China fast catching up with Samsung, LG


Visitors look at ultra high definition televisions manufactured by Chinese electronics firm Haier at the IFA home appliance trade show in Berlin, Sunday. / Korea Times


By Choi Kyong-ae

BERLIN— Ultra high definition (UHD) televisions are one of the hot items in the ongoing IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin) 2013 consumer electronics fair here.

Banners hanging from the ceiling of the exhibition center and draping the walls are all about UHD, meaning it is ever close to consumers.

Amid competing companies are Chinese appliance makers such as Haier, Hisense and Changhong, displaying UHD TVs in their exhibition booths.


Haier even displayed a prototype organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV. Changhong has a lineup of UHD TVs measuring from 30 inches to 85 inches. Hisense and TCL showed off 110-inch UHD TVs.

“The technology gap (between Korean firms and Chinese ones) is getting narrower every year. Japanese companies were market leaders in the 1970s and 1980s and now Samsung is the market leader,” Paul Lum, national account manager at Changhong Electric (Australia) PTY, told The Korea Times. “A Chinese firm may be next.”

Hisense product manager Jacob Young said the company has invested in the development of OLED TVs since 2008 with the aim to mass produce them soon; whereas Christophe Chancenest, Haier’s TV Marketing & Sales Manager Europe, said they don’t have any plans to release an OLED TV for now.

China is increasingly beginning to dominate one business after another, sweeping shipbuilding and steel making. Experts say that higher-end electronics won’t be an exception.

Of course, big players are trying to put on a brave face against China’s challenge.

“UHD TVs launched by Chinese companies are not full UHD but full HD and their main market is their home country,” LG Electronics Vice President Lee In-kyu said in a press briefing held late Friday in Berlin. “We will focus mainly on high-end or premium products to remain profitable as we cannot compete with Chinese firms in the low-end segment.”

Most major appliance makers such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Sony unveiled UHD TVs at this year’s IFA home gadget trade show as they expect soaring demand for the higher-end product in the next five years. UHD TVs, have a definition quality four times clearer than that of general TVs.

Market research firm Display Search forecast global shipments of large OLED panels used in TVs will jump to 16.84 million in 2018 from estimated 540,000 in 2014.

Last week, LG Electronics announced it will launch the world’s biggest UHD OLED TV at 77 inches globally. Its archrival Samsung bolstered its UHD TV lineup with the addition of a 98-inch model and a 110-inch model on top of the 85-inch model currently available.

Boasting its technological prowess, Samsung went further to unveil the 55-inch curved UHD OLED TV as well as the curved 65-inch UHD liquid crystal display TV, the first of its kind.

Sony also stole some of the spotlight by finishing off with a curved 65-inch full HD TV, but the product fell short of meeting expectations due to a thicker panel and shallow curve.

Of course, Korean firms lack one thing in competition with Sony: content.

“Securing quality content is badly needed to compete with Sony which is equipped with an ample supply,” LG Electronics Senior Vice President Kwon Il-geun said.

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news...23_142458.html



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