Digital Photo Frame Among Top Honors at Global Sources Electronics Design Awards

ITNewsOnline has an excellent post about the Global Sources Electronics Design Awards.

People all over the world love their electronics, you know!

Eight electronics products designed and manufactured in Asia were named winners of the third Global Sources (Nasdaq: GSOL) Electronics Design Awards at a press conference in Hong Kong.

The Design of the Year Award went to Shenzhen Vogue Industries’ Pierre Cardin Ultra-mobile PC. It comes with a 7-inch touch screen display, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a host of other features usually only found in full-sized notebook computers. It also features a stylish brushed metal exterior and a leather case for convenient portability.

The other seven product category winners of the third annual Global Sources Electronics Design Awards are:

– CCTV Products: EE Electronics — Touchpad controlled DVR
– Digital Photo Frames: Simon Trading — 10.4-inch Digital Photo Frame with music and video functions
– GPS: YF International — 4.3-inch Ultra-slim Portable GPS Navigation Device
– In-car Entertainment: Longhorn Technology — Bluetooth hands-free car kit
– Mobile Phones: Power Idea Technology — Water proof/Shock proof Tough Phone
– Portable Media Players: Shenzhen Songer Technology — 64GB TFT MP4 player with remote control
– Portable PCs: China Great-wall Computer — 12″ laptop with one-key recovery function

“Asia’s exporters continue to drive electronics innovation through a combination of design and product functionality. This is highlighted by the latest winners of the Electronics Design Awards,” said Spenser Au, Global Sources’ President of Asian Sales.

“Today, buyers no longer come to trade shows in Hong Kong just to find great suppliers. They come to find great ideas and great products they can bring to market right away.”

Winning products set to be showcased at Global Sources’ China Sourcing Fairs: Electronics & Components and Security Products

Winning products and finalists are set to be showcased at the Design Awards Gallery during the China Sourcing Fairs: Electronics & Components and Security Products, Oct. 12 – 15 at Hong Kong’s AsiaWorld-Expo.

Au said: “Now in its third year, the Awards have become recognized by international buyers for spotlighting the newest, most innovative electronic designs coming out of Asia.

“Tens of thousands of buyers from around the world will see these innovative products first-hand and this could help boost the chances of market success for the winners. Many of the products you see here today have real potential to be the hottest electronics products on store shelves in the coming months.”

Eight winners were selected out of 200 entries from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea based on technical design; features and functionality; visual appeal; and sales, marketing and export success.

The judging panel was made up of top industry experts and executives, including Cindy Li, Woolworth’s (HK) Procurement Sourcing Manager for Consumer Electronics/Accessories; Coles Group Asia (Target) Regional Merchandise Manager, Clement Lam and The Source Deputy General Manager, Kenneth Tse.

For more information about the Global Sources Electronics Design Awards and winning product profiles, visit http://www.globalsources.com/elecawards . For more information about the China Sourcing Fairs, visit http://www.chinasourcingfair.com .

About Global Sources

Global Sources is a leading business-to-business media company and a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China. The core business uses English-language media to facilitate trade from Greater China to the world. The other business segment utilizes Chinese-language media to enable companies to sell to, and within Greater China.

The company provides sourcing information to volume buyers and integrated marketing services to suppliers. It helps a community of over 829,000 active buyers source more profitably from complex overseas supply markets. With the goal of providing the most effective ways possible to advertise, market and sell, Global Sources enables suppliers to sell to hard-to-reach buyers in over
240 countries.

The company offers the most extensive range of media and export marketing services in the industries it serves. It delivers information on 4.3 million products and more than 196,000 suppliers annually through 14 online marketplaces, 13 monthly magazines, over 100 sourcing research reports and 12 specialized trade shows which run 29 times a year across 10 cities.

Suppliers receive more than 81 million sales leads annually from buyers through
Global Sources Online alone.

Global Sources has been facilitating global trade for 38 years. Global Sources’ network covers more than 60 cities worldwide. In mainland China, Global Sources has over 2,500 team members in more than 40 locations, and a community of over 1 million registered online users and magazine readers for its Chinese-language media.

Global Sources Press Contact in Asia
Camellia So
Tel: +852-2555-5021
Email: cso@globalsources.com

Global Sources Press Contact in U.S.
James W.W. Strachan
Tel: +1-480-664-8309
Email: strachan@globalsources.com

Global Sources Investor Contact in Asia
Investor Relations Department
Tel: +852-2555-4777
Email: investor@globalsources.com

Global Sources Investor Contact in U.S.
Kirsten Chapman & Timothy Dien
Lippert/Heilshorn & Associates, Inc.
Tel: +1-415-433-3777
Email: tdien@lhai.com

SOURCE Global Sources

Consumer Education Means More Wireless/Digital Picture Frames Purchased!

