By Kim Yoo-chul
Staff Reporter
GOYANG, Gyeonggi Province _ The 2008 Korea Electronics Show is supposed to showcase the country's electronics might, aiming to be one of the world's top events of its kind. Instead, the show, which ended Friday at the KINTEX convention center, failed to draw attention from both the industry and the general public.
"Where are Sony, Philips and Panasonic? It's not an international show. Without such bigger foreign players," an official from Mitsubishi told The Korea Times.
"I saw some foreigners and they said this year's show failed to draw much attention in the global electronics industry as Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are the only players showing off their latest products, but no new developments," Kim Jin-geom, who runs a small exporting company said.
At the show, some 570 companies and related firms from 25 countries exhibited their wares. About 350 Korean firms participated.
KES officials said next year will be different, bringing in more foreign companies and drawing more spectators. But it is hard to believe their word, considering this year's event.
Few gadgets were eye-catching this year.
"Samsung unveiled 7.9-millimeter-thick LCD TV for the first time on the Korean market, while rival LG introduced its liquid crystal display (LCD) TV set with 240-Hz motion flow frame-rate technology. I can say that's it," said Kim Sang-hak, a Hong Kong-based buyer, showing disappointment.
In 2007, Sony unveiled an 11-inch active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AM OLED) TV set, as well as a slick, stylish and tiny MP3 player. The Japanese company drew much attention from industry watchers and the media.
"Last year, Sony participated at the show to spur an aggressive campaign in Korea's large-screen TV market with the introduction of its latest models. But this year, we scrapped the plan for internal reasons," Hong Ji-eun, a spokeswoman for Sony Korea said.
Collaborating with some Blu-ray sided manufacturers, Sony just introduced "meaningless items" which participants said was for benevolent reasons.
Separately, Samsung and LG clashed over their respective TV technologies after LG "excessively" demonstrated its 120-Hz IPS (In Playing-Switch) panel technology against the VA (Vertical Alignment) format for an LCD driver that's been used by Samsung Electronics.
"The demonstration by LG showing that an LCD TV with VA format has greater afterimage than a set with IPS is nonsense," Kim Sang-soo, chief of Samsung's LCD Technology Center said.
An LG spokesman said the demonstration wasn't intentionally prepared.