“You now can turn on your TV simply by saying, ‘Hi TV,’ and you can change channels simply by talking or gesturing,” Ethan Rasiel, a spokesman for Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, said in an interview.
Getting consumers to pay up will be tough. Last year, most buyers shunned sets bringing “Avatar”-like 3-D theater experiences into the living room. Since 2009, the average price of an LED TV, the most common type sold in the U.S., dropped 35 percent to $817 from $1,254, according to researcher NPD, which projects a 16 percent decline this year. Three-dimensional sets made up 9 percent of sales in 2011 through November, from 2 percent a year earlier.
Manufacturers also confront a rapid customer shift away from traditional TVs. The number of people tuning in to TV sets in a typical week fell to 48 percent in 2011 from 71 percent in 2009, according to an Accenture survey in countries including the U.S., China, Russia and Brazil. Those planning to buy a TV set during the next 12 months declined to 32 percent in 2011 from 35 percent in 2010.
Grabbing Consumers
To break out of the slump, set makers are introducing features to grab consumers as the switch to flat panels did eight years ago, when millions of consumers swapped out their cathode-ray tube, or CRT, sets.
“There’s a lot of good technology and connectivity that we’ve been putting out there, but that may be less revolutionary for consumers than the form-factor change of so long ago,” said Jeff Barney, vice president for Toshiba America.
Manufacturers are offering models that connect to online content and wirelessly to smartphones, tablets and personal computers. Improved screen technology and thinner designs are also part of new lineups as they struggle to persuade shoppers to pay a premium.
Lenovo, based in Beijing, will initially sell sets with voice-command features in the Chinese market.
Watching Apple
Some models sold by Samsung this year will have facial recognition features that can detect users and automatically log them onto Web-based services including Skype Technologies SA’s Internet calls, said Lee Kyung Shik, a vice president at Samsung’s TV business.
“Our ‘smart’ TVs will get smarter,” Lee said. “TVs will be able to listen, see and do things for consumers and viewers.”
Many of the new features are already used on other devices, such as the Xbox’s Kinect. Apple Inc.’s iPhone 4S provides voice-interaction software called Siri that tries to answer questions like: “What’s the weather today?”
Loading...
Comments