The History Is Strikingly Similar. Will Smart Screen War Reprint The Ending Of Internet TV War?

Recently, Liu zuohu, founder and CEO of Yijia mobile, said at an event that Yijia TV, which has been released in the Indian market this year, is planned to be launched in the domestic market next year. After Huawei and glory launched the smart screen, another mobile phone manufacturer announced that it would enter the domestic color TV market.

However, the smart screen launched by Huawei and glory this year doesn't seem to stir up much water in the color TV market. According to the data of Ovi cloud, Xiaomi, Skyworth and Hisense ranked the top three in the sales volume from January to November 2019, and Huawei and glory's smart screen products did not enter the top ten. Li Yaqin, an analyst at Qunzhi consulting, also said that at present, Huawei's smart screen has only two models of 65 inch and 75 inch, and its price is much higher than that of the same size brands on the market, which has seriously affected the product volume. The analyst predicted that Huawei's smart screen will ship less than 300000 sets in 2019, accounting for less than 1% of the total market volume of 50 million sets in China, which is far from the annual sales target of 10 million sets previously reported by the media.

The relatively negative feedback from the market was quickly delivered to the sales side. Huawei's smart screen is positioned in the high-end market. The selling price of Huawei's smart screen v65 is 6999 yuan, while glory smart screen is positioned in the middle and high-end market, starting from 3799 yuan. However, when China home appliance network looked up an e-commerce platform, it found that the price of glory smart screen has been reduced by 800 yuan, from 2999 yuan, and Huawei smart screen v65 has also dropped to 6599 yuan. The price reduction of the products also seems to imply that Huawei and glory are not as smooth as they think in the process of entering the color TV market this year. Considering Huawei's influence in the domestic market and the overall performance of the color TV market this year, it seems more difficult for other new brands to impact the existing color TV market.

Seven years ago, LETV, Stormwind and other Internet companies started the era of Internet television, and now these brands are gradually losing voice. This year, Huawei, Yijia and Yijia announced to join the field of smart home, which is also a new opportunity for new brands to find in the color TV market. Will the ending of the story that happened to Internet TV reappear?

A new round of color TV competition initiated by Huawei

Huawei's actions in the color TV market this year have attracted the attention of color TV companies. It was hard to see through the real and the false. In March this year, it was reported that Huawei would release TV products. In April, Huaxing optoelectronics confirmed the existence of Huawei TV. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, has repeatedly said that he will not be involved in the field of traditional TV, while Zhao Ming, President of Huawei glory, stressed the difference between his own products and traditional TV. Before that, the glory smart screen and Huawei smart screen, which were always under the mysterious veil, were successively launched in the second half of this year.

Huawei's entry into the color TV market is regarded by many enterprises as a signal of the second change in the color TV industry after the era of Internet TV. Huawei has advantages in brand, industrial chain supporting and Internet of things, and its entry into the color TV industry is also favored by some insiders.

According to the data of Ovi cloud, the retail volume of Q3 color TV market in 2019 was 10.34 million, down 3.6% year-on-year; the retail volume was 27.7 billion yuan, down 10.4% year-on-year, and the growth rate fell for four consecutive quarters. Some color TV companies hope to use Huawei to enter the topic of color TV market and stimulate the recovery of color TV market. Wang Wei, vice general manager of Hisense Electric Co., Ltd. and general manager of marketing company, once said, "welcome Huawei and other enterprises to enter the display industry, because the entry of Huawei as a 'variable', Hisense will run faster. We also hope that they can bring the 'highlight' of the public opinion field to the TV industry, so that you can see that in this industry, in addition to the price war, there are also constantly updated technologies."

At present, Huawei has not impacted the existing top brands in the domestic color TV market, nor has it reversed the downward trend of this year's color TV market. In November, the overall retail volume of domestic color TV market was 6.59 million, up 7.0% year on year; the overall retail volume was 17.5 billion yuan, down 5.1% year on year, and the overall average price was 2700 yuan, down 11.2% year on year. Although the retail volume has increased, the retail volume and average price still keep declining, and the pressure of color TV industry has not been effectively relieved.

Although Huawei's smart screen products have some unique technologies, such as intelligent portrait locking, intelligent light compensation, etc., both the photography function and video call function have appeared in the traditional TV, which is more like the function upgrade in essence, and can't let consumers distinguish the smart screen products from the traditional TV.

