PC is dead, mobile phone is in charge, where is TV tomorrow?

The market has given the TV industry a red light. The soon-to-be-conceived 2014 is the first negative growth of China's color TV industry in 30 years. China Unicom and Aowei have estimated that this year's color TV market has experienced a decline of around 5%, and annual sales have remained at around 45 million units. Negative growth is likely to continue to become New normal in the industry. Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Group, frankly wondered, from the per capita possession of China is far lower than Europe and the United States, over the past few years, TV sales and cheaper, why users still do not buy it?

Internet beat resolution

Color TV industry is still tangled in resolution and color reproduction, the audience has been pulled away by the Internet, young people under the age of 35 watch the phone far more than watch TV. Sony’s Blu-ray and HD-DVD struggled for the high-definition standard for several years. Afterwards, although Sony won the standard competition, Blu-ray did not win the market. On the contrary, Internet video with poor resolution received more viewers, Youtube, etc. A number of video sites were successfully listed, and Sony suffered a series of losses.

High-definition and 3D once reduced the switching cycle of TVs from eight years to four or five years, but now it is difficult for consumers to pay for them simply by displaying upgrades. In 2014, 4K, OLED and curved TV came in. The latest offer for 40-inch 4K color TVs has been as low as RMB 3,000. Consumers' willingness to change machines has been greatly reduced. According to DisplaySearch, global 4K TV shipments exceeded 3 million units in the third quarter of 2014, of which 1.8 million units were sold in the Chinese market. Based on this calculation, the penetration rate of 4K in China is about 15%, which is lower than the industry's previous 25% expectation.

The 4K TV called Ultra HD has a resolution of 4096×2160, which is 4 times that of ordinary HD, but now the resolution of mainstream smart phones has reached 1920×1080, and it is moving towards 2560×1440. The TV is not upgraded any more. . The OLED ultra-thin TV did not duplicate the success of the LED. Samsung has suspended the development of OLED products to transfer curved surface TV UHD. However, the latter's market reaction is not as good as OLED. Only LG is still advancing the high and low OLED.

China's color TV companies collectively relied on the Internet. Tencent, Ali, iQiyi, and Youku Tudou all became partners in the color TV industry. They used the built-in APP to move online video directly to the big screen. The built-in WIFI module and video APP have become the standard for smart TVs, and have also gained market recognition. Zhong Yekang statistics show that in 2012, smart TV sales were 8.5 million units, and in 2013 it doubled to 16.9 million units. It is expected that the sales volume in 2014 will be It reached 35 million units and accounted for nearly 80% of the total color TV market.

The first screen is still in suspense

Not all entertainment needs are fragmented anywhere, anytime, and family entertainment is still a whole time shared by many people. The color TV industry regards video as the source of the program, but the Internet circles regard the color TV as the last virgin land. The PC is dead. The limitations of the mobile phone are increasingly prominent, and only the TV can carry more content and applications.

The intruder LeTV directly subverted the game rules of the color TV industry. LeTV's 60-inch super TV was priced at only 6,999, but the viewing video would cost 490 yuan per year for membership fees. LeTV's "hardware revenue + content payment + advertising revenue + application sharing" model is almost copy of Apple, it is application and services that support Apple's gross margin of 39%. In 2013, LeTV sold only 300,000 units, which rose to nearly 2 million units in 2014. If LeTV really can achieve profitability, it is undoubtedly a huge stimulus for color TV companies with single-digit gross margins. Liu Buchen, an observer of the household appliances industry, believes that Internet TV has fundamentally subverted the profit-making model of color TV companies that rely on hardware to make money, which is equivalent to shaking the foundation for the color TV industry to survive.

Li Dongsheng, chairman of TCL Group, admits that the color TV industry must make changes: “In the past, we moved around the customer. Even if the television is sold to the distributor, the task is completed. Now we have to turn around the users. What do we think of the audience after watching the TV? "In his view, the opportunity of the color TV industry in the Internet era lies in building its own ecosystem. This is another way for Apple. It is correct, but it is difficult to implement. None of the color TV manufacturers attracted enough developers to apply for TVs, although they used the most mainstream Android system. On the contrary, Ali was the first to set up the SmartTV Alliance, and Skyworth had cooperated with Ali to launch an online brand of cool TV. Haier also came up with Taobao TV.

