Electronic
Companies at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas were set to unveil more than 20,000 products this week. Those included touch-screen tablets by Hewlett-Packard Co., Sony 3-D TVs, and e-readers from Samsung and others.
Electronics makers are trying to emulate the success of the iPhone and the Kindle, which helped pioneer new product groups and boosted profit at Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Consumer- electronics sales slumped 7.8 percent in the U.S. last year as manufacturers cut prices and shoppers sought out bargains, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.
“Companies are really forced to do something different,” said Gary Shapiro, chief executive officer of the Arlington, Virginia-based trade group, which runs the show. “It was a lot of commodity selling” last year.
Sony said it will release nine 3-D models of Bravia TVs, Samsung announced plans to sell its first e-readers, and Ford Motor Co. plans to bring social networking, Web browsing and iPod-style thumb controls into 80 percent of its models.
“Better to go all out, better to take the risk,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer said at a briefing.
CEA estimates U.S. consumers will buy more than 4 million 3-D TV sets by the end of the year, helping boost electronics sales 0.3 percent to more than $165 billion this year. Fifty- three percent of adults surveyed online said they want to watch 3-D shows at home and one in four plan on buying a 3-D set within the next three years, according to the association.
Next Big Thing
“This really will be the next big thing,” Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis at the CEA, said in an interview. “The way its shaping up, all the stakeholders in the industry, from the device manufacturers to the content producers and the sales channel, everyone is on board to make this happen.”
DirecTV Inc., the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider, said it would start three 3-D channels this year, including a video- on-demand service. The channels, to be sponsored by Panasonic Corp., will join a growing list of planned 3-D networks. Walt Disney Co.s ESPN plans to start one in June. Discovery Communications Inc., Sony and Imax Corp. have said theyre creating a venture to introduce a channel in 2011.
The Las Vegas show attracted about 113,000 visitors. The annual event, which started in 1967 in New York, marked the introduction of products such as the videocassette recorder in 1970, the compact-disc player in 1981, the DVD in 1996 and plasma TV in 2001.
Smartphone Demand
“The diversity of applications has really jump-started consumer demand and inspired a lot of consumers to investigate and purchase smartphones,” Koenig said.
The number of smartphones may more than double globally by 2013, according to researcher IDC. Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile carrier, and T-Mobile USA inc. said this week they will offer Google Inc.s Nexus One phone, which lets users run many programs at once and upload high-resolution videos to the Web.
Kindle Competition
The number of electronic-book readers has also blossomed this year — 28 companies were demonstrating products in the first area devoted to the technology at CES.
AT&T Inc., which sells network access for the Kindle and a competing reader from Barnes & Noble Inc., views the electronic- book market like the early days of smartphones and expects to benefit this year from rising sales of the device, said David Christopher, the carriers wireless marketing chief, in an interview at the show.
“Youre seeing the same phenomena as what you saw in early smartphones,” with “very nascent” e-readers that have good size, content, shape and battery life, he said.
Samsung, the worlds largest maker of televisions, said this week it plans to sell its first e-readers early this year. The Suwon, South Korea-based company will offer two models, one for $699 and a smaller version for $399.