For ordinary consumers, especially the older ones, their demand for TV is often just to watch TV programs, these technical highlights obviously can not be the reason to attract them to buy. On the other hand, young consumers have a low frequency of using color TV products, especially the younger people after the 95s and the 00s, who may be more accustomed to using smart phones rather than color TV products.

In addition, although smart home is the future development direction of color TV industry, in the short term, consumers' cognition of this development direction still lags behind, resulting in the products with these technologies as the selling point may only attract a few consumers who want to try new products. This is an important reason why smart screen products have not changed consumers' buying habits.

Familiar air chase

Huawei and glory cut into the color TV market with "smart screen", which is similar to the situation that LETV, storm and other Internet brands set off "Internet TV wave". Although it seems that the former is on the high-end line and the latter is on the low-cost line, in essence, new players hope to reach the goal of entering the color TV market by redefining the concept of color TV.

After new players such as LETV and Stormwind enter the game, Internet TV has become the first round of reform direction of color TV industry. In the way of "hardware free + content payment", these brands rely on low-cost strategy for marketing to make up for their own shortcomings in technology, supply chain and other aspects. Later, they are also imitated by traditional color TV brands. However, the marketing strategy of selling at a price lower than the cost finally increased the burden of many Internet TV enterprises. Stormwind TV was out of the game and LETV changed owners, leaving Xiaomi and a number of traditional brands who insisted on selling at a price higher than the cost to stay in the venue. The tide of Internet TV is coming and going.

In fact, Huawei's entry has brought similar signs. After seeing HUAWEI launch the products that jump away from the concept of color TV, some traditional brands soon try to avoid the concept of color TV when launching new products, and name the products based on the characteristics of wisdom and large screen. For example, Konka launched the "future screen" which focuses on smart and AI labels this year, Changhong launched the "extreme screen" which claims to have four core functions, i.e. GEE smart control, gee smart transmission, gee smart communication and GEE smart play, and TCL launched the "Super Screen" which covers 4K, 8K definition and 75-100 inch size.

Huawei, first Canada and other new brands focus on color TV as an entrance to smart home. In June this year, He Gang, President of Huawei's consumer business product line, announced Huawei's "1 + 8 + n" full scenario strategy in the 5g era. Mobile phones drive eight businesses: TV, tablet, audio, glasses, watches, car phones, headphones, PC and tablet, and further drive five sectors: mobile office, smart home, sports and health, video and audio entertainment and smart travel. Liu zuohu, founder and CEO of Yijia mobile, also said that five or even 10 years later, color TV will exist in a new form, thinking that now is the time to cut into smart home.

But these new brands are also facing many problems. Although they can use their influence in the mobile phone industry to attract a few loyal brand users, in the short term, the influence of brands on color TV products is limited, which may take a long time to improve consumers' awareness of their color TV products. The color TV industry belongs to the traditional manufacturing industry and has entered a mature period. Traditional TV enterprises such as Hisense and Skyworth have formed their own technical barriers. While new brands try to attract consumers through new concepts, these concepts are also quickly absorbed by traditional brands and integrated into their products. Moreover, before these new brands are announced, many traditional brands have been launched It is difficult for ordinary consumers to distinguish the differences of color TV products for smart home scenes. After this wave of "wisdom wave", it may be those traditional brands that have accumulated deeply.

In addition, the panel industry shows signs of recovery, which may also help traditional brands to further consolidate their advantages. In December this year, the attention of capital market to BOE, TCL group and other panel companies increased. It is reported that BOE will raise its price in January next year, causing some enterprises to purchase ahead of schedule. As the new brands launch new products in this year and next year, the panel cost will rise, which may lead to the product price rise to some extent. Due to the capacity scale of traditional brands, purchasing from Panel Companies has a greater voice, which can appropriately reduce costs. However, new brands do not have an advantage in this respect, so they may be further impacted by traditional brands when they are not yet firmly established in the color TV market.

Li Xiaoshuang, general manager of Xiaomi TV, once announced in July this year that Xiaomi TV's sales volume and shipment volume in the first half of this year ranked first in the domestic market. It took six years for Xiaomi, who has been in the color TV market to be the top, to pursue the cost-effective strategy. The difficulty of new brands entering the color TV market is obvious. From the current point of view, these new brands trying to jump out of the concept of color TV, in order to establish new advantages in the color TV market, may need to be prepared for a long-term war.