In 2014, all kinds of boxes with certificates and licenses rose suddenly. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on TV, users can spend hundreds of dollars to buy a box not only to watch online videos, but also to watch TV. Ali, Baidu, LeTV, Xiaomi, almost all Internet companies have launched boxes, Skyworth, TCL, Hisense, Changhong is also selling TV while doing boxes, all kinds of cottage boxes are numerous. Until the summer of 2014, SARFT required all boxes to be closed to watch TV live broadcasts and look-back functions. Only seven licensee-side user systems, billing systems, and application stores could be used. What was even more shocking was the large-scale clean-up of SARFT's online video. The video app built in the smart TV was dropped. Subtitles websites such as Shooter.com and everyone's movie and television also closed down. The smart TV "had returned to liberation overnight."

Even greater regulatory efforts could not stop the Internet's enthusiasm for TV. The American drama and British drama escaped criticism and was overweight. Alibaba’s stake in Hua Digital Media directly binds licensees. Xiaomi hires Chen Yu from Sina and then injects Youku Potato and iQIYI. Iqiyi and Huace establish a joint venture company. LeTV Films is about to inject LeTV. According to Lei Jun, the content is correct. Any screen is "a matter of life and death." Even the box was not abandoned. In November 2014, Tencent announced that it would launch a box in 2015. According to Tencent video editor Wang Juan, one of Tencent's priorities in 2015 is the box, because TV is definitely the next video to watch. Mainstream.

From audience to users

In the cable TV era, there was a one-way push between the TV and the audience. In the Internet era, users have adapted to the two-way interaction. In addition to on-demand broadcasting, even a new interactive mode such as a barrage occurs. For users who have developed a screen-shooting habit, there are too many contents and too many screens to choose from. There are no boxes and other technical means, such as DLP large-screen projection. No matter how tight the supervision is, there is no obstacle to the Internet's entry into the big screen.

Video business is still the core of Internet TV, but video on the big screen is not enough. Applications such as Taobao TV and WeChat TV that require a keyboard are not easy to use on a large screen, and using a TV as a PC certainly does not work. The most suitable large-screen application for multiplayer participation is the game. In 2014, TCL and GAMELOFT cooperated to produce games and television. Many boxes also used the game as a living space for regulatory oversight. However, after the PS4 and Xbox finally lifted their forbidden landings, the number of people in the game box was very problematic.

Today's cloud technology can already interconnect mobile phones and televisions. One account can open all smart terminals. Mobile phones, PADs, and other devices can be used as TV peripherals. Tencent and Youku have all proposed to develop “suitable for all screens” to allow users to form new interactive communities. However, there are no examples of how TV APPs actually play. Online education and health services are not a good thing. Not only did one company see the opportunity, but they did not find a suitable way to present it.

Smart TVs have made great improvements in content, but they are still far from enough in terms of ease of use and interactivity. The phone has no buttons for a long time, and the buttons on the TV remote control are quite a few. Including music, including the current smart TV interface is generally not easy to use, voice control, gesture control accuracy is too low, in name only. There are also companies trying to replace the remote control with APP and WeChat, but watching TV with a mobile phone always feels something is wrong. The opening rate of the APP is already very low. It is better to use WeChat. For example, put the TV program list on the WeChat, the user will pop up a reminder after the collection, or add the barrage function to facilitate the collective Tucao users.

TV broadcasters are even more problematic than television. Users are surrounded by massive amounts of online video every day. Why pay for TVs that aren’t open on a monthly basis? More than half of the more than 200 million cable TV users in the country now have HD set-top boxes, but data cards need to be inserted in the boxes. Even if you buy an all-in-one computer, you must buy another card. The future TV may even have the HDMI interface removed, all content is transmitted over the network, users can not even set-top boxes, not to mention the data card.