Hursh Agrawal, General Manager, Hisense Middle East
Hisense has ambitious plans to grow in the UAE over the next few years
Published: Thu 28 Apr 2016, 8:00 PM
Last updated: Thu 28 Apr 2016, 10:59 PM
Hisense is a global electronic and information conglomerate with operations around the world. With its products exported to over 130 countries, the Middle East has become an important geography for the firm. "Our bestselling product category in the region is the UHD televisions, specially the 50-inch and 55-inch TV. Hisense has launched a new series with HEVC (which allows 4K playback through USB), Netflix and HDR. This has been accepted very enthusiastically by the market," Hursh Agrawal, General Manager, Hisense Middle East told Khaleej Times.
In 2016 the company launched its Ultra LED (Uled) televisions. "Uled is the next evolution in entertainment. This is an accurate LED backlight control technology (that uses small crystals 5-20 nanometers in size) to produce an enhanced picture. This technology is based on dynamic backlight control, local dimming and a wide colour gamut, which improves your viewing experience. Consumers can enjoy an immersive and true theatre-quality home entertainment experience with more vivid colours, high definition for sharper images, and Ultra SMRT (Smooth Motion Rate) for minimal shaking and blur of moving images," the GM explained.
Listing some of the latest developments in the television industry, Agrawal noted, "Among the biggest trends in the market, content-based platform scores high. For a long time the consumer electronics industry has been talking of the merger of IT (laptops) and electronics (TV) industry. I think in 2015-2016, the latter has clearly taken the lead with televisions now becoming an entertainment medium rather than a box."
As major global content-based platforms like Netflix are now available in the UAE, the concept of entertainment media has become a winner. In markets like the US, there is already a growing trend of subscriber loss conventionally and increase in pay TV and OTT. "In my view UHD 4K TVs is going to be a big winner this year. With Etisalat announcing (in January 2016) that it was planning to get 4K channels in the UAE in 2016, the hardware upgrade (TVs) is going to be a clear winner. HEVC or playback of 4K content through USB is another major feature that consumers would be looking at for the ease of use. HDR is also emerging in a big way. Normal televisions cannot adapt to show the brightness and details on the same frame. With HDR, Hisense has overcome this and this has resulted in better consumer experience," he noted.
With the UAE consistently ranked as one of the most popular global locations among international retailers and the highest in the Middle East, Hisense has marked it as a very important market. "The UAE is among the 13 international offices that the company has. It also features among our top six focus countries. Pertinently the UAE is the showcase of the entire region. We have same launch time of new technology in the UAE as that of the US, the UK, South Africa and Australia," Agrawal revealed.
Over time the need to meet the growing demand for consumer electronics in the UAE has led to a boom in the sector. "We expect the sector to remain flat this year with a good growth expected next year. This is due to the fact that the global economy is affected due to low oil prices. However things are expected to look up soon. In 2015 Hisense was number three in televisions and number two in UHD TVs worldwide. Our company has plans to reach the same levels in the UAE. We plan to double our revenue every year for the next few years," he concluded.
sadiq@khaleejtimes.com
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