As a combination of the 5G era, the “Smart Screen” product will become the direction of future development, and as the popularity accelerates, the industry will reshuffle.
Editor’s note: This article is from “Financial” magazine, Author Song Jinxi, editor Gao Suying.
Because user demand continues to slump and price wars continue to escalate, the color TV industry has fallen into a low-margin quiz, and traditional TV companies have stepped up in the face of dilemmas, while innovative technology companies have brought smart new products into the fight.
In recent days, Huawei glory, Xiaomi, TCL, Skyworth, Hisense, etc. have increased the layout of the upgraded version of the smart TV market, and successively launched a variety of strong interactive “wisdom screen” products, trying to snatch the 5G Internet of Things era of the family Terminal entrance. Compared with traditional smart TVs, “Smart Screen” interacts with multiple devices such as the artificial intelligence Internet of Things and large screens and mobile phones. So, can “wisdom screen” become a weapon for the TV industry to turn around?
A few days ago, the Caijing New Media reporter found that ordinary smart TVs have experienced different price declines, among which traditional TV companies TCL, Hisense, Konka and other TV models have cut prices by thousands of dollars, while Internet brands Millet 65-inch 4S TV straight down 1,000 yuan, the price is 2999 yuan. Most of the “smart screen” new products did not appear price war, 55-inch TV prices are maintained at more than 3,799 yuan, but the same size of ordinary smart TVs are only 1999 yuan.
Industry sources said that in the traditional color TV industry, the price war has continued for many years, and the profit margin of many companies has dropped to less than 1%. Some color TV brands that do single products or market segments on the low line, due to lack of innovation and the ability to build a full-class ecology, will inevitably encounter the fate of being eliminated in the future. As a combination of the 5G era, the “Smart Screen” product will become the direction of future development, and as the popularity accelerates, the industry will reshuffle.
The price war is getting worse and the profit margin is as low as 1%, and some companies may be eliminated.
In recent years, the endless price war has made the color TV industry more severely tested than other home appliances. The reporter noticed that compared with the price increase of household appliances such as air conditioners and refrigerators, the price of color TVs has dropped sharply. At the same time, the domestic color TV price war has spread all over the line and offline, and some of the color TV companies in the industry have a profit loss of more than 100 million yuan.
In fact, the TV price war began as early as ten years ago. According to the data of Wuxing Electric, during the National Day of 2009, the price of 32-inch TVs of some domestic brands dropped rapidly, and once fell below 3,000 yuan, while the price of 42-inch TVs dropped to 5,000 yuan.Below, some brands have fallen by 40%; by this year, the TV price war is still going on. For example, the 32-inch TV launched by JVC and JVC is priced at only 499 yuan, and the price of other brands of the same size is also around 699 yuan. In the past decade, the price of 32-inch TVs has dropped 4-6 times.
At the same time, the online and offline channels, the color TV industry price wars are very fierce. Recently, the reporter visited the offline store of Beijing Suning Tesco and visited the online e-commerce website. During the Mid-Autumn Festival this year, the price reduction of smart TVs such as TCL and Hisense was thousands of dollars.
Among them, Konka’s 65-inch A3 TV online store sales price dropped by 4,000 yuan, and the TV can also enjoy 800 yuan of energy-saving emission reduction subsidies, after conversion, the price of the same product is lower than the e-commerce platform About 1,000 yuan. In addition, Xiaomi’s 65-inch 4S TV platform went straight down 1000 yuan, and the price dropped to 2999 yuan. At the same time, the prices of other brands of ordinary TVs on the Internet also showed different degrees of decline.
It is worth noting that the reason for the TV industry to fall into the price war is related to the Internet brand’s low price competition strategy. It is reported that Xiaomi has continued to take low-cost routes since entering the TV industry. For example, the 70-inch Internet TV released by the Xiaomizi brand red rice in August this year is priced at 3,799 yuan, and the first sale price has dropped to 3,399 yuan, refreshing the industry’s same-size TV. The lowest price.
In this regard, Liu Buchen, a senior observer in the home appliance industry, believes that the entry of Internet brand TV has brought about changes in the market structure and also affected the pricing level of the industry. At present, compared with other white goods, the TV industry’s ecology is in a very unhealthy state, and the profits of related companies are extremely low, facing a crisis of survival.
