Seiki Eyes Q1 4K Monitor Launch, Sub-$200 Smart TV as Black Friday Doorbuster

Seiki is gearing up for the holiday selling season with a 32-inch smart TV in its new Muse line that will debut as a doorbuster on Black Friday, Sung Choi, vice president-marketing, told Consumer Electronics Daily at its CE Week booth. The Wi-Fi-enabled HDTV will include apps from Netflix, Pandora, Vudu and YouTube and will sell for below $200, Choi said.

Seiki, which announced 10 Ultra HD TVs for 2014 at CES, is now expanding into 4K PC monitors due in Q1. Choi cited NPD figures listing Seiki as the No. 3 Ultra HD TV supplier in the U.S. through March, behind Samsung and Sony, and said the company wants to have the same kind of “disruptive” effect on the desktop monitor market that it had in TVs. While TV companies are focusing Ultra HD efforts largely on larger screen sizes, where the advantages of 4K video are most apparent, Seiki is taking the high-res message to the PC world for desktop users who can benefit from higher resolution text and images for design, spreadsheets and video production, Choi said.

Choi wouldn’t give a retail price estimate for the 28-, 32- and 40-inch VA (vertical alignment) monitors but said they will fall in the “sweet spot” between high-end IPS (in-plane switching) and low-end TN (twisted nematic) displays. Most monitor makers in Taiwan are using TN panels but Seiki believes in “high quality and low prices,” Choi said. The Pro Series monitors include 12-bit color processing, HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.3, MHL 3.0, DVI and VGA connections, four-quadrant picture-in-picture, a USB 3.0 hub and adjustable stand, the company said.

Seiki also kicked off a 4K marketing blitz, hoping to build on its 23 percent market share, Choi said. Of the 100,000 Ultra HD TVs sold in the U.S. through March, Seiki was in third place behind Samsung (35 percent) and Sony (34 percent), Choi said, and the company is bolstering its 10-model 2014 lineup of Ultra HD TVs with a $99 upconverting Blu-ray player that’s to ship in Q3. The U-VISION 4K Blu-ray Disc Player is Technicolor 4K Image-certified, the company said and includes Dolby TrueHD audio processing. The company also showed its $59 upconverting HDMI cable.

The Seiki 4K Ultra HD marketing campaign has a “time to upgrade to Seiki” theme. The campaign will include digital and print advertising, retail promotions and industry events driven by social media brand messaging around #4KUHDWorld, the company said.