By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
LG Electronics, the world's second-biggest maker of televisions, has teamed up with Germany's largest video-on-demand (VOD) service provider to further promote its Web-enabled televisions to European consumers.
The South Korean electronics giant announced a deal with Maxdome on the sidelines of the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) electronics show in Berlin Friday as it looks for a new start in an emerging market created by the continuing invasion of Internet content into living-room televisions.
Maxdome is Germany's largest VOD operator with a library of more than 20,000 movies, television shows, sports contests, cartoons and other video content.
LG will work with Maxdome to present a variety of televisions during the first half of next year that will allow viewers direct access to the latter's videos without buying set-top boxes or paying subscription fees, LG said.
Aside from VOD content, the televisions will enable users to access digital photo editing services such as Picasa, and also view YouTube (www.youtube.com) and other Web video sites. Viewers can also use the televisions to play video, music and other multimedia files stored in their personal computers.
The company plans to release seven different television models with Internet capability in Europe next year, and sell more than 3 million of them. This means that virtually all of LG's high-end television products, including the light-emitting diode (LED) backlit liquid crystal display (LCD) models, will be released with Internet connectivity.
Maxdome is merely the first of what will be many European content companies providing their videos for LG televisions, LG executives said.
``Broadband televisions, which will combine LG Electronics' advanced technologies with the content from a variety of copyright holders, will allow us to find new markets in all of Europe and establish ourselves as trendsetters for convergence,'' said Simon Kang, who heads LG's home appliances unit.
LG has been trailing Samsung Electronics, its bitter rival, over supremacy in the global television market. Samsung is currently heading the pack, expecting to sell over 22 flat-panel televisions this year, but LG believes it has a chance to knock its nemesis out of the top spot.
Talking to Korean reporters on the sidelines of the IFA, Kang said that the company is projecting sales of 25 million next year, and claimed that 30 million will be possible depending on panel supplies.
LG's television lineup at IFA includes an LED backlit television that the company touts as ``borderless,'' obscuring the boundaries between the outer frame and screen by coating them under a single sheet of film.
The company also followed Samsung's lead in introducing its first televisions with edge-lit LED backlighting, which could be more affordable than televisions using direct-lit LED technology, which LG has been promoting.