Text / Aachen

Source: Deep sound (ID: deep-echo)

The replacement cycle is longer and the supply chain is more complicated. What will happen to the future TV industry in the Red Sea?

Six years ago, on May 7, LeTV's first-generation TV X60 was released, opening the first year of Internet TV. Today, after experiencing a dramatic rise and fall, the Chinese name changed to Letong's Letv released the Super 5 series and the Y series TV products for young people.

As time passed, Letv fell from the absolute position of Internet TV, and Internet TV experienced a difficult period of stall.

Compared with mobile phones, the TV has a longer change cycle and the supply chain is more complicated. After throwing out concepts such as VR, AI, IoT, etc., is the “Intelligence” TV window still in place? What is the key to the success of TV in the new development stage where the increment is still unclear? Traditional home appliances and Internet companies are working together, and even Huawei is coming. In the Red Sea, what will happen to the future TV industry?

Rise and stall

Regardless of whether or not you are willing to admit, Liu Shuqing, the vice president of Rongchuang Culture Group and the new chairman and CEO of Lerong, can announce the new products of Lerong TV today. The first person to thank is probably Jia Yueting.

About seven or eight years ago, Internet TV was an idea in Jia Yueting’s mind. He wants to push high-definition paid content in the carrier market and believes that IPTV (interactive network TV) is a better export. Judging from the big TV trend, he has faintly felt that the TV industry may have such new opportunities in the future. He wants to make smart set-top boxes and TVs, based on Android.

But at that time, no one in the TV industry did Android, so the Android expert in the mobile phone industry became the target of Jia Yueting's dispatch of headhunting. This was the time when Liang Jun, the vice president of Lenovo Group's mobile Internet and digital home group product development, joined LeTV in 2012.

In addition to the introduction of the generals Liang Jun, Jia Yueting also made an important and correct thing in 2012 — — won the Foxconn OEM. In mid-June, Jia Yueting went to Taiwan to participate in a purchasing group.

Earlier, LeTV had contacted Foxconn for more than two years, but it was blocked every time. Under the introduction of Bai Weimin, the secretary-general of the China Electronics Video Industry Association, Jia Yueting made an appointment to visit Guo Taiming for 3 to 5 minutes during the dinner.

“Last year, LeTV started to discuss TV in February and March, and has never dared to start. The main reason is that there is no support from the foundry.” Liang Jun recalled.

After everything is ready, Dongfeng has come.

After the short-lived "OTT set-top box" growth period, the Internet TV's baton was handed over to the smart TV. LeTV TV entered the fast lane with an ecological banner. From 2014 to 2016, LeTV's TV sales were 1.5 million units, 3 million units and 6 million units respectively.

LeTV has been ranked first in Internet TV for a long time. Taking the pattern of 2015 as an example, the sales volume of 3 million is more than twice that of Xiaomi and more than twice that of Cool.

Below the mass production cost pricing, ecological subsidy hardware, and subversion, these three words are Liang Jun's "mantra" during the LeTV period. But when he said these words, the companies in the same industry actually had a fire — — suddenly lowered the price, the entire industry's profits were thinned.

The entry of Xiaomi further satisfies the low price of Internet TV. Xiaomi Wangchuan once recalled Lei Jun’s suggestion to him to do TV: “Lei Jun said that we are not a company that can sell more high prices and set more high prices. We are a product that can sell more low prices and set low prices. the company. ”

The price of a 40-inch Internet TV has dropped to a thousand dollars, which is almost the same as a low-end mobile phone. In 2014, after LeTV Xiaomi entered the TV field, Liu Weizhi, vice president of Skyworth Group and president of color TV business unit, publicly stated that LeTV and Xiaomi have lowered the overall price of color TV by 10%.

According to data from Avi Consulting (AVC), the average price of color TVs in January-November 2014 was 3,271 yuan, down 9% from 2013. In June 2014, the lowest price in the whole year fell below 3,000 yuan.

