South Korea-based LG on Monday unveiled webOS-based smart TVs at the International CES trade fair in Las Vegas, and announced that a majority of its new smart TVs this year would be based on the Linux-based operating system.

LG bought webOS around a year ago computer giant Hewlett-Packard Co (HP), which had acquired the operating system along with Palm Inc in 2010.  HP had used webOS in its smartphones but it failed to appeal to developers as well as consumers.

Betting big on the operating system, LG yesterday announced that more than 70 per cent of its smart TVs would run on webOS this year.  LG is the world's second-biggest television manufacturer by shipments after Samsung Electronics Co.

Linn Huang, research analyst of clients & displays at IDC, said most of the TV vendors would need to move towards the smart TV business to remain relevant in the increasingly Internet-connected world.

Speaking on the topic, Huang said, "TV intelligence is the most critical part of the TV market strategically for the TV vendors.  It's basically the last hope for TV vendors to make their products more relevant in the connected-computing, multi-device home."

TV makers are trying to mimic the strong growth in the smartphone industry by introducing Internet-connected TVs that can run apps the way smartphones do.  Japan-based Panasonic has teamed up with Mozilla to build Firefox OS-based smart TVs.