BusinessWire.com has posted an article about “The Fourth Screen” market, which includes wireless/digital picture frames:

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–According to a new connected home devices study from ABI Research, “fourth screen” devices – some new, some variants on ideas that have been around for several years – promise novel experiences for users and new revenue streams for operators.

These devices include digital photo frames, media phones, and Internet appliances, Media phones will be among the fastest-growing device types, and will generate a market value above $5 billion by 2014.

ABI Research industry analyst Michael Inouye says, “While the first media phone models only appeared late last year in the US (earlier in Asia), more than 30 million units will be shipped in 2014. These devices, which feature video playback, Internet connectivity, and some form of voice functionality, will be among the strongest performers among Fourth Screen products.”

Digital photo frames have been in the market for some years, and currently ship in numbers that dwarf the other categories in this segment. Recently market growth has slowed somewhat, but a new Wi-Fi equipped variant is expected to show strong growth over the next few years before leveling off around 2013.

All these devices share one market obstacle. “Fourth screen devices in general are competing against more multifunction devices such as smartphones,” says Inouye. But for consumers who want more permanent, dedicated control, they can be a compelling proposition. One key to success for all these devices is definitely greater consumer education. Vendors and retailers are pinning many hopes on the holiday gift-giving seasons of the next few years.”

A new ABI Research study, “Connected Home Devices (Fourth Screen)” (http://www.abiresearch.com/research/1004309 ) examines the dynamics and potential of the nascent fourth screen market. It includes forecasts for digital photo frames, media phones, and desktop Internet Appliances within the North American, Asia Pacific, European, and RoW markets for the years 2009 to 2014.

It is part of the firm’s Home Networking Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Home_Networking_Research_Service ), and the Connected Home Devices Research Service (http://www.abiresearch.com/products/service/Connected_Home_Devices_Research_Service ) which also includes other Research Reports, Research Briefs, Market Data, ABI Insights, and analyst inquiry support.

ABI Research provides in-depth analysis and quantitative forecasting of emerging trends in global connectivity. From offices in North America, Europe and Asia, ABI Research’s worldwide team of experts advise thousands of decision makers through 25 research and advisory services. Est. 1990. For more information visit www.abiresearch.com, or call +1.516…..

ABI Research
Christine Gallen, +1-516-624-2542
pr@abiresearch.com

Frame Media Reinvents Itself as Thinking Screen, Goes After Larger “Connected Screen” Market

Xconomy.com’s Wade Roush has posted a wonderful article about FrameMedia’s new name and additional new goals!  As Thinking Screen Media, the former FrameMedia is still the leader in content delivery to connected screens worldwide.

Wireless digital photo frames, considered one of the hot new categories in consumer electronics back in 2006 and 2007, haven’t taken off as quickly as expected. People love digital frames, but they’ve tended to buy them as gifts pre-loaded with photos they uploaded to the Web, meaning many frames still don’t come with their own connection to the Internet. That’s a problem for Wellesley, MA-based Frame Media, whose whole business, when I last profiled the startup in 2007, revolved around providing fresh digital content for the frames, such as news and sports headlines, weather, and photos shared by friends.

But while Wi-Fi-equipped frames are still playing catchup, another channel for the company’s programming is emerging: so-called “connected screens,” meaning a whole variety of Internet-ready displays that are turning up in homes and offices. As a result, Frame Media is rechristening itself Thinking Screen Media, and going after what CEO Alan Phillips calls “a whole category [of displays] defined primarily by the fact that, unlike PCs, they are limited in their ability to easily search and configure content.” That includes not just digital frames but high-definition TVs, cable set-top boxes, game consoles, Internet radios, and even printers.

Through its FrameChannel platform, Thinking Screen works with publishers such as Time magazine, the New York Times, People magazine, and Weatherbug to offer more than 1,000 channels of content customized for such screens. (Users choose and configure the information feeds at Thinking Screen’s website.) The company is also partnering with virtually every consumer-electronics company on the block—names like Kodak, Motorola, Nintendo, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba—to make it easy

“Most of the connected screens haven’t hit the market yet, but they will over the next six months,” says Phillips. In particular, Phillips says, “We’ll see an aggressive push by TV manufacturers to enable TVs to go beyond video.” A taste of what he’s talking about already familiar to millions of video game fans is the home screen of the Nintendo Wii, which, in addition to games, offers links to news, weather, shopping, and photos.

