With 3100 exhibitors, 1.86 million square foot of space and 153,000 attendees from all over the world, the four day Consumer Electronics Show of 2012 was the biggest in history. The event, which wrapped on Friday, introduced offerings such as internet connected televisions, new developments in cloud computing, cars enabled with applications and new laptops called Ultrabooks that are smaller than ever before.
Unlike previous years at the consumer electronics show, this year’s focus appeared to be on improving existing electronic items rather than revolutionizing fields entirely. Flat screen TVs got even thinner, grew up to 55 inches and were engineered with better sound features. Laptops, as described above, got even sleeker without sacrificing the power of a larger machine. Mobile devices improved on speed as producers attempt to stand out among the myriad options for personal electronics. The stakes for their part are higher than ever as more jobs require smartphones or tablets and finding the right device becomes increasingly important. Indicating the public’s growing reliance on consumer electronics is their landmark $1 trillion in sales for 2012.
More and more companies are focusing on differentiation to gain market share in a highly competitive area. Developments like voice activated televisions or options that sync more easily with the applications like Hulu and Netflix (NFLX) are gaining appeal to a number of Americans who are forfeiting their cable services in favor of more affordable and more tailored options. Wireless connectivity for televisions and clouds that store television programs purchased at the iTunes store are anticipated to be valued more highly in the next several years.
In 2013 and the years following, consumers can expect more to be built into their existing devices, from cameras like the recently debuted Nikon D4, which priced at $6,000 is both a top notch DSLR digital camera with excellent low light capacity and has an impressive video-recording capacity.
Just like Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 4S debuted a high quality digital camera, more devices will begin to occupy multiple uses simultaneously, but the offerings will be of increasingly higher quality in order to minimize the number of devices required to fulfill consumers’ highest function demands.
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