The International Personal Electronics Show, which kicks away from this week in Las Vegas.
That elephant is Apple Inc. It won't be at the show this season, but its tablet personal computer, the iPad, is the most important new product for an industry that should once again excite people. Sales of the iPad are strong since its July debut, and the whole industry is trying to mimic Apple's accomplishment.
With the iPad, Apple single-handedly cracked the code for any tablet, a device that a multitude of manufacturers have tried to look at to the masses for two decades, with little good results.
Apple itself doesn't can trade shows. When Apple company company has new products to help reveal, such as iPads as well as iPhones, it stages its events.
But nearly every other company on the market will be there for CES, which runs Thursday to Sunday which is the largest trade show of any kind in the Americas. Many of the of them will showcase their tablets — computing slabs with touch-sensitive monitors. Big names expected to undertake so include Motorola Inc. in addition to Dell Inc.
DisplaySearch analyst Richard Semenza estimated than a hundred different tablet models will be in development, though not they all will reach store racks.
Competing tablets will have difficulty catching up to Apple's guide, at least this year or so. Certainly, no one managed to undertake so last year, even though plenty of manufacturers, including Dell, produced out tablets. Samsung did have some success using its Galaxy Tab, but sales didn't come near to the iPad's.
"For the next year or two, we expect there to be a lot of false starts, failed attempts, and disasters, " Richard Shim, another DisplaySearch analyst, said in the blog post.
Apple marketed 7. 4 million iPads by September, in the device's first 6 months on sale. That implies they're already outselling Apple's Apple computers, but not iPods as well as iPhones.
Analyst Shaw Wu from Kaufman Bros. believes Apple company company sold another 6. 1 million iPads in the holiday quarter, and there's every indication who's was a popular trip gift. Even some stores that don't normally sell electronics, including TJ Maxx, carried the iPad.
Apple's would-be challengers include Motorola, which is hinting that it will showcase its first tablet along at the show. Dell and Acer Inc. are also expected to show tablets. Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer will touch on tablets with his keynote speech Sunday, an annual fixture the eve in the show's opening.
The electronics industry's need for a hot new product or service is especially strong 2010. Overall, the recent holiday season was the most beneficial for retailers since TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN, but electronics sales ended up up just 1. 2 percent in the previous year, according in order to MasterCard SpendingPulse, which trails spending across all ventures, including cash. They're nevertheless down 10 percent out of pre-recession levels.
For related to five years, the industry continues to be bolstered by Americans rushing out to acquire flat-panel TVs. Now, which rush is slowing, as 61 percent of households already have such sets, according in order to Leichtman Research Group.
Unfortunately, sales of other products which have driven growth, such as GPS units, picture frames and unwanted cameras, have tapered off. Affiliates who really want them have already them, while the rest make do with their cell cell phones instead.
Other technologies which have been promoted at CES a lot have been met along with tepid interest from shoppers.
At last year's CES, Japanese and Korean TV makers showed off 3-D TVs just to keep consumers buying more recent TVs. But when the sets hits stores a number of months later, sales ended up disappointing. Samsung Electronics Co. estimates all manufacturers put together sold 1 million 3-D sets in the U. S in 2010 AND BEYOND, far short of their initial estimate of 3 OR MORE million to 4 k.
This year, manufacturers aren't putting a stop to on 3-D, but many of them are likely to change their strategy in making 3-D viewing even more affordable and comfortable. Continue year's 3-D sets need bulky, battery-powered glasses, which cost about $100 a pair. This year, we're gonna see more sets in which use thin, unpowered glasses in the kind used in 3-D video theaters. Vizio Inc., that No. 1 maker of LCD TVs for any U. S. market, already introduced one model with this sort of "passive" 3-D screen throughout December.
Aside from comfort of cheaper glasses, that image flickers less along with passive 3-D technology. Alternatively, it cuts the res in half. It's nevertheless high-definition, but less and so.
"Having convinced the world to take 'Full HD' TVs, someone will have to get creative to plug 'Half HD', " Semenza reported.
TV makers will furthermore push Internet-connected TVs with CES.
"Basically, the TV will appear like your smart phone and have the Internet, " reported Gary Shapiro, president and CEO in the Consumer Electronics Association, which organizes the show.
Internet-connected TVs were around for several years so are starting to gain consumer interest that really they can display video from such online options as Netflix Inc. in addition to Hulu. com. Research firm NPD quotations that 12 percent of TVs purchased from the U. S. were being Internet-capable.
At the display, manufacturers are set to speak about TVs that are possibly "smarter, " with usage of better downloadable applications for web 2 . 0 and other tasks.
"This shall be the year for... the primary generation of truly smart TV applications, where people are building them for the first time unique to this platform, " said Eric Anderson, vice leader of content and supplement solutions at Samsung Client Electronics America's. Samsung is known for a nearly 60 percent industry share of Internet-capable TVs bought from the U. S.
Apple is needed for connecting TVs to the web as well, through their Apple TV add-on field. But Apple's isolation from the remaining industry may be damaging it here. It hasn't let anyone build their software into TVs, so its $99 add-on field is competing with program that comes free along with many TVs.
Apple's shadow also falls on a good Verizon Wireless, which will probably be at CES to exhibit the first phones for the next-generation wireless data multi-level, known as 4G. The network was fired up in December and offers the greatest data speeds yet, but limited to sticks that plug in laptops.
Apple is widely expected to introduce a version with the iPhone for Verizon's network this season, but indications are who's won't happen at CES.
Which leaves the CEO associated with Verizon Communications Inc., Ivan Seidenberg, to speak about other smart phones at his keynote presentation This, while everyone will be specialist the elephant in the space.
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