LG sees alliance as key to bigger share of smart TV market

LG Electronics said yesterday it plans to increase its market share in the smart TV market on the back of an expanded alliance that now includes manufacturers, developers and solution providers. LG said the “Smart TV Alliance,” led by TV makers LG Electronics, TP Vision and Toshiba, has welcomed new members from related industries in an attempt to strengthen their competence in the market. The new members include Qualcomm and Mstar, which develop systems on chips that function as brains in smart TVs, and application developers such as Obigo. In June, the three TV makers formed the alliance as part of efforts to create a smart TV ecosystem that provides a platform to create interactive contents. The alliance utilizes open solutions technology that supports developers creating apps using HTML5. The alliance plans to unveil three TV apps that were created on its Software Development Kit 1.0 in the IFA trade show in Berlin, ahead of releasing them next month. An upgraded version of the software development kit is set to be released in September, which developers can download to create smart TV apps. Yonhap