Smart TV industry annual summary: larger size, upgraded content, market restart, and user return

2020 is about to pass. If we have to choose a keyword for this year, "epidemic" must be the first thing that comes to mind. Because this sudden epidemic has not only changed our living habits, but also posed a strong impact and challenge to all walks of life in which we are.

Of course, just like the universal saying "opportunities and challenges coexist", in a dialectical context, opportunities are indeed born with challenges.

For example, in the field of smart TVs, after the outbreak, the average daily viewing time of large screens in living rooms across the country increased by 22.7%, and the average daily viewing time also increased by half an hour. Television, a traditional information and entertainment medium, has finally entered the fast lane of development this year.

Large size

Under the continuous impact of mobile phones, it is an undeniable fact that the influence of smart TVs has declined. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, the sales volume of smart TVs in China in 2019 was only 47.72 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 2.0%, and the retail sales volume was 134 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.2%.

For this reason, some industry analysts are pessimistic about the smart TV market, believing that the trend of declining shipments is almost irreversible.

However, this situation was finally reversed in the first half of this year, and the ultra-large screen smart TV market saw a significant growth point. According to CMM data, in February 2020, the sales volume of ultra-large screen TVs in China increased by 30% year-on-year. From January to May 2020, the sales volume of ultra-large screen TVs above 75 inches increased by 109.6% year-on-year.

With the overall positive trend in the smart TV market this year, the continued hot sales of ultra-large screens may only indicate that this sub-category has unique product highlights, but we cannot ignore the dual background of market shrinkage and the epidemic. In this environment, the continued hot sales of ultra-large screen TVs in 2020 is actually illustrating a problem: In the previous competition for user time, it is not inevitable that smart TVs lag behind smartphones. If TVs do a good job of building product perception at the consumer level and launch products that meet the trend of user consumption upgrades, the market will also give smart TVs a warm embrace.

8K

Complementing the explosion of ultra-large-screen TVs is the blossoming of 8K technology in 2020. In the first half of 2020, China's 8K TV sales increased by 462.6% year-on-year.

Two years after the call for "the first year of 8K" was heard, 8K TV was finally launched on a large scale. In addition to the price reduction of hardware products, the industry's own development inertia and users' demand for new experiences are also driving its implementation as soon as possible.

First of all, the maturity of the product supply chain makes the large-scale implementation of 8K TVs possible.

Take CSOT as an example. Although it started accumulating 8K display technology early on, CSOT's 11th-generation 8K ultra-high-definition and ultra-large-screen display production line, which cost 46.3 billion yuan, did not start large-scale production until this year. It is precisely because of this that TCL has the confidence to launch 11 ultra-large-screen TV products of 75 inches and above in one go.

On the other hand, the synchronous construction at the content level also ensures that consumers will not purchase lame products with “no content to play”.

During this year's two sessions, Xinhua News Agency realized the "5G+8K+satellite" live broadcast for the first time; in November, the Chinese Super League final also completed an 8K ultra-high-definition live broadcast test in Suzhou, exploring the technical path for subsequent 8K broadcasts; and before the postponement of the Japanese Olympics, NHK also announced that it would broadcast all Olympic events in 8K signals...

Of course, although with the maturity of the industry, 8K TVs have begun to show signs of large-scale implementation, it is regrettable that China's mainstream streaming platforms are not yet ready to provide 8K video content on a larger scale.

After comparing the picture quality of "The Wandering Earth" on Youku and Netflix, some media said that the "4K" version on Youku is actually only equivalent to Netflix's 1080P full HD.

Nevertheless, considering the continued positive market performance of ultra-large screens in the smart TV industry, although 8K TV is only an improvement in resolution, just like the differentiated experience that movie theaters focus on, 8K TV can bring users the ultimate picture experience that other terminals cannot match. This product direction will become the main focus of future TV products for a long time.

Cloud Gaming

The "2020 China Internet Audio-Visual Development Research Report" shows that short videos have become a magic tool for "killing time". After the average daily usage time of short video applications exceeded that of comprehensive video applications in the second half of 2018, in June 2020, short videos surpassed instant messaging with an average daily usage time of 110 minutes per person, ranking first.

Although this is a report from other industries, it sends two bad signals to the smart TV industry:

1. TV users are further migrating to mobile Internet;

2. The appeal of long videos featured on TV is gradually weakening.

However, after experiencing wave after wave of targeted attacks on televisions by mobile phones, the thinking of smart TV content operators has become more flexible. They no longer adhere to dogmatic content strategies and are constantly looking for changing product routes to "learn from the enemy in order to defeat the enemy."

Ultimately, the main reason why mobile phones occupy most of most people's daily time is nothing more than because the Internet content on mobile phones can better meet users' expectations.

Content, and more content.

In 2020, smart TVs have seen a flourishing exploration of content, but the most notable trend is undoubtedly cloud gaming.

