Logitech Sees Growth Opportunities in Tablet PC and Google TV Accessories

PC peripheral maker Logitech is looking at the tablet PC market as an opportunity, not a threat, chief financial officer Erik Bardman said Wednesday in a session webcast from the Credit Suisse 2010 Technology Conference in Scottsdale, Ariz. While Logitech’s bread-and-butter mouse and keyboard business is “still growing,” Bardman forecast that it will “grow a little slower” over the next five years with growth dropping to 10 percent. “If people do replace laptops with tablets,” he said, “there’s a productivity element there, and we're very good with productivity input.”

Bardman predicted a diverse field of tablets coming out over the next 12 months, ranging from 5 to 12 inches and using various operating systems. “We need to continue to understand consumer use and have the right product to fit their need,” he said. He said tablet PCs’ “pain point is audio quality” and he pointed to Logitech’s standalone stereo Bluetooth speaker with eight-hour battery life, which has sold well as an attach sale to iPhones and iPod for improving audio quality.

As one of several launch partners for the recently introduced Google TV, Logitech believes the platform, which brings Internet search capability to TVs, “enables things not possible before,” Bardman said. He said Logitech is focused on helping consumers understand the platform and driving adoption, adding that “it’s different from other consumer devices that became obsolete when a newer version appeared on the market.” In six months, he said, a Google TV will be better than now because of improved firmware and apps that should start rolling out in the first quarter. As the platform gets richer and better, “the value proposition gets better,” he said. “And you don’t have to replace it."

Logitech is selling a standard keyboard, a webcam and a downsized clamshell-style keyboard as Google TV accessories, and Bardman expects those products to produce margins “higher than the company average,” he said. The long-term goal is to build an ecosystem of peripherals around the platform. As the platform grows, he said, it will “end up in more places,” spreading the way the PC did when third-party developers created products around the Microsoft platform. He said it will be included in more TVs and in Blu-ray players in future generations. Driving the adoption of Google TV across a broader product base “allows me to bring out peripherals that will work anywhere,” he said.

In response to a question about lack of tier-one content from broadcasters, Bardman said he expects more broadcasters to come on board “over time.” He said only 8 or 9 percent of the video content on the Internet comes from broadcasters. “By bringing whatever broadcasters have today and then everything available on the Web, we're opening up a tremendous opportunity” for them, he said.