GE fuels HDTV competition

It's interesting to hear that GE re-enters the TV set market by partnering with a Taiwan-based company Tatung. According to Wall Street Journal, GE and Tatung Co. of Taiwan said they had formed a joint venture, General Displays & Technologies LLC, that plans to make two million HDTV sets annually, or 1% of the 200 million units sold world-wide, when it begins production in 2009. The companies hope eventually to capture 5% to 10% of the roughly $200 billion global TV-set market.

Though the global economy is still looming at the downturn, the spending on consumer electronics products is expected to grow steadily. It tells from recent CEA-CNET indexes that consumer confidence in technology outlook continues to strengthen. As the September report highlights, consumer expectations moved up marketed in September despite the uncertainty presented by Wall Street over the last few weeks. The Index of Consumer Technology Expectations (ICTE) reached 84.4 in August, up nearly four points from 80.7 in July. The Index of Consumer Expectations (ICE) hit 165.5 in August, an uptick of more than three points from 162.2 in July.

The statistics is also supported by the comeback cocooning trend. People turn to more in-home entertainment and prefer warmth and flexibility at home in the face of rising CPI figures. The CE manufactures capture this need by providing affordable and attractive products. People can enjoy the latest blockbuster comfortably with pajamas at the high-end home theatre instead of paying extra dollars for gasoline, parking lot, and popcorn at the cinema. It feels both fun and cool to invite friends to come over home to play Xbox or play Wii with family members together. As home increasingly better meets the leisure and social needs as a multi-function entertainment center, the whole family electronics ecosystem grows larger and more profitable than before.

As one substantial point in the family electronic system, the display market becomes the top lucrative cake. Technology advances push high-definition, IP-based, and other used-to-be jargons into consumers' daily life. And the US federal government's coupon program and the nationwide DTV transition plan ended February 2009 boost public awareness and purchase decisions of upgrading the television sets.

Now the majority of aggresive players in the white-hot TV arena are from Japan and South Korea, like Sharp, Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, etc. Netherlands-based Philips is one well-known name from Europe, with recent design-highlighted flat TV with ambilight. GE has the potential to well leverage its branding equity in USA and HDTV technology from Tatung to quickly build its presence in the competitive land. Given that GE owns NBC Universal, one of the top media content providers, it would be more interesting to see how GE can bring its hardware and content strengths together to move towards the differentiation and unique advantage that other TV manufacturers are scratching their heads to gain through hard partnership negotiations.