Observing major LCD TV brand vendors' strategies for 2015, Google's Android TV has become the official platform for Sony's and Sharp's smart TVs, but vendors such as Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Panasonic are still resisting Android, and bent on using their in-house developed platforms to carve out their own territories in the market.
During their pre-show press conferences for CES 2015, Sony and Sharp have respectively noted that Android TV will be fully adopted into their mid-range and high-end product lines in 2015, a strong advance for Google as its previous-generation Google TV platform was only available in Sony and LG Electronics' entry-level TVs.
Their move also indicates that the two Japan-based TV vendors, whose market shares have been declining in the past few years, have formed a strategic alliance over their smart TV platform's development, which is expected to help strengthen the Android TV camp.
Other major TV brand vendors have mostly announced their own next-generation smart TV platforms during CES 2015 such as Samsung Electronics' Tizen, LG's WebOS 2.0 and Panasonic's Firefox.
With its smartphone business having difficulties breaking from the Android control, Samsung has decided to adopt its in-house developed Tizen platform into all its smart TVs for 2015, hoping to establish an ecosystem strong enough to compete with Android.
LG will upgrade WebOS to version 2.0 and continue to promote the platform's easy-to-control characteristics. LG is also looking to expand WebOS' applications and is eyeing products such as digital signage and hotel's TV systems as its next targets.
Panasonic announced its partnership with Firefox in 2014 and has revealed that it will put Firefox OS into its TV product lines for 2015. Digitimes Research believes Firefox OS may not help Panasonic much in its bid to expand in the TV market, but it means Panasonic is not ready to give in to Google yet.
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