Companies bank on new gadgets.

Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp. and other electronics maker are counting on low-power TVs, mobile phones that show movies and other new devices to revive sales as consumer spending slows in the U.S., their biggest market.

The companies, along with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the world's biggest maker of consumer electronics, Sharp Corp. and NEC Corp. were among 700 showcasing their latest products at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies, or Ceatec Japan, one of Asia's biggest trade shows.

Manufacturers are looking to new devices that help combine functions such as Internet access and mobile phones to revive consumer spending on gadgets before the peak end-of-year holiday season. A decline in U.S. consumer spending and stagnant domestic sales caused shares of NEC and Sony to drop more than 9 percent last quarter as prices of chips and televisions fell.

"It's hard to make any positive investment in high-tech companies," said Akio Yoshino, of Societe Generale Asset Management (Japan) Co. "Crude oil prices and concern that Christmas sales may be slower than last year in the U.S. cloud the outlook."

Manufacturers are facing falling prices for flat-panel displays used in televisions and computer monitors as consumers remain reluctant to pay up to $5,000 for flat-screen TVs while output surges. Even so, screen makers, which overestimated demand, will triple output of 32-inch panels for TVs by March, according to Taipei-based researcher WitsView Technology Corp.

Sony, the world's second-largest consumer-electronics maker, will feature a television that uses a light-emitting diode backlighting system, as it aims to expand its share of Japan's flat-panel television market to 35 percent this year in revenue terms from the present 30 percent. Sony says the technology gives image clarity previously available only on cathode ray tube displays.

Toshiba will feature a new flat-panel television developed with Canon Inc. that uses a half to a third of the electricity than its liquid crystal or plasma display counterparts.

"With the Germany World Cup in 2006, the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and the eventual shift toward digital broadcasting by 2011, we will see a new wave of demand for digital electronics," said Tadashi Okamura, Toshiba's president.

"We're definitely seeing increasing interest at our conference as more products make the shift to digital," said Yoshinori Ishizaki, the chief organizer of Ceatec.

BY DAISUKE TAKATO Bloomberg News