Shanghai Media Group has signed with Chinese domestic home appliance supplier Haier to cooperate on the development, marketing and servicing of high-definition televisions.

This is the first strategic cooperation ever reached of this level between a high-definition content provider and high-definition equipment and service provider in China.

SMG and Haier will make use of each of their respective advantages to implement a thorough cooperation. As the start of their cooperation, they have jointly launched a high definition brand called "INNOV" for high-end consumers.

Zhang Dazhong, vice president of SMG, says that SMG will cooperate with Haier mainly on three areas. First, they will work to improve the high-definition content and provide better experiences for consumers. Second, they will cooperate on marketing — SMG has already begun to sell Haier's INNOV TV on its family shopping column. And third, SMG will learn from Haier's strong after-sales service to communicate more closely with consumers and improve their own service.