The repeated epidemics, obstructed logistics, the collective absence of top anchors, and major platforms no longer frequently sending sales battle report data, all signs indicate that the 618 in 2022 can be said to be the lowest point in history.

Just when many merchants were sighing because sales were lower than expected, home appliance giant TCL achieved outstanding results that no one expected: the GMV of all categories during the 618 period exceeded 2.85 billion, a 50% year-on-year increase compared to 2021.

What is even more shocking is that during this period, TCL TV not only won the double championship of sales in the industry on JD.com and Tmall, with a year-on-year sales growth of 100%, but also won the double championship of e-commerce omni-channel sales volume and sales for giant-screen TVs above 75 inches and Mini LED TVs.

Why has TCL TV achieved such high growth amid the general downturn in the industry? What force is driving its counter-cyclical growth?

Technology leadership

Covering the entire TV industry chain

Science and technology are the primary productive forces, and this is particularly evident in the 3C field. Any brand that wants to establish a long-term advantage in this field is doomed to fail by simply creating topics in marketing. Only by investing heavily in technology and pursuing long-termism can it achieve success and ultimately drive the development of the entire market and even the industry.

Obviously, TCL has long been aware of this. "Sticking to real industry and promoting technological innovation" is not only a creed that is regarded as a guiding principle by corporate leaders, but has also been clearly included in the corporate culture and engraved into the brand's DNA.

Thirty years ago, when my country's TV industry started from scratch, many domestic TV companies chose the short and fast business route of "assembly plant" in order to bring their products to market as quickly as possible, because the foreign industry chain had a dimensional advantage over the domestic one. In fact, until now, some of our mobile phone and TV brands are still following the so-called light asset route of "earning some hard-earned money".

Everything has a price, and the times have already marked a price for all gifts.

These assembly plants that pursue "peace of mind" rely heavily on foreign supply chains, which results in them having almost no say in technological upgrades. Not only are they unable to use the latest technology, but they may also face supply cuts at any time due to various strange reasons.

Is it to adopt what others have or to develop and strengthen oneself? These two paths have finally converged at a crossroads in China's video industry, separating TCL from other brands.

Starting from the initial telephone products, TCL has chosen a path of self-development and self-strengthening. In the video field, an industry with an investment of hundreds of billions, although people inside and outside the industry think that TCL's plan to build its own industrial chain is too crazy - because no manufacturer in my country has ever had such an "ambitious" idea before, the reason is that the success rate is too low, so low that there is no hope even after investing for 10 to 20 years.

But TCL is serious. In order to develop the most important component that determines the display effect of TVs, namely display panels, CSOT was quickly established to specialize in the development of display panels and the latest display technology. In order to shorten the gap with top foreign manufacturers as much as possible, TCL has invested more than 240 billion yuan in the technology research and development of CSOT in just over a decade. This amount of money is enough to build two and a half Ford-class aircraft carriers.

CSOT finally lived up to expectations and lit up TCL's future with great success in the field of display technology. For example, TCL's own general technology platform is designed for technology universalization and accelerating product development; it launched the Quantum Dot Pro ultra-high-definition display technology, which is recognized as the best display effect; and it completed the technical layout and mass production of physical products in the two fields of Mini LED and QLED display technology, which are considered to be the future development direction of TV display panels.

With so many achievements, TCL finally joined the ranks of the world's leading display technology manufacturers. It also became the only company in China that fully covers the entire TV industry chain. Its dominant position in the industry is obvious to the naked eye. reward The assembly plants that make their livings have not only faced problems with basic supply amid rounds of spare parts reductions, but have also been affected in some ways by the pace of technological iteration. Even Sony, which has always been considered a traditional display powerhouse, is unable to avoid this.

Take Sony's recently launched 4K flagship Mini LED TV XR-X95EK series as an example. As always, it has an extremely high price. The 65-inch version is priced at 16,999 yuan, and the 85-inch top-end version is priced at 31,999 yuan.

For many Sony fans, this price may not be expensive, but in the eyes of industry insiders, this series of TVs is not only expensive, but also exposes some shortcomings of Sony's lack of sufficient technical support in the TV industry. The top-end version is priced at 31,999 yuan, but compared with the QD-Mini LED Smart TV X11 launched by TCL in March this year, apart from the obvious increase in price and brand halo, the latter is definitely better than the former in terms of configuration.

