IT companies invade the home appliance industry: a single TV line will be

Hisense Group announced yesterday the launch of personal smart TV I'TV (my personal TV), which is also the world's first mobile smart TV.

Zhou Houjian, chairman of Hisense Group, said that it can be called a personal TV, it can also be seen as a tablet computer, or an e-book - he hopes to use this "gadget" to put young people away from big TV Pull back to the TV.

More and more IT companies have invaded home appliances. First, GoogleTV announced in June last year that it would cooperate with Sony to launch an Internet-TV integrated machine to extend its search business to TV; Baidu and China Digital Media reached an agreement on interactive TV and the Internet. Cooperation in television and other fields. IT giants cross-border home appliances, home appliance industry once worried that color TV was replaced by computers.

In addition, looking at the sales figures for the first quarter of 2011, the domestic color TV giants have all experienced stagnation or even year-on-year declines, and the overall flat-panel TV market in China has dropped to single digits.

In the face of this life-and-death challenge, color TV companies competed against each other and launched 3D TVs and smart TVs as the collective actions of color TV manufacturers in the past few months. Now, the focus of all parties is no longer confined to "television." Chinese home appliances have collectively begun the difficult journey of IT sprint.

IT companies invade home appliance industry

In the second half of 2010, Hisense Group conducted a research on television. In eight months, an exhaustive report was submitted: The people watching TV are getting older, fewer and younger, and more and more picking; more than 65% of young people are no longer watching TV; while in the United States, a company’s The results of the survey show that in the next few years, giving up TV may become a general trend.

This is undoubtedly bad news for the home appliance industry. The increasing loss of young consumers has become a huge pressure on traditional TV manufacturers. “The current consumer is not not watching TV. Instead, more people choose to watch videos. Young consumers will lock in the television's 'big screen' before enjoying audiovisual time and more fragmented time. , tablet, computer and other 'small screen'."

Zhou Houjian's remarks precisely reflect another layer of pressure from color TV manufacturers — IT companies' invasion of the home appliance industry in recent years. Due to the great development prospects of smart TVs, IT giants have entered the field of smart TVs. It is reported that Apple intends to use its immense success with its iPhone and iPad to enter smart TV, and plans to use iOS platform and "TV + iTunes mode", will be the first to release smart TV this fall, may integrate video content, games, blue light or DVD player and many other features.

In the smart TV market, Apple's accession can be a rock that excites the waves. Lenovo, Microsoft, Google and other IT giants all want to take the opportunity to enter the smart TV market. If Apple TV is introduced, relying on its innovative capabilities and strong brand support, it will inevitably put tremendous pressure on existing TV brand manufacturers.

Under the double pressure, how do traditional TV manufacturers respond to this life-and-death challenge?

According to industry insiders, the invasion of home appliances by IT companies has in turn given a hint to home appliance manufacturers. In order to re-call young people's attention, the key to realizing the self-redemption of the home appliance industry is undoubtedly the "IT-based TV."

TV operation mode subversion

In Zhou Houjian's view, Hisense's I'TV launched this time is an exploration. As a smart TV, I'TV has realized the functions of large screen, small screen, large screen, and remote screen transmission. With the introduction of smart recommendation, community dating and other software applications, I'TV is also a "social TV."

“The operating model of 'Thin Terminals and Cloud Backends' will form a complete subversion of traditional TV operations, and the color TV industry is shifting from a product-oriented industry to a service-oriented industry. In a traditional color TV industry, TVs are sold and televisions are equal to The end of the industry chain, but now different, TV sales is just the beginning of television value-added services." Zhou Houjian said, I'TV personal smart TV will bring new business opportunities for the background value-added services.

More than Hisense. Li Dong, chairman of TCL Group, said at Weibo before his birthday that 3G tablets will be launched at the end of the year. And Skyworth and Haier have a "smart" strategic layout.

It is understood that at the 2011 Hong Kong Electronics Fair held in Hong Kong, Skyworth introduced the latest model of the Tablet PC SKYPAD series, officially blew into the Tablet PC market clarion call. In addition, Skyworth will also start strategic cooperation with China Telecom to add more customized application software programs.

At this year's CES, Haier launched the world's first human-computer interactive smart TV. In addition, Haier is working closely with the four major telecom, Unicom, mobile, and broadcast operators, and is working to jointly promote the application of the Internet of Things in the home.

Industry experts believe that the layout of domestic large manufacturers not only promoted the research and development of smart TVs and overall industrial upgrading, but also fully promoted the trend of the color TV industry to the IT field.

The rise of "Pan TV" wave

In fact, since IT giants such as Google and Microsoft announced their entry into the television field, a wave of “ubiquitous TV” has arisen in the global color TV industry: On the one hand, TV is breaking through the attributes of its single audiovisual terminal and has evolved into a multi-screen architecture. Audio, entertainment, and communication functions are integrated in the information terminal; on the other hand, mobile phones, computers, and other products have also become video-playing terminals, and television-based, mobile phones, computers, and other products are the main components of the pan-TV product architecture that is emerging in the global industrial community. .

Luo Qingqi, an expert in the home appliance industry, said that TVs have become TV-based. Now everyone’s electronic devices have TV features. In the past, television was a closed-end program. Now that you have an online platform, you can look for what you want to see.

The competition focus of television manufacturers has also undergone qualitative changes, from technology and chips, to services. For Chinese companies, the era of pan-TV will make the domestic color TV industry face dual pressure: On the one hand, the domestic color TV industry has not yet come out of the constraints of panel resources, and it urgently needs to build an independent technological innovation platform. On the other hand, the era of pan-TV is rapidly rewriting the original industry competition rules. How to achieve strategic breakthroughs in operating systems, chips and other fields through strategic adjustment has become the biggest challenge faced by domestic color TV companies.

"In an intelligent competition, cooperation is as important as competition." Zhou Houjian said. Just before the release of the Hisense I'TV personal smart TV, the China Intelligent Multimedia Terminal Technology Alliance ("CICC"), which was initiated by three companies including Hisense, Changhong, and TCL, released China's first application store technology standard earlier this month.

The era of pan-TV has begun, and a new round of industry reshuffle is inevitable. What is placed in front of the home appliance industry may be an abyss that is beyond redemption, and may be an opportunity for reoccupation.