce product prices to make smart TV more affordable and appealing to consumers, the firm added.