It should not be overlooked that the price war did not drive the sales of the entire industry, and some TV companies with poor performance exited the market. According to data from Aowei.com, in the first half of this year, the average price of domestic color TV market decreased by 9.4% year-on-year, while the retail volume and retail sales amounted to 22 million units and 64 billion yuan respectively, down 2.7% and 11.8% respectively. At the same time, in the first half of the year, China’s color TV market withdrew as many as nine brands, making it the highest value since 2015.
The profits of traditional TV manufacturers such as Hisense, Konka and Changhong have suffered losses. The data shows that in the first half of 2019, the non-net profits of Hisense Electric, Konka and Changhong Net Deduction were -82.22 million yuan, -62.3 million yuan and -459.98 million yuan respectively, of which Changhong’s non-net profit decreased by 150.7%. In addition, Changhong, Konka and Hisense Electric’s net profit margins were 0.6%, 1.84%, and 0.74%, respectively, which were lower than the net interest rate of 10% for the appliance brands such as Midea and Gree.
The fierce price war has made some large traditional home appliance industries face difficult situations, and at the same time, some small and medium-sized home appliance companies are facing an outrage. Hongshi Bin, an observer of the home appliance industry, said that the current second line is doingColor TV brands in single products or market segments lack the ability to innovate and build a full-category ecosystem, and their product thinking does not solve the pain point of users using TV in addition to watching. In the future, it will inevitably encounter the fate of being eliminated.
Many giants enter the “smart screen” market, industry reshuffles
In the face of many companies facing the price war, the arrival of the 5G era seems to rekindle the hope of the TV industry. It is worth noting that the competition in the color TV industry has long focused on lower prices and larger, higher-definition display functions, and user demand has not been truly met, such as slow system response, long boot ads, and functional applications. Convenience and other issues. How to make TV from a single product to the control hub of a smart home has become a point of force for major TV manufacturers.
In the past month, major companies have entered the smart TV market. The “smart screen” represented by Huawei’s glory has become a new direction for the development of the industry. This product has increased the interactivity of TV and people, mobile phones and home products. Because of its characteristics of the Internet of Things in the 5G era, it once triggered the collective entry of the industry.
According to statistics, following the release of the wisdom screen by glory, TCL released a new product that can rotate the smart screen, and cooperated with JVC to launch the first batch of customized smart TVs, and Hisense immediately launched its new social TV S7 series. Subsequently, Skyworth launched two smart TVs S81 and Q60, and Xiaomizi brand red rice brought the first Internet TV into the TV industry.
From the perspective of the configuration of new products, the new products released by the above six brands all have the functions of intelligent voice, AIOT and the interaction between mobile phones and large screens. Some new products such as glory smart screen and Hisense S7 support video calls.
However, the reporter noticed that the current low-end smart TVs including the thousand yuan files have functions such as intelligent voice and Internet of Things, and the operating system can support the downloading of application software, and even order and sell movies. Tickets, etc. So, why do major brands choose products that are similar to traditional smart TVs? What is the difference between smart screens and traditional smart TVs?
In this regard, Liu Buchen believes that smart screen is also a kind of smart TV, which belongs to the advanced stage of smart TV. After glory released the smart screen, TV pricing began to rebound. At present, the promotion points of different brands are different. The concepts of social TV and rotating TV are all to meet the new changes, because traditional home appliance companies are still worried that once the concept of “wisdom screen” is accepted by consumers, they will be eliminated if they don’t follow up. .
Hong Shibin further pointed out that for enterprises, the smart screen adopts the user thinking of upgrading the user experience such as video phone, connecting home equipment, and one-touch screen, which changes the product thinking of traditional home appliance enterprises to pay attention to the viewing effect. Let the smart screen truly become the terminal entrance of the smart family. In the future, with the advent of the 5G era, once the smart screen produced from the user’s thinking increases, the industry will reshuffle.
In particular, it’s worth paying attention toIn terms of grid, the “smart screen” did not appear to be a price war that the industry is worried about. The price of the 55-inch glory smart screen standard version and the high-grade PRO version are 3799 yuan and 4799 yuan respectively. Except for the two brands of JVC and Xiaomi, the prices of TCL, Hisense and Skyworth 55-inch new products are more than the glory price.
Among them, Skyworth OLED new product S81 price is as high as 9999 yuan. The average price of a normal smart TV of the same size is only 1398 yuan, and the highest is no more than 3,000 yuan. It can be seen that in the price war of the TV industry today, the “smart screen” has made the industry see hope more than the price of ordinary smart TV.
