World Cup fever has driven the sales of flat-screen TVs through the roof, as customers took the opportunity to swap their conventional sets for a more advanced model offering a high definition picture.

Jurgen Schembri, sales manager at Digital Zone in Paola, said the increase in sales had been sudden. "Although we predicted a rise in sales and stocked up, the increase was far higher than we expected. We have been selling televisions like hot cakes over the past few weeks. People were coming here with the intention to buy rather than just to see what's available," he said.

Mr Schembri said all the stock had practically been sold, even some models installed at the shop.

He said the most popular models were 47-inch and 55-inch LCD televisions.

Josef Debattista, sales manager at Doneo, experienced a similar surge but also reported higher sales of projectors and big screens, especially for establishments like restaurants and bars, as well as state-of-the-art sound systems. One restaurant, he said, had ordered eight widescreen television sets and a big screen, along with a projector.

Mr Debattista said big events, such as the Eurovision Song Festival, usually lead to a pick-up in sales of brand new, sharper-image TVs. But the World Cup brought about the largest increase. "We were prepared for it," he said.

He said his company had installed customised systems even at private households. "Many insisted they wanted it installed before the World Cup started and we had to close our shop a couple of times to meet our orders and these requests," he said.

Flamingo salesman Alex Caruana Carabez said he noticed that people this time were not overly cautious with their money and were prepared to increase their budget to get a more sophisticated model.

"Very few are buying TV sets smaller than 42-inch. We sold many 52-inch sets; a sophisticated model with full features. Although expensive, people were prepared to go that extra mile. We had restaurants which spent €20,000 each on big screens and we are still receiving orders," he said.

Luke Tabone, sales manager at Forestals, said the World Cup, combined with the launch of HD content by Go and Melita and lower price tags had all contributed to the increase in sales of modern television sets.

He said models bigger than 40 inches were the most popular, with some customers even going for the massive 60-inch flat screen models.