Last week, I posted an article at hdtvexpert.com positing that Toshiba may not be long for the LCD TV business. My argument was based on a slow but steady decline in U.S. market share for the company, highlighted by a 30% drop from Q2 of 2009 to Q2 of 2010.

As seen in figures released by iSuppli analyst Riddhi Patel on August 18, Toshiba’s share of the U.S. LCD TV market dropped from 7.4% in Q2 ‘09 (570,000 units shipped) to 5.5% in Q2 ‘10 (402,000 units shipped). 5% market share in the TV business isn’t all that great, not when the top three companies — Samsung, Vizio, and Sony — accounted for nearly 50% of all LCD TV sales.

But if you think Toshiba’s U.S. market share is bad, take a look at Sharp’s. In the same report, Sharp was shown as having shipped just 176,000 LCD TVs in Q2 ‘10, capturing a measly 2.9% share.

I know your eyebrows jumped up on that one. Sharp - the inventors of the Quattron TV, and the company that just opened that multi-billion-yen Gen 10 LCD fab in Kameyama, Japan?

One and the same! Yes, Sharp has fallen to a distant #8 in U.S. LCD TV sales. And based on past trends, the future isn’t looking very rosy, either.

After studying the iSuppli results, I went back through my news archives to see if I could capture a track of market share trends for Sharp. (Keep in mind that the market for LCD TVs is still comparatively young, compared to plasma and even widescreen CRT TVs.)

Here’s what I found (bear in mind these are now mostly worldwide, not U.S. figures). In a DisplaySearch report from 2005, Sharp was ranked #1 in the third quarter with an 18% worldwide market share. Good show! However, by the end of the fourth quarter they had slipped to #3 with a 13.6% share, one point behind Sony’s newly-launched Bravia LCD line. According to DisplaySearch, this was the first time Sharp had held anything other than the top slot.

Moving ahead a year, Sharp (11.2%) shows up at #3 again in 2006 year-end worldwide revenue share and growth, behind Sony (17.4%) and Samsung (15%). In terms of units shipped, however, Sharp wasn’t even in the top five.

Jumping ahead to the first quarter of 2007, Sharp had dropped to #4 with 8.8% worldwide market share, shipping 1.5M LCD TVs. But things had recovered a bit by the third quarter, with Sharp (12% share) sitting at #3 behind Vizio (13%) and Samsung (12.8%).

That’s about as good as it ever got for Sharp, who dropped to a #4 ranking with 8.8% market share by the end of Q1 ‘08. Back then, Vizio, Samsung, and Sony accounted for 38% of all LCD TV sales, while LG Electronics captured another 7.6% of the business.

Now, these numbers would give anyone pause before expanding LCD panel capacity. Indeed, in a Wall Street Journal article from September 9, 2008, the author states, "… Sharp is willing to put up with some short-term pain for long-term gains. Investors aren’t in a similarly patient mood and no wonder: the company seems to be manufacturing problems for itself…Among other things, Sharp increased LCD production by 30% in July even as competitors, worried about slowing Japanese and U.S. demand, cut back… Now there’s talk that Sharp could move forward the start-up date of its newest plant, initially expected to go online by March 2010. Innovative as the new facility may be, it still amounts to additional supply."

How prophetic. A little over a year and a half later, Sharp has fallen, and hard. Consider that their Q2′10 U.S. LCD TV shipments (176,000) are less than half of what they shipped in Q2 ‘09 (383,000) and represent a 33% decline from Q1 ‘10 (263,000 units). At this rate, the company will be hard-pressed to deliver even a million LCD TVs by the end of 2010.

Contrast that performance with Sony, a 34% stakeholder in the Kameyama Gen 10 plant. Sony managed to ship 806,000 Bravia LCD TVs stateside in Q2 ‘10, capturing the #3 rank behind Samsung and Vizio. All three companies are on track to exceed three million unit shipments by the end of this year, with Vizio and Samsung aiming for over 4 million.

So — what happened? Has the Sharp brand lost its cachet? Will Quattron prove to be a gimmick, and nothing more? It’s hard to pinpoint where the company went astray, but clearly its LCD TVs aren’t resonating with consumers in the U.S. And owning LCD panel production and controlling supply chain costs hasn’t done squat to improve the bottom line.

iSuppli’s market share numbers are clearly reflected in retail availability. A quick check of CCFL-backlit LCD TVs on the Best Buy Web site showed 64 Samsung models, 25 from LG, 23 from Panasonic and Sony (yes, even Panasonic had more LCD TV market share in Q2 ‘10 than Sharp!) , and 22 from Insignia, Best Buy’s in-house brand. As for Sharp; they had 10 models listed.

How about LED-backlit TVs? Samsung led the way again with 25 offerings, followed by LG and Sony with 13 each. Insignia came in close behind with 8 products. In contrast, Sharp had just 6 models listed.

Sharp may be faring better in other parts of the world, but even if so, poor U.S. sales are a problem.

There are no easy answers here. But it is amazing that the company most associated with LCD technology for over 30 years has "come a cropper" in the consumer television business. And maybe — just maybe — the Kameyama Gen 10 fab wasn’t such a wise investment after all…