By Matthew Henry
SYDNEY: Samsung’s second national roadshow of the year moved to Sydney last night continuing the brand’s rollout of its latest products to Australian retailers, with highlights including the new full HD P9 plasmas and F8 LCD TVs.
The roadshow kicked off last Tuesday with simultaneous events in Brisbane and Melbourne, and will continue to Perth and Adelaide on Tuesday 13 November.
Samsung hosted around 180 Sydney retail floor staff for a low-key, informal event just minutes from the company’s head office at the Sydney Olympic Park in Homebush last night, where they were introduced to the brand’s flagship full HD flat panel TV lineup along with new mp3 players, Blu-ray players, camcorders and mp3 players.
According to Samsung’s newly-appointed marketing manager – AV, Rodney Rodrigues, Samsung is focusing on educating retail sales staff about high definition, to help clear up confusion in the market.
“We recently released a survey that went into what people know about HD, and along with the GfK Consumer Skope report which speaks to people who have just bought a TV, we found that there is still confusion about HD,” Rodrigues told Current.com.au.
“But also some retailers don’t yet have a firm grasp of HD, and so we wanted to get down to how to sell HD and giving them information that they can use to their advantage.”
Samsung, which now claims to be the leading flat panel TV brand in the Australian market across LCD and plasma combined, is also taking the opportunity to show off its new plasma range including the flagship P9 full HD models and its new F8 full HD LCD TVs.
According to Samsung, 1080p currently makes up about 10 per cent of the TV market, or around 1,500 units a week, but this will grow in the coming year.
The P9 models are the brand’s first foray into full high definition plasma, featuring 1920x1080p resolution ideal for Blu-ray content.
The F8 series LCDs boast 100Hz Motion Plus frame rate for smoother moving images and also include the premium Super Clear Panel LCD technology.
Samsung also showed a wider range of digital still cameras, which are now being managed in-house after previously being distributed by a Adeal, a third-party agent.
In the mp3 category, where Samsung now claims second place behind Apple with 12 per cent market share, the brand is introducing the new T2 with Bluetooth connectivity for wireless headphones and a touch-screen interface.
In camcorders, Samsung is rolling out a range of innovative models including a 720p high definition camcorder using 8GB internal flash memory and SD cards, a standard definition hybrid DVD and flash memory card model and a model which records in a video format ideal for YouTube and online video podcasting.