LG : 2013 Consumer Electronics Trends

By HK Kwon, Managing Director, LG Electronics (M) Sdn Bhd

The end of the year is nearly upon us. Consumers are about to make their final purchases of the year. Electronics manufacturers are sending out their last shipments. Final tallies will be made, winners will be declared, losers will argue over what went wrong and 2012 will be consigned to the history books. Some companies thrived in 2012, others stumbled.

However, what’s done is done. It is now time to dust off the old crystal ball and gaze into the future. The consumer electronics industry will continue to be very dynamic and competitive. Here are LG Electronics’ top five trends for 2013.

Differentiation through Innovation:
Over the years, while interest in technical specs of a product remains largely unchanged, industry observers and consumers in general are increasingly focusing on the user experience. Within reason, handling has become more important than horsepower, and this trend has spread throughout the consumer electronics industry.

For instance, in the large-screen TV market, there are a growing number of manufacturers that are able to offer comparable technical specifications at very competitive prices. The manufacturer that can offer a new innovation – or better yet, a whole set of innovations – to separate its product from the rest of the pack stands to win big.

Case in point is LG’s CINEMA 3D Smart TV range, which allows for longer and more comfortable “flicker-free” 3D viewing with very affordable lightweight glasses. In addition, LG has stripped their remote controls down to the basics and its Magic Motion Remote lets users simply point and click for easy navigation. This year, LG again broke new ground in immersive 3D home entertainment with its 84” Ultra High Definition TV.

In 2013, the user experience will play a larger role in allowing manufacturers to differentiate themselves through innovations that offer convenience, cost savings and other lifestyle benefits.

In the home appliance segment, LG will continue to leverage our four Core Technologies – the Inverter Direct Drive in washing machines, the Inverter Linear Compressor in side-by-side refrigerators, the Kompressor technology in vacuum cleaners and the Lightwave technology in microwave ovens. These technologies ensure that LG continues to offer market-leading energy savings, durability, performance and health benefits to customers. For more peace of mind and better cost of ownership, LG also offers 10-year warranties on its Inverter Direct Drive motor and Inverter Linear Compressor.

Smart Homes:
The smart home concept makes a lot more sense in 2013 than it ever has before. Yes, the idea has been around for years and some of the earlier conceptualisations a smart home evoked were somewhat bizarre. But technology has come a long way since then – the applications are a lot more intriguing and consumers are becoming more sophisticated.

In the past, the consumers who were excited about the smart home concept were sci-fi fans and tech enthusiasts who wanted to live like the Jetsons. Now, the smart home concept is appealing to a much wider spectrum of consumer demographics. Why is that? To begin with, the idea is now intrinsically linked to another concept: efficiency. Technology is now available to connect household appliances together and oversee the entire energy consumption of each household. Not only can energy use be monitored, it can also be managed. This makes a lot of sense to consumers who want to (a) cut down on their utilities and (b) achieve a more environmentally conscious lifestyle.

Privacy and Data Security:
Like the smart home concept, this is not a new trend either and the battle to protect individual privacy and data security will most certainly only intensify in 2013.

Consumers are surrounding themselves with smart devices, which are opening up new avenues for less scrupulous individuals to exploit data leakage. Consider the more advanced TVs hitting the market in 2013 equipped with integrated components such as microphones and cameras. The cameras use face recognition technology to identify which users are in the room, and the microphones listen for voice commands. While the technology is to be applauded, it also draws a frightful comparison to the “telescreens” of George Orwell’s 1984. If these TVs could be hacked, and it isn’t out of the realm of reason to suppose that they could, this would constitute a deeply worrying violation of privacy.

Smart TVs are not the only devices raising discussions and debates over privacy and security. Virtually every smart device can be exploited as a point of entry to mine a user’s data. This has interesting implications for the entire consumer electronics industry. Companies that are able to provide a comprehensive level of data security will no doubt earn a lot of praise from increasingly worried consumers.

At the same time, companies are also going to have to devote more attention to the legal ramifications of collecting and protecting user data. As such, 2013 will most likely see a few data security scandals and a whole lot of legal wrangling to sort out the finer points of liability and corporate responsibility in this arena.

Mobiles to Dwarf PC Sales:
Clearly mobile is in. Analysts have been estimating that about 60 percent of PCs shipped in 2013 will be portables. Alongside these PCs, a whopping 800 million smartphones are estimated to be shipped.

According to former director of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee, China should account for about 300 million of those smartphones by the end of 2013, adding to the 200 million that already exist in the country. There is a growing gap between the rich and poor in China, and only about a quarter of the country could be considered middle class. However, that quarter adds up to 300 million people, and they have a voracious appetite for mobile devices. India will push the smartphone boom even further.

Other developing and emerging markets are also hopping on the bandwagon, adding additional markets for manufacturers to delve into. What does this mean for the industry? Technological innovation is still important, but in a market where there are so many products to choose from with similar base performance levels, the devices which manage to differentiate themselves via their user interface or overall user experience are going to be the big winners. Expect to see big innovations in 2013.

Your Own Personal Cloud:
Cloud computing has already won favour the world over for business applications, so much so that using a single PC as the sole repository of data is a dying concept. Consumer services are taking off – led by services like Apple iCloud, and applications including DropBox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive.

Personal cloud computing is primed to take off in 2013. As more and more consumers access data from a wide array of devices including tablets, PCs, smartphones and even TVs, there is a growing need to synchronise all of the data from the configured devices and send that data to a personal, localised cloud. Reliable and reasonably priced personal clouds allow users to access their data quickly and easily wherever they are, and when set up for a family or a group of friends, offers a useful way to keep shared content in a central, secure location.

In a way, the history of computing is coming full circle. Decades ago, when multiple computers were first hooked up together via snarls of cables and wires, a single mainframe was used as a data management centre for multiple “dumb terminals”. Cloud computing is a very similar conceptualisation, and companies which help consumers find innovative ways to take enhance their lifestyles with this trend will receive a lot of attention in the coming year as 2013 looks to be the year that the personal cloud moves out of the home office or study and into the lounge room.