The 15-employee startup collected $5 million in Series A funding from Longworth Venture Partners and CommonAngels in May 2008, and there are plans to raise a Series B round this fall, Phillips says. When it comes to supplying content for tomorrow’s connected screens, Thinking Screen has both technical and strategic advantages over existing and potential competitors, he says.

San Diego-based Chumby, whose interactive media player displays information through “widgets” analogous to Thinking Screen’s channels, is the company’s closest competitor, in Phillips’ judgment. But he thinks Chumby will have a hard time delivering content to devices other than its trademark soft-sided appliance, since the widgets depend on Adobe’s Flash video format, which most other connected screens can’t handle. Thinking Screen’s data, by contrast, is delivered using the Media RSS format, created by Yahoo in 2004 and used by thousands of content publishers.

Thinking Screen also has a network of content and manufacturing partners that would be hard for any other company to match, Phillips says. “The barrier to entry is about partnerships on the content side and more importantly on the screen manufacturer side,” he says. “As we create a critical mass of users, the revenue from advertising is shared with both content providers and screen manufacturers, so there is a stream now that encourages the screen partners to make sure that FrameChannel is enabled on their devices.”

Two new products set to emerge from Thinking Screens in the coming months are designed to widen the service’s appeal to consumers. One is a line of inexpensive digital frames dedicated to a single type of content—examples might include a frame that just shows celebrity news from People magazine or news and scores for the Boston Red Sox.

The other is a selection of 35,000 channels aggregating local information. For example, Phillips says, “You could have a Hopkinton, Massachusetts channel, where we’ve licensed content from local news sources, traffic, weather, relevant sports scores, stock quotes for companies, lottery numbers, a Twitter feed from your state representative—everything to do with Hopkinton. So you can imagine watching the Today show at seven in the morning and as a picture-in-picture experience you’re also getting your local town’s feed.”

Wade Roush is Xconomy’s chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.

Wireless/Digital Picture Frames Now Considered Mainstream Consumer Product!

Good sales are predicted for wireless/digital photo frames, according to Lifestyles PR Blog:

Consumers in the UK are buying digital photo frames faster than ever before, according to Futuresource Consulting. In excess of 1.8 million digital frames were sold across the UK during 2008 and it’s estimated that ten percent of UK homes now own at least one digital picture frame.

A high number of low cost 7-inch wide screen frames contributed to an increase in sales volume of 60 percent in comparison with 2007. Sales are heavily driven by gifting and first time impulse buyers attracted by increasingly low prices. Between December 2007 and December 2008 prices fell by about 20 percent for the highly popular 7-inch wide screen model of frame.

The gifting market is very strong and there are strong sales peaks in advance of major holidays. Consumers love the ability to customize the frames by loading them with photographs prior to handing over their gift and many are now becoming aware of the possibility of providing “updates”, either by passing over a new memory card with new photos on it or even by wirelessly downloading a batch of photos from the web.

Well known brand names such as Kodak, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba and Sony grew their market share (to 54 percent) in 2008, but unbranded frames and lesser known models continued to sell well also.

Even allowing for the current economic climate, sales are expected to grow by between 10 and 20 percent in 2009. Market analysts are forecasting that we will see increasing numbers of “convergence products” – items such as iPods, TVs, notebooks etc. which include picture frame functionality – and that these may gradually erode the sales of dedicated digital frames.

That would certainly seem quite reasonable considering the large number of products which are now incorporating digital frames. Small 1.5 inch key ring type frames are perhaps a predictable development – but thermal travel mugs, desk tidies and even sunglasses with digital frames are also currently available in the marketplace.

In fact, as digital frames are developed with ever increasing functionality it may become difficult to tell whether a device is a frame which can also browse the net or another type of device which can also display photographs. Frames already exist which can read news feeds from the internet and receive wireless transmission of photographs from internet photo sharing sites. Similarly, large screen TVs which can be used to display family photos rather than a blank screen when they are in standby mode, are now available.

In summary, digital photo frames must now be regarded as a mainstream consumer product rather than a high technology gadget. Their mass appeal in the gifting market will guarantee ongoing sales growth in 2009, in spite of the economic climate, and future technology fusion will drive further sales growth in the medium to long term.