“The low-price strategy of Internet companies is understandable and a regular method, but there is a saying in Jianghu that it is always necessary to come out. & nbsp; Liu Weizhi believes that the production of a lot of time, energy, technology and cost, the production cost is 1000, the result price is only 800, the low-cost mode of unconscion is a violation of economic laws.

Rumor has pointed out that Skyworth President Yang Dongwen once proposed to invest in Skyworth and Wang Xiao to make smart TV. However, due to the inconsistency of the concept, if you do it in the millet mode, you have to sell it at the cost price. Skyworth can't accept the model of not only making money but also losing money, and finally giving up the idea of ​​cooperating with Wang Chuan.

The crazy low price has been maintained for two years, and it has brought unprecedented opportunities in the TV industry. — In 2016, the retail sales of China's color TV market reached 50.89 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%. However, the retail sales of the whole industry was 156 billion yuan, down 1.8% year-on-year. To put it bluntly, this is an increase in revenue.

In the second half of 2016, the price of TV LCD panels showed a dramatic reversal. In the first half of the year, the price of some size panels fell by more than 40%, and the cost reduction made the whole machine enterprises more flexible in the price strategy. But in the second half of the year, TV panel prices rebounded rapidly. Screen cost accounts for more than 60% of TV production costs, so the impact of panel price increases on TV costs is particularly prominent.

At the time, the author had a brief exchange with the BOE (BOE), the world's largest LCD panel shipment. The relevant person pointed out that the increase in panel prices was mainly affected by the change in supply and demand. The mobile phone, tablet, TV and other types of terminal products have shown a large-scale trend.

For every 1 inch increase in the average size of the TV panel, you can digest the capacity of an 8.5-generation TFT-LCD production line. With the existing capacity unchanged, the LCD panel shipment area has increased significantly, shipments have declined, and panels are in short supply.

In fact, in addition to the rise in panel prices, other raw materials are also rising prices. The most fearful situation of the low-price strategy has emerged: once the cost rises, the company has no time to change the pricing, and the loss is hard to avoid.

Sure enough, on November 21, 2016, LeTV Super TV announced a price increase. Some products were raised by 100 yuan, and some were raised by 300 yuan. The reason is that the panel price increase has exceeded the ecological subsidy capacity.

As of the end of October 2016, the total sales volume of LeTV's super TV has reached 9 million units.

In the stretch of funds, time came to 2017, which should have collectively erupted but actually collectively stalled.

With the outbreak of the LeTV debt crisis, the LeTV brand was seriously affected, and the sales of super TVs also fell. According to the statistics of the data that can be monitored by third-party organizations, the total online sales of Super TV in 2017 was only 410,000 units.

It seems that everything about Letv will come to an abrupt end here, and for other players on the track, it is both “stunningly good news” and “by the way”.

The good news is that LeTV's stall is undoubtedly giving up a big market share. Who can swallow this cake, who can completely sit on the top spot of Internet TV; the disaster is that the destruction of LeTV's ecological game is buried in the hearts of consumers. Under the seeds of distrust: Is Internet TV unreliable?

The stage was handed over to Xiaomi, Storm, Wei Whale, PPTV.

Hard two years

“More and more people find that they should use good products to occupy the market, instead of hitting the market with low prices. This is the perceptual cognition that Internet TV brands have gained since 2017.

& rdquo; PPTV Gathering Home Internet Business Unit General Yin Yuan is summing up the crux of Internet TV. Its PPTV is backed by Suning Channel, and launched its TV products in 2015, featuring “Hardware+Content+Service+Electronics”. But just last month, PPTV smart TVs also cut prices across the board.

The truth is cruel. According to Zhongyikang data, the retail volume of color TVs in China in 2017 fell by 8.1% year-on-year, the largest decline in the past 15 years.