Why do I say that? In terms of the number of backlight partitions, which is the core of the Mini LED panel, the XR-X95EK has only a few hundred, while the TCL X11 has 2304, which is nearly three times as many. Therefore, the display effect is brighter, and the maximum excitation brightness exceeds that of the XR-X95EK. If you put the two TVs in front of you at the same time, the difference between the two is not to say that the difference is huge, but it is also obvious.

Not only that, the color display effect of the overseas version of the XR-X95EK tested by an evaluation agency was not ideal. It only covered 95% of the DCI P3 color gamut. The TCL X11, which uses the original quantum dot wide color gamut technology, has a DCI P3 color gamut coverage of 98%, and can display up to 1 billion colors. The color transition is smoother, eliminating the occurrence of color discontinuities.

Domestic products have already stood at the top of the world. Some of our friends have not had time to update this concept, respect the facts that have already happened, or let the concept remain in the past. In fact, just like the strong strength of domestic products in the field of electric vehicles, in the field of video, Chinese brands represented by TCL have already firmly established their top international strength. As long as we are not the "spiritual shareholders" of some traditional powerful brands, we can clearly understand the technological gap that TCL has actively opened up with its competitors in the field of Mini LED by going to the field to see and compare. This is not only the emergence of the strength of our domestic products in recent years, but also a kind of technological leadership glory that has accumulated for twenty years.

Deep insights

Accurately grasp user needs

For technology companies, "big company disease" is a cancer, because it not only leads to rigid corporate systems and inefficient operations, but also makes the company lack an innovative environment, and employees are unwilling and afraid to innovate. This is the most fatal harm in the ever-changing technology industry.

However, TCL, founded in 1981, has always kept a young heart, just like an eagle reborn, starting anew again and again. This has allowed the company to never have problems of conservatism or old-fashionedness in more than 40 years. Instead, it has always dared to innovate, persisted in innovation, and was not afraid to pay the price for innovation.

The second half of the sentence, "understanding users", is indeed better done by some domestic e-commerce brands with Internet origins than those international brands. However, in terms of the first half of the sentence - "high-tech", the distance from TCL is already incalculable. The reason is that as mentioned above, they are not willing to invest huge sums of money into the industrial chain, but are merely satisfied with being employees of upstream manufacturers.

Therefore, for high-end consumers with strong purchasing power in China, when they want to buy a high-end TV with excellent picture quality and a pleasant experience, the only choice available to them is TCL.

TCL refuses to pile up new terms on its TVs. Instead, as TCL has previously advocated, it "creates innovative experiences at the application scenario level from a future perspective". With specific scenarios for customers, TCL is undoubtedly less unrestrained than its peers. It is particularly conservative in "making up words and concepts". It just uses the low latency characteristics of 5G to combine cloud games and other application scenarios with high network latency requirements into TV products, making the best use of 5G technology. In addition, in terms of AIoT, it combines TCL's layout in the IoT ecosystem over the years with TV far-field voice interaction technology, making the TV the hub of the smart home, so that you can fully control the smart devices in your home without leaving the sofa, and providing some tangible directional guidance for TVs to become the C-level products in the family.

It is worth mentioning that TCL TV is significantly different from all its current competitors in terms of product strategy and industry layout. Although it has technical advantages that are envied by its peers, it has never taken a radical approach in technology. Instead, it still focuses on scenarios and user needs in product development, actively exploring new boundaries of user needs. The solid and powerful research and development rhythm is also reflected in the product at the first time, and then reflected in sales, forming a perfect logical self-consistency - good products will have good sales.

During the 618 shopping festival this year, TCL TV sales doubled year-on-year. On the one hand, TCL has proven its strength with its products, but it also shows that consumers are becoming more rational when it comes to brands, and are beginning to consider multiple dimensions between products and value. At a time when consumption is becoming more rational, it is inevitable that TCL will be favored by users. After all, who else can achieve "full force" in both technology research and development and user demand insights at the same time?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.