At the beginning of this year, Coocaa Network introduced "cloud gaming" when it launched its game zone; in mid-2020, Hisense teamed up with JD.com to release a 4K 120Hz gaming TV that supports cloud gaming; at the end of 2020, Tencent's Xianyou cloud gaming platform, which had been preheated for a long time, was also launched on the TV side...

The popularity of cloud gaming is influenced by two factors. First, due to historical reasons, China's living room gaming market has not been effectively developed. According to data from the Game Working Committee, in 2019, China's mobile games and PC games accounted for 68.9% and 26.5% of the market share respectively, and console games accounted for only 0.3%. Second, with the development of 5G technology, cloud gaming has the technical foundation to sweep the gaming industry. According to data from TouBao Research Institute, the compound annual growth rate of China's cloud gaming market from 2018 to 2023 will be 58.2%. It is expected that by 2023, the scale of China's cloud gaming market will reach 4.13 billion yuan, becoming the main battlefield of the gaming market.

Taking these two factors into consideration, once cloud gaming is fully mature, as the best carrier for console games, there is no reason why smart TVs should not experience a wave of product updates similar to the early days of the Internet.

Mobile phone manufacturers

When Xiaomi entered the TV industry seven years ago, no one would have thought that Xiaomi could replicate its success in the smartphone industry in the TV industry, let alone that more smartphone manufacturers would enter the smart TV industry seven years later...

Although the entire smart TV industry has entered an era of stock growth, we have seen many smartphone manufacturers, such as Huawei, Honor, and OPPO, enter the market over the past year.

Of course, if they only care about a single terminal, then there is no need for smartphone manufacturers to enter the already saturated market and take food from traditional home appliance forces. On the contrary, what smartphone manufacturers value most is the entry value of smart TVs as natural large screens in the living room in the coming IoT era.

It is precisely because the focus is mainly on entrances and traffic that the sudden large-scale entry of smart TV manufacturers has to some extent disrupted the balanced market price system that the smart TV industry has finally formed.

Take Honor as an example. After the Honor Smart Screen, which was priced at 2,699 yuan in 2019, failed to effectively occupy the market, it promoted the Honor Smart Screen X1 55-inch, priced at 1,699 yuan, during the 618 period in 2020. However, the Honor Smart Screen X1, which was "almost sold at cost", sold well during the 618 period, further stirring up the smart TV industry.

Of course, not all smartphone manufacturers rely on low prices to seize the market like Xiaomi and Honor. For example, the starting price of new TVs from Huawei, OPPO and other manufacturers in 2020 is set at 3,299 yuan.

However, the high degree of homogeneity in the TV market means that if new entrants cannot come up with competitive products, it is difficult for them to have a significant market performance at high prices. For example, nearly three months after its release, OPPO TV’s sales on JD.com were only 400+. Coupled with the competition from Huawei’s S series, the future of OPPO TV is not optimistic.

Considering the trend of the entire era, we do not deny the role of smart TVs in the future IoT era, as well as the historical significance of the continued entry of smartphone manufacturers. But beyond this, what the entire industry should consider more is: How can smart TVs transition to the IoT era while avoiding excessive internal competition?

Summarize

Judging from the past trends of the TV industry, smart TVs in 2020 are actually at a critical turning point in entering the "IoT era". Although smart TVs have suffered severe challenges from falling shipments under the influence of the previous stage, in the IoT era, it is predicted that smart TVs will have strong market competitiveness. Therefore, the most important thing for the entire industry at present is to actively seize the trend of the times and explore more competitive product routes.

From a product perspective, against the backdrop of consumption upgrading and the gradual maturity of the upstream industrial chain, the continued popularity of ultra-large screen and 8K TVs not only indicates that consumers have rediscovered the unique value of large screens, but also means that smart TVs have unique product features that attract users, laying a solid foundation for the coming IoT era.

Of course, unlike the products, the quality of ultra-high-definition content on current streaming platforms is indeed less than ideal. However, at the content level, large-screen operators did not bet all on long videos, but instead found cloud gaming, which has unlimited potential.

Combined with the market trajectory of smartphones and PCs, the reason why users use these products is nothing more than that the hardware of these products is highly compatible with entertainment and office. Considering the natural compatibility of console games and large screens, this actually indicates that smart TVs will be more popular in terms of games than long videos.

For the smart TV industry, the biggest variable is the continuous entry of new forces. On the one hand, this further shows that the prospects of the smart TV industry are not bad, but on the other hand, at the time when the industry is turning and the terminal potential has not been fully released, the large-scale resurgence of low-priced products also needs to be particularly cautious. Therefore, the problems that need to be solved in the smart TV industry in 2021 are still concentrated on the market, terminals and prices.

In short, the smart TV industry, which has experienced twists and turns, has found new opportunities, but how to build on the past and usher in the next era requires more wisdom and patience from the entire industry.

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.