It is still unknown when the concept of smart TV will usher in a change.

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “China News Weekly” (ID: Chinanewsweekly), author Jiang Yan.

Smart TV second half: When will the change come?

“Smart screen is just a new marketing concept, and it is essentially TV.” On September 3, Lu Weibing, vice president of Xiaomi Group and general manager of Redmi brand, bluntly expressed in the red rice media communication meeting. The nature of the screen’s products has not changed.

In August of this year, Glory released the first terminal product equipped with Hongmeng OS, “Glory Smart Screen”, and the TV industry, which has continued to slump, has been in the air for a while. A week later, the domestic TV industry giants got together to release new products, TCL released XESS smart screen TV, Hisense followed closely to release Hi Table social TV S7 series new products, Skyworth’s two new product promotion also joined the smart screen concept.

From “Internet TV” to “smart TV” to the concept of “smart screen”, smart TV has reached a new crossroads, and smart home, AI and multi-screen interaction have become the competition of this period. Frequency keywords. There are good reasons for players who choose this timing. “5G’s large bandwidth and ultra-low latency are the key support of 4K and 8K, which will promote the upgrade of the home visual experience. The promotion of the “Ultra HD Video Industry Development Action Plan” at the national level will usher in a new development opportunity for the industry.” Ouyang Zhongcan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China News Weekly.

However, behind this lively screen war, the TV industry continues to face the embarrassment of both volume and price. According to the latest data released by Aowei.com, the retail volume of China’s color TV market in the first half of 2019 was 22 million units, down 2.7% year-on-year. The retail sales volume was 64 billion yuan, down 11.8% year-on-year.

For the industry’s intensive distribution of smart screen products, some industry researchers believe that many of the current smart screen products are conceptual, and the original products are not much different, “essentially smart TV.”

Intelligence Age

Huawei has long been rumored to enter the TV field. Earlier media reports said that Huawei had planned to release TV in April this year, with a target annual sales of 10 million units. The screen suppliers are BOE and Huaxing Optoelectronics. On behalf of the OEM, it is the Suzhou Gaochuang acquired by BOE. Since then, the listing schedule of Huawei TV has been adjusted repeatedly. Some sources said that the reason is that the hardware is no problem, but the software is not ready.

In fact, Huawei initially had controversy about whether to enter the TV field. According to Zhao Ming, president of glory, even more in 2015In the early days, Huawei and Glory were studying the TV industry, including the glory of testing the water, and internally promoting and exploring how the big screen and TV industry developed. “Huawei has key hardware foundations such as TV new products and image chips, as well as software and operating system foundations. It is also necessary to consider the value, impact and impact on the industry.”

In August of this year, Huawei’s first glory and smart screen product officially landed. According to Zhao Ming’s definition, “Glory wisdom screen is not a traditional TV, but a ‘television future’. Specifically, the smart screen puts the family around All the devices are connected together to become the new family center. In the future, the smart screen is not only the home entertainment center, but also the information sharing center, control management center and multi-device interaction center.

For Huawei’s intelligent ecological closed loop, smart screen is its important terminal and entrance. In July, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, said that AI, IoT and 5G will bring true Internet of Everything. In the full-scenario smart strategy launched by Huawei this year, Smart Screen will be one of them.

With the acceleration of 5G, smart TV is an important entry point for the Internet of Things has become an industry consensus. It is worth noting that the ambition of Glory Smart Screen is to achieve seamless connection between users’ mobile phones, smart screens and other devices by means of “Hong Meng”. However, the industry’s general concern is that the biggest shortcomings and difficulties in self-built operating systems are ecological construction. For example, in the field of mobile phone systems, Hongmeng started late compared to Android and iOS systems, lacking a good application ecosystem, and it is difficult to break through. .

The research director of Avi Cloud (AVC) Black Power Division, Jie Meijuan believes that Hongmeng OS has unique advantages in smart TV or future IoT operating system. From an ecological point of view, Hongmeng OS is open, such as the establishment of an open source foundation, the establishment of an open source community. In addition, Hongmeng OS has the ability to use across platforms and the same code can run on multiple types of devices, so Hongmeng is very attractive to developers. At the same time, Huawei has accumulated a large user base and experience in the intelligent terminal for many years, and has an advantage in the ecological environment.

The smart TV field is heating up, and mobile phone manufacturers who are smelling opportunities have entered the market. As early as last September, the Canadian side announced that it would enter the smart TV business. A few days ago, a plus CEO Liu Zuohu disclosed the logo of his TV brand, OnePlus TV, for the smart TV warm-up that can be launched at the end of September this year. Prior to this, OPPO Vice President Shen Yiren once said in Weibo that “OPPO’s new products are more than mobile phones” in the second half of the year, and the market interpreted the signal to enter the smart TV business.

“The mobile phone can connect to everything outside, this is the real intelligence. At present, TV manufacturers have not really solved this problem. The 5G accelerated landing broadband conditions are not restricted. Once the smart TV breaks this bottleneck, it relies solely on hardware devices. The profitable business model will change, and the market dividend is very worth looking forward to.” Home appliance industry observer Hong Shibin