Product Design and Hardware Upgrades 2012 TV presents four hot spots

The global consumer electronics industry was affected by the economic recession, resulting in the cold performance of mature markets. In 2012, sales of consumer electronics products in emerging markets (Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, etc.) are expected to increase by 10% annually, which is expected to offset the 3% to 5% decline in mature markets (Western Europe and Japan). It is estimated that the global sales of consumer electronics products will increase to 1,038 billion US dollars in 2012, an increase of 5% over the 993 billion US dollars in 2011. In recent years, major brand manufacturers have been constantly laying out smart terminal markets to make handheld device products profitable. In the next phase, manufacturers will focus on developing new television technologies.

Takuya believes that in 2012, TV will present four major development trends: large-size OLED TV sales, TV frame "thinning" and pedestal "U", smart television interactive technology re-evolution, and Google's operating system gradually introducing television products. Among them, OLED TVs and smart TVs have attracted the most attention. In the past three years, the Internet, entertainment and social functions of smart TVs have been continuously upgraded. In 2012, the development of smart TVs will focus on the innovation of interactive interfaces. As LCD TVs have gradually reached the extreme in terms of energy saving and ultra-thin body, so in 2012 the international brand factory will focus on product design and hardware upgrades, and lead the second-tier color TV manufacturers to follow up the trend.

OLED TV timing does not arrive

For flat-panel TVs, OLED TVs are still not scary in 3 to 5 years.

Recalling the history of OLED TV sales, Sony first introduced an 11-inch OLED TV in 2007, priced at $2,500. Due to the high price and small size of the product, Sony sold only 7000 OLED TVs in 3 years and stopped selling this product in the first quarter of 2011. Subsequently, LG began selling 15-inch OLED TVs in 2010. Currently, it does not ship 500 units per quarter. The reason for exploring the failure of OLED TVs is mainly due to the fact that the price gap between LED TVs and PDP TVs is too large.

In recent years, OLED TV technology has matured, and South Korean manufacturers Samsung and LG have also launched 55-inch OLED TVs at the 2012 CES. It is reported that Samsung may start selling this product in the second quarter of 2012, and the estimated price will be as high as more than 5,000 US dollars. Since the price of OLED TVs will be more than 3 times that of LED TVs of the same size, the market competitiveness of OLED TVs is still not strong. Although OLED TV products are dazzling, they have limited contribution to the overall sales and output value of the TV industry. Therefore, for flat-panel TVs, OLED TVs are still not scary in 3 to 5 years.

Google TV has no new highlights

The Google TV product boom is waning, and Samsung Smart TVs can realize cloud services in the future, giving it a lot of attention.

Since its launch in 2001, LCD TVs have experienced high-quality, LED backlighting, 3D and intelligentization. As LCD TVs and PDP TVs have reached their limits in terms of hardware technology upgrades and cost reductions, manufacturers have focused on the upgrading and re-evolution of smart TVs, hoping to rely on smart TV products to recreate the peak profits of the TV industry.

Samsung will launch the ES8000, a smart interactive TV with a dual-core processor and built-in webcam, at the end of March 2012. This TV has three interactive technologies: somatosensory control, voice control and face recognition. In addition, Samsung also brought together 25,000 manufacturers to develop smart TV application stores, and said Samsung TV's application downloads up to 20 million times.

In order to enable Smart TVs to seamlessly share various applications with other smartphones and tablets, Samsung will first integrate dual-core processors into TVs. In the future, Samsung Smart TVs can realize cloud services.

In early 2012, Google announced with great fanfare that chip makers Marvell, MediaTek, and TV makers Sony, Samsung, Vizio, and LG as its partners, but from the latest products that Sony, Samsung and LG exhibited at CES, Google TV was almost completely deserted by Sony and Samsung. Although LG demonstrated the latest version of Google TV, the second generation of Google TV has no innovation in the use of TV interfaces. The industry’s focus on LG has always been on 55-inch OLED TVs.

Sony did not launch the new Google TV product at the 2012 CES. It only introduced the new Google TV multimedia player NSZ-GS7 and Blu-ray player NSZ-GP9. Vizio also launched only the Google TV set-top box VAP430 and Blu-ray player VBR430, and no overall product launch. The innovation of the new Google TV in 2012 is mainly reflected in the remote control. Both Sony and Vizio's new Google TV remote control have built-in microphones, gyroscopes, and triaxial accelerometers. The remote control has a large touchpad and a QWERTY keyboard. As for content and services, the new Google TV is not surprising.

Content as a constraint bottleneck

If the lack of content as a support, in 2012 any color TV manufacturers can not further expand the smart TV market.

In the smart TV layout, LG introduced the Cinema 3D smart TV and expanded the LCD TV size from the original 55 inches to 60 inches and 72 inches. In addition to using Magic Remote to control smart TVs, LG added a microphone to the remote controller in 2012, allowing users to use Magic Remote for voice recognition. In addition, LG has added 3D Gesture Interface capabilities for face recognition.

Globally, LG is actively marketing smart TV products in 80 countries and has developed 1,200 applications. In addition, LG has also begun to cooperate with cloud technology game service company Gaikai. In the future, smart TV users of LG can control the game through streaming. Users can enjoy various high-end online games, such as World of Warcraft, Mario Racing, and Sim3. In order to demonstrate its determination to enter the smart TV, LG expects to launch 16 smart TVs in the first half of 2012, which will reach 50% of the newly announced TV models.

In addition, Lenovo also launched a 55-inch smart TV equipped with an Android 4.0 operating system at CES 2012. The product follows Android's features on the user interface and sets up a voice recognition function in the remote control, which greatly reduces the user's trouble in entering text when searching. Looking at the layout of smart TV products by manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung, LG, Vizio, and Lenovo, Takuya believes that the interactive technology and remote control technology of smart TVs have been significantly upgraded in 2012, but the most important digital content and video services There is still no breakthrough in progress. It can be said that if there is a lack of content as support, in 2012, any TV manufacturers could not further expand the smart TV market.