Haier to integrate SERAPHIC’s Blink-based Sraf TV Browser with its connected TVs for compelling TV portal

Haier, the world’s number major appliances brand* with a strong presence in the global consumer electronics market, has announced that it has teamed up with SERAPHIC, an advanced digital TV software vendor, in order to deploy SERAPHIC’s Blink-based Sraf™ TV Browser in its new range of connected TVs in Europe.

Haier is looking forward to launching the solution at this year’s IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, from the 5th – 10th September. Demonstrations will be available at Haier’s brown goods stand (Hall 3.2 - Stand 201). Haier’s line of connected TVs includes an open internet browser application and a Sraf TV Browser engine that enables a smart TV portal with a large number of video and entertainment applications based on HbbTV, CE-HTML and HTML5.

Haier’s Connected TV - An impressive portfolio of TV applications

Haier has devoted large resources to web-connected appliances in order to meet the changing needs of its customers in an increasingly connected world. By choosing to partner with a pioneering digital TV software vendor, Haier wants to offer its customers the best possible user experience. Through this strategic partnership with SERAPHIC, Haier once again demonstrates its position as a market-leading innovator, pushing the frontiers of innovation in order to deliver exceptional performance and a unique customer experience.

SERAPHIC’s Sraf™ TV Browser is a Blink-based, lightning fast and market-proven software solution which supports various TV standards including HbbTV, CE-HTML, YouTube TV v4, etc. It has been ported to various TV and set-top box (STB) SoCs including MStar, Sigma Designs, Broadcom, Ali, Realtek, Hisilicon, etc. Based on Google’s most powerful browser engine Blink, SERAPHIC’s Sraf TV Browser has been quickly gaining momentum in digital TV markets and will soon be deployed throughout Europe.

Commenting on the announcement, Christophe Chancenest, Haier’s European Sales & Marketing Director for Brown Goods said “SERAPHIC’s TV browser solution enables us to demonstrate the true value of connected TVs by allowing us to offer an impressive portfolio of TV applications, including catch-up TV, entertainment and news content.”

He added: “Web technologies are becoming more important for connected TVs by enabling lots of web-based applications and services, and the TV browser is the key component to make all this happen. SERAPHIC’s browser technology shows outstanding speed, stability and compatibility, which are key to delivering a fantastic user experience to Haier’s customers. Additionally its compliance with global TV standards effectively increases our product competitiveness in global markets.”

“This partnership with Haier is a crucial step in bringing the best browser engine - Blink - to the TV markets,” said Ye Wang, VP of Global Product Management at SERAPHIC. “It is exciting for SERAPHIC to be one of earliest players to have built Blink as an embedded browser with a small RAM/ROM footprint and made various TV extensions out of it. It shows again SERAPHIC’s commitment to providing the TV industry with innovative, up-to-date and high quality technologies to enable lightning fast browsing and favorable interactive user experience.

Blink is a web browser rendering engine developed as part of the Chromium project by Google. It has been powering all browsers that use Chromium built from Google’s open source browser project. Blink has been forked from WebKit and has come with multi-process architecture and sandbox mechanism since April 2013.

For interview requests or further information, please contact our PR agency Open2Europe, who will be on-site at IFA 2014 in Berlin:

Joseph Chance

+ 33 (0)1 55 02 15 17

j.chance@open2europe.com

Orlaith Finnegan

+ 33 (0)1 55 02 14 74

o.finnegan@open2europe.com

About Haier :

The Haier Group is the world’s No. 1 Major Appliances brand with a 9.7% retail volume share in 2013 (Source: Euromonitor International Limited; retail volume sales in units based on 2013 data). With its commitment to quality and innovation, Haier brings the inspired living experience to consumers in over 100 countries worldwide. With global headquarters based in the Chinese city of Qingdao and regional headquarters in both Paris and New York to serve its clients in Europe and America, Haier has 66 trading companies, 143,330 sales outlets and 24 industrial parks with 70,000 employees worldwide. Haier both pursues excellence in innovation through its five R&D centres and ensures its products are adapted to the tastes and needs of its consumers in its various local markets. Haier specialises in technology-driven research, manufacturing and trading a large range of durable products. In Europe, these include: televisions, refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, consumer electronics and energy saving home solutions. Haier’s global revenue in 2013 was US$29.5 billion and profit of US$1.76 billion in 2013. Haier Electronics Group Co., Ltd. (HKG: 1169), a subsidiary of the Haier Group, is listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. Qingdao Haier Co. (SHA: 600690), also a Haier subsidiary, is listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

For more information: www.haier.com/uk

About SERAPHIC

SERAPHIC Information Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. is dedicated to providing internet-related software and web-based solutions to all those TV-/Video-related terminal devices including Smart TVs, set-top boxes, over-the-top devices, game consoles, etc. SERAPHIC’s product offering includes TV Browser for HTML5, HbbTV 2.0, Freeview Play, YouTube 2016, over-the-top TV Portal and open internet as well as Blink-based Web UI and Web OS solutions. The company is located in Shanghai, China and targets at digital TV and consumer electronics markets in Europe, Latin America, Australia and Asia Pacific. For more information about SERAPHIC, please visit www.seraphic-corp.com or send an email to info@seraphic-corp.com.