In the opinion of the industry, in recent years, the simple image quality upgrade of traditional home appliance companies and the price war triggered by Internet companies have not helped the industry out of the cold winter, and the smart screen has attracted many brands to enter, which is expected to attract users to return to TV. Before the big screen, let the industry move from the price war to the healthy ecology.
Application scenarios increase competition still exists, can the trend be reversed?
At present, “Smart Screen” has brought a wave of mid-to-high-end products to a concentrated outbreak, while 5G, OLED and 8K display technologies and beyond the family scene to expand into the office and other scenes, is expected by many home appliance companies, and For the future expandable direction. However, for Chinese TV companies, they still face many challenges. On the one hand, they compete with giant brands such as Japan and South Korea in the middle and high-end market; on the other hand, they are also facing competition with market giants in the application field. For example, in the office field, the nails with Ali will compete positively.
It cannot be ignored that due to the fierce competition between Japanese and Korean color TV giant brands, Chinese brands still face tremendous pressure on 8K display technology. It is understood that LG recently released the world’s first 88-inch 8K OLED TV Z9, priced at RMB 210,000. From domestic online and offline channels, it can be seen that some domestic brands of OLED and 8k TVs sell at a much lower price than international brands. For example, Konka supports 8k resolution and OLED 75-inch TV price is 29,999 yuan.
Liu Weizhi, president of Skyworth Group, publicly stated that the future development trend of home appliances will be the combination of 5G mobile communication technology, 8K display technology and AIOT. Although China has a leading edge in 5G and 8K display technologies, there are some gaps in the AIOT with major international manufacturers. In the future, companies should further increase their original R&D investment.
Comparing with the current domestic and international brands 8k, OLED TV sales prices, through the upgrade of display technology, the profit margins brought to the Chinese TV industry is not large, so many companies choose to go out to sea or put future breakthroughs in more On the application scenario.
“For Chinese companies to go to the Nuggets, face the competition of Samsung, LG and other multinational color TV giants, Chinese brands should abandon the practice of single-handedly, avoid spreading the domestic tragic price war to overseas markets, but choose to cooperate to obtain international cityThe right to speak. Looking at the entire display industry, there will be many TV application scenarios in the future. In addition to the family, there are actually commercial scenes such as cars, offices, and medical services that can be tapped. The key to competition is how to solve the pain points of the user’s usage scenarios and obtain services. Value-added income. Liu Buchen said.
The fact is that with the continuous development and application of 5G and artificial intelligence technology, the penetration rate of smart TV continues to increase. In addition to the consumer electronics field, the application in various emerging scenarios such as vehicle, industrial control and medical will accelerate. In the office field, Ali’s mobile office platform has launched a variety of smart projection screens, and can achieve multi-person remote video conferencing, conference screening and other functions. In this way, in the future segmentation of application scenarios, home appliance brands still need to face more and more powerful competitors.
In addition, the “smart screen” created by the user’s thinking has attracted the entry of various brands, but its value-added services still need to be improved. According to the public feedback of some users who purchased the “Smart Screen”, the number and types of available applications of the product are relatively small. The video call can only be done in the smart screen. The legendary “one hit” is difficult to achieve. .
In response, glory responded to the new media reporter of Caijing, saying that any new operating system needs a development process. Hongmeng OS provides multi-terminal development IDE, which can help developers to develop, multi-end applications and make development efficiency. Multiply. As more and more application developers recognize the Hongmeng OS, multi-scene applications will continue to increase. In addition, video calls can be made between smart screens, Huawei and glory phones, and will be compatible with more mobile phones and TV brands in the future.
In Liu Buchen’s view, the emergence of “smart screen” without price war has promoted the stability and health of the industry to a certain extent, but in the future, it is still necessary to continue to improve its own systems and services, so as to gain a certain market share. The brand and product value of the entire TV industry. At present, “Smart Screen” still has room for improvement in all aspects, and will not become a concept of industry category in the future, but there is hope in the future to become a category other than color TV.
Zhang Jianfeng, executive deputy secretary-general of the China Household Electrical Appliances Business Association, believes that whether the smart screen can gain a large market share in the future depends on the user’s choice. Whether these users value the viewing effect of traditional TV or the various application experiences brought by smart screens is still unknown.