This year's soccer World Cup in Germany is firing up the consumer electronics market as new generation televisions offer fans the next best thing to the live experience.
Executives at the world's biggest high-tech fair, the CeBIT in the northern German city of Hanover, said the June 9 to July 9 event was a godsend for the market in flat-screen TVs, high-definition television (HDTV) and new mobile phones that can transmit broadcasts.
"For them, it is the big date not to be missed," an analyst of media devices and marketing at Forrester Research, Paul Jackson, said of the major manufacturers.
PHOTO: AFP
"The European market will be fueled by the World Cup," Hans Kleis, CEO of Sharp Europe, agreed.
The Japanese electronics group is counting on doubling its liquid crystal display (LCD) television unit sales in Europe this year. Meanwhile the global market is set to expand to 36 million sets from 20 million last year.
From Toshiba, which is marketing the Qosimo G30 laptop with a free ticket to a World Cup game, to chip maker Intel, which invited soccer players to its stand this weekend for a promotional event for a new video game, companies are increasingly turning to the World Cup to generate consumer enthusiasm.
"World Cup years always have strong sales growth for televisions and other accompanying accessories such as DVD players," said Philippe Poels, president of the French consumer electronics manufacturers association.
In France, which hosted the tournament in 1998, the sector saw growth of more than 10 percent.
"It created a lot of momentum which it managed to maintain for two or three years," Poels said.
Which is one reason why the big manufacturers have timed major product launches for this year.
Sharp is rolling out some 50 new devices, almost all destined to hit the market before June. They include a digital portable television "to watch matches in the garden."
Philips, an official World Cup sponsor, is also launching a new line of products to coincide with the event, according to Rudy Provoost, CEO of the Dutch group's consumer electronics division.
"With our investment in such a partnership, we hope to win market share," he said, adding that the company was banking on consumers deciding there was no better time to trade in their old sets for flat screens and HDTV.
However Jackson of Forrester Research said that high prices might keep the home-theater euphoria in check.
"In the past, major sport events have driven TV adoption by consumers, but now it's more problematic," he said. "Even if the prices are decreasing, a good-sized plasma screen is still far over 1,000 euros [US$1,200]: the question is, will the football fans be ready to pay for that?"
And although the World Cup will be the first major global sport event filmed entirely in the 16:9 widescreen format and in high-definition, most European viewers -- unlike their US and Japanese counterparts -- will still not have the televisions to appreciate it.
The majority of Europeans will also be unable to watch the matches live on mobile phones -- an innovation that the major handset makers plan to roll out in the second half of the year.
In host country Germany, however, fans using Deutsche Telekom's mobile service and the latest handsets will be able to watch 20 of the 64 matches, including the final at Berlin's Olympic Stadium.
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