Television makers LG Electronics Inc., Samsung
Electronics Co. and Lenovo Group Ltd., mired in competition over
flat-screen prices, are introducing interactive features to give
shoppers a reason to buy a new set.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas
opening Monday, LG and Lenovo will show TVs that allow users to search
for shows and Web applications with natural-sounding voice commands.
Samsung introduced three high-end models with so- called Smart
Interaction technology, which builds in motion- sensing and
voice-command software similar to Microsoft Corp.’s Kinect peripheral
for the Xbox 360 video-game console.
“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.
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.