Not only Internet TV, but also traditional color TV giants are in danger. In addition to the overseas sales of TCL LCD TVs exceeding the sales volume of 23.23 million units, others have encountered problems in 2017 ——

1. Hisense: Hisense Electric, which is the main color TV, achieved operating income of RMB 33.009 billion, up 3.69% year-on-year. However, due to the downturn in the TV market and the sharp increase in panel prices, the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was RMB 942 million, a year-on-year decrease. 46.45%.

2. Skyworth: Skyworth Digital was affected by the cost increase of 32.68%, and its net profit fell by 80%.

The overall share of Internet TV brands also fell from nearly 20% in 2017 to 10%, and in the next two years, the negative frequency ——

3. China International Broadcasting and Television Network's own intelligent terminal brand “Looking at TV” has exposed negative news such as layoffs, defaults on suppliers and even internal management confusion.

4. The micro-whale was exposed to 2.8 million public relations companies last year, and founder Li Huaiyu chose to leave.

5. Storm TV Due to financial situation, the net loss of the TV company in 2017 was as high as 320 million yuan.

6, Lenovo 17TV, Thunderbird, KKTV, love mango, popular brands and other brands, most of them are no longer actively releasing new products, and some even completely stopped updating.

Storm Internet intelligent hardware sales, production, inventory are greatly reduced

The only thing that benefits from the market contraction is Xiaomi.

Xiaomi TV, which is also the main price/performance ratio, has taken over the banner of Internet TV. In September 2018, Xiaomi announced that it sold the first in the domestic market in the second quarter. In late April 2019, Xiaomi also proudly stated at the spring new product launch conference that Xiaomi TV sales were the first in China in the fourth quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year.

Founded Skyworth's "color TV king"; Huang Hongsheng once expressed his appreciation for Xiaomi in an interview with the interface reporter: "Millet has its unique competitiveness, its success is indeed to incite large industries with the least investment. Industry, this is what makes it unique. ”

Falsification and survival

Liu Yaoping, a TV veteran who has worked in Skyworth for more than ten years, and TV CEO Liu Yaoping shared with the author the two core differences between Internet TV and traditional TV ——

First, the logic of the cognitive industry is different. “Traditional TV sets are sold out,” Liu Yaoping said: “But Internet companies not only sell products, but also organize users, ensure the number of members, and whether users are active. ”

Second, the product orientation is different. Traditional manufacturers do TV sets, which are supply chain oriented. And Storm TV is a scene-oriented, first express the scene of using the product, then look at the supply chain.

When time came to 2019, a recognized trend was that the separation between Internet TV and traditional TV was no longer evident. TCL, Skyworth, Hisense, Konka, etc. “traditional home appliances” are also making efforts to promote product intelligence and scenes.

1. TCL actively chooses to transform and embraces the changes of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) for the whole category and the whole scene.

Rebuilding competitiveness on the new track, TCL rushing to the beach AI x IoT

1. Skyworth released the AIoT eco-brand Skyworth Swaiot and the Q80 series of high-end TVs that have placed the vision of Skyworth's large-screen AIoT eco-center. It also said that Skyworth will focus on AI TV to create a smart living system that links the entire smart home. In the past year, Skyworth has bet 7 billion yuan to build a smart industry innovation base.

Users can view, manipulate and manage the entire house's Swaiot&trade on the Q80 series TV through far-field voice interaction;

2. Hisense officially released the young independent brand VIDAA, and officially announced that it has successfully developed "social TV" to achieve a non-distance, no-delay video call function similar to that of smart phones.

But the entry of many giants did not make things better immediately.

At the time of LeTV, Liang Jun made a judgment on the macro environment of the future market: in recent years, a large number of new Internet brands entered the smart TV market, which lacked effective growth, in various names, and overdrafted sales in the next few years; real estate in the economic environment The adjustment of the market may continue for some time, and the sales of TV products lack effective promotion of the real estate industry.

