Dubai: LG Electronics expects its revenues to touch $5 billion in the Middle East and Africa this year compared to $3.5 billion last year, said H.S. Paik, President of the company.
"The demand for LCD TVs is growing fast and combined with the Fifa World Cup, the demand is going to be exponential in the Middle East and Africa," he told Gulf News after launching the world's first full LED 3D Infinia LX9500 TV series.
There are two types of LCD technology. The first and most common one is edge-lit LED. In this all the LEDs are on the edges of the TV so the contrast and picture brightness are not the same in the centre compared to the edges. These TVs are cheap.
The second is full LED where the LEDs are displayed horizontally across the TV like a screen. These are expensive and the picture brightness and contrast are same across the TV. But each vendor has its own technology.
In LG's 47-inch normal LED TV it has 360 LEDs while in the 47-inch full LED 3D TV it has 964 LEDs. In 55-inch full LED 3D TV it has 1,200 LEDs.
Paik said LG is launching two models - a 47-inch for Dh12,999 and 55-inch for Dh17,999. Each TV comes with four pairs of 3D glasses — each extra pair of glasses costs about $60.
The South Korean firm has already started pre-booking for the 3D TVs in the region and will be launching 3D cameras and projectors this year.
"The demand for 3D TVs will come more from gamers than movie goers. The depth is more when you play games in 3D TVs. PlayStation and Xbox will be launching 3D consoles in the region in the second half of this year," Paik said.
We expect to sell around 500,000 TVs in the region and expect around 5 per cent of the LCD TVs sold to be 3Ds. With TruMotion 400Hz reducing image cross-talk and a picture further enriched by a 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio.
He said TVs contribute around 40 per cent to the group's growth. We expect LG to become number one in the TV segment within the next couple of years.
James Kim, marketing manager for LG Electronics, said, that this year globally 3.8 million 3D TVs are expected to be sold and going on to touch 83.5 million by 2014.
