South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. outperformed its rivals around the globe last year in television sales to retain its top place for the eighth consecutive year, data showed Wednesday.

Samsung, also the world’s top maker of smartphones and memory chips, is estimated to have sold some 49 million units of flat-panel TVs in 2013, according to the data. The firm does not officially disclose annual sales figures.

Market researcher DisplaySearch earlier estimated Samsung’s TV sales at around 32.3 million units in the January-September period last year, faring well amid the prolonged economic slump.

Yoon Boo-keun, Samsung’s consumer electronics division chief, said at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show earlier this month that the company sold around 15 million TVs in the fourth quarter of 2013.

“The annual sales for the display business were sound through the fourth quarter. Although it did not reach the 50-million mark, it was very close,” an official from Samsung Electronics said.

The latest sales estimate is a 5 percent rise from 46.8 million units projected a year earlier by DisplaySearch.

The global TV sales are expected to have reached 227 million units in 2013, down 2.2 percent from the previous year.

Samsung plans to increase its TV sales to around 50-60 million units this year, helped by viewership of global sports events such as the Sochi Winter Olympics and World Cup in Brazil.

Samsung rolled out a handful of high-tech TVs at the electronics show in the U.S. this year, including a 105-inch, ultrahigh-definition television with a curved display that features improved resolution.

The tech giant also released a 110-inch UHD TV last month, the industry’s largest, featuring four times the resolution of full-HD displays. (Yonhap News)