TV itself is durable goods, consumption of low frequency, according to the smart TV 5 – 6 years of replacement cycle, these two years are in the middle of the replacement period. At the same time as the increase is difficult, the competition is even more intense. AI, IoT can not only home appliance companies ——

Last year, one plus mobile phone announced that it would explore the smart home market and choose TV as a breakthrough. (This is a deep reading related report: one plus mobile phone, finally made TV), and this year's rumors about Huawei's TV is also rampant.

Under such a pattern, is there a chance to break through the name of Letfu?

Leshi Eco (left) vs Le Rong Eco (right)

“From the perspective of industry synergy, the intelligent IOT we are doing now can directly enter the pre-installation market through the to B terminal. This is an advantage for us. This is not only because Sunac is our shareholder, we can enter Sunac, because We have such a background that allows us to plow in this industry. ”

In the interview after the press conference today, Liu Shuqing told “Deep Ring”: “We are the only Internet channel in the Sunac sector. In the production incubation operation of IP, we will become their export, and the future will be great. The screen will enjoy the continuous cultivation of the cultural group in the content industry, and one day will certainly bring us geometric growth. ”

In addition, Liu Shuqing said that Le Rong is generally a soft-soft combination of software-driven Internet genes. In terms of revenue model, it mainly comes from hardware and operations including commercialization of advertisements. “Compared with friends, LeFeng’s core competitiveness lies in product input, research and development, and user interaction. We completely inherit the genes of the past super TV. ”

That is to say, Lerong's competitiveness is reflected in the inheritance of the past LeTV super TV's advantages, and from the support of major shareholders. Compared with other “friends”, Le Rong does not focus on hot areas such as IoT and AI, but instead focuses on home entertainment itself.

Guo Qiao, President of Lerong New TV Business Unit, told “Deep Ring” that the goal of Lerong TV this year is to achieve 1 million units and 2 million units, and return to the first camp of Internet TV.

Prior to this, “Friends” had a 229% annual growth rate of 229%, and raised the ambition to challenge 10 million units of shipments in 2019; Huawei even set the first year for Huawei TV sales to reach The flag of 10 million units; TCL intelligent terminal shouted the goal of achieving 200 billion revenues in five years ……

In the Red Sea, what will happen to the future TV industry? —— This is an open question. But there is no doubt that after the resurrection of Letv, the market will be stirred up a bit, and a new round of fierce competition in the TV industry will begin.

The following is an excerpt from the interviews between the media and the management of Lerong:

Q: Traditional home appliance companies and Internet companies are in the layout. Everyone's style of play is similar, content + hardware. What is the core competitiveness of Le Rong? What is the future competitive situation?

Liu Shuqing:Few industries have only one manufacturer or few competitors. In the TV market, we have seen Huawei continue to join, indicating that the market itself is still hot. We firmly believe that home entertainment with a big screen as the core is still the future trend.

We see that TV can provide us with a lot of entertainment experience on the one hand. On the other hand, the big screen itself will be able to expand more in the future. It will also become one of the family members, just like EUIoT said today, this is us. Le Rong Letv“ second generation IoT TV” future direction.

What core competitiveness do we have compared to other friends? Today, everyone attending our conference should be able to understand our investment in product development and product and user interaction. In these respects, we completely inherit the genes of the past super TV. In terms of product strength, we believe that we are still leading in the future. It is a company that gives itself a position in the industry. We are still a company that must continue to build product strength, continuous innovation, and provide users with products that can enter his heart. This is our core competitiveness.

Q: Are there any new breakthroughs and changes in the service model of Lerong?

Liu Shuqing:You can see that Letv Super TV has always been unchanged. We are very much convinced of the original business model. We believe that in the past, the company has always made the right decisions and strategies in this direction, and we will continue the original strategic direction.

In the future, we will add on this basis. We will combine 5G. The development of IoT technology is our advantage. Lerong is a company with multi-cultural integration. In the past, we were more inclined to technology, and now we have Sunac’s major shareholders. The background, including the synergy of the cultural and recreational industry, will definitely enrich and supplement the genes of the company's technology.

From the industrial synergy, the intelligent IOT we are doing now can directly enter the pre-installation market through the to B terminal. This is an advantage for us. This is not only because Sunac is our shareholder, we can enter Rongchuang because we have Such a background allows us to plow in this industry.

To C, we are now working in depth with JD. Now we are still in the R&D stage. Today we don’t mention it too much because in the R&D stage, we will implement a simple connection with the user level through the interface standard and TV in the future. This connection will also be a good complement to future business models.

Q: Will the income model change?

Liu Shuqing:In general, we are still a soft-hard combination of software-driven Internet genes. From the revenue model, we mainly come from these aspects, one is hardware and the other is our operation, including commercialization of advertising.

Q: What are the imaginations of Lerong Super TV in the future?

Liu Shuqing:We are one of the four major sectors of Sunac, and the layout of Sunac is from the real estate, service to the cultural and cultural, cultural, we are in the cultural sector. Lerong is a technology-based company. We are the only Internet channel in the Sunac sector. In the production incubation operation of IP, we will become their export, and the future will enjoy the cultural group in the big screen. The continuous deep cultivation of the industry will surely bring us geometric growth in the future. It will take some time, but now our direction is very clear.

Q: What kind of requirements does Sunachuang make for Lerong TV? What kind of financial support does Rongrong have for Le Rong?

Liu Shuqing:The first thing to mention is the support of Sunac. Lerong has solved many difficult problems in the past two years, including today's development. Every bit of it is inseparable from the support of Sunac. We are very grateful to have such a major shareholder. At this time, I have a very good place to stand up. This is the aspect of support. In addition, Sun Yiyi’s visit to the office of Lerong Building has brought great morale to the employees, which is beyond doubt. When Sun Hao came, Guo Qiao came, Li Xiaowei came, and many industry big coffee and heavyweight characters came to us, which was a very good positive encouragement for employees.

Q: The price of the Y series is very low. Is it necessary to compete with Xiaomi on the low end?

Guo Qiao (President of Le Rongzhi New TV Business Unit):This year, as a music super music, we set ourselves the goal of returning to the first camp of Internet TV. When this goal is said, it will be clear what to do this year.

Looking at Internet TV from the data of 2018, Xiaomi is the only one. If we can achieve more than 1 million units and 2 million units, we can return to the first camp of Internet TV. So our goal this year is based on these volumes and market share. We don't define who our competitors are, Xiaomi, Cool Open, PPTV, it doesn't matter.

The super 5 series released by Le Rong Super TV today, the future super TV must be the mainstream direction of the product. This market has a lot of imagination. In the low-end market, we don’t do it and others have to grab this share. We think In this space, it is necessary to take a part of the product to get a spoonful.

Q: At present, the saying of HML is circulating in the market. Where are the advantages and disadvantages of Huawei Xiaomi and Le Rong? Compared with the Big Three, Le Rong only works as a TV brand. Is there any new plan for other categories?

Guo Qiao:Regardless of how you say it, everyone is willing to put the three brands together, indicating that these three brands have their own unique attributes from the traditional TV industry. For example, the Letv Super TV in front of Lerong is the founder of Internet TV. When Letv Super TV encountered some setbacks, Xiaomi quickly replaced its original status. People are full of expectations for Huawei to enter TV in the future. I hope to see these three brands fall in love in the future Internet TV market. It should be noted that these three brands will definitely bring considerable impetus to the future development of the TV industry. If we simply evaluate their respective advantages and disadvantages, we will not be able to talk about it.

In terms of channels, Xiaomi and Huawei will rely on professional e-commerce and their own online stores, but the offline is completely using the original mobile phone channel to establish a specialty store, doing self-built channels, and LeTV just started to play LePar At that time, it was a bit similar. After LeTV was replaced by Lerong Super TV, we only made a TV brand. Therefore, we turned into a collection of home appliance dealers. From the channel, we are developing in different directions. Each has its own direction.