What should the TV industry do in the future when it is stuck in the quagmire of closed-door development? The mobile phone industry has given the answer

Under heavy pressure, TV manufacturers have resorted to formalism in innovation.

Although industry insiders unanimously believe that smart TVs will enjoy a second spring in the connected home, unfortunately, the current smart TV market actually lacks the dividends of the rise of smartphones.

In the first quarter of 2020, the total sales volume of smart TVs in China was 9.96 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 20.1%, and the total sales volume was 23.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 33.8%. The total sales volume hit the lowest record in a single quarter since 2016. In addition, IDC also predicts that in 2020, the shipment volume of smart TVs in China will only be 44.8 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 4.4%.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly sluggish market, more and more smartphone manufacturers are entering the market, and one inevitable result is intensified competition.

This can be seen from the product prices. During the 618 Shopping Festival in 2020, the average price of TV sets in online channels was only 1,968 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 10.9%. Compared with the Double 11 Shopping Festival in 2019, it also fell by 5.9%.

Since the smart TV industry has entered the inventory era, in order to survive, both new and traditional companies will subconsciously focus on actively creating incremental space.

In fact, from the market perspective, TV manufacturers have begun to actively create incremental space since 2019. Reflecting this in the consumer field, we have also seen special products such as gaming TVs, social TVs, rotating TVs, and sky-high priced TVs.

This product logic is very attractive on the emotional level: current smart TVs only meet consumers' "sound and picture" needs in terms of functionality. Considering that consumers' needs are diverse, once TV products that meet other consumer needs appear, they will inevitably occupy the market.

However, the market has not provided a breeding ground for this logic - in the context of the overall stock market, the TV industry does have some incremental space, but these incremental spaces have nothing to do with the environment that manufacturers actively create.

Interestingly, the current development direction of the TV industry and the contradiction with the market have also been staged in the mobile phone market as early as 2017. Considering that smartphones have passed the stage of "a hundred flowers contending", and mobile phones have a certain correlation with TVs in terms of product form, the reform experience of the mobile phone industry heading into the deep waters is actually of great reference value to the TV industry.

In 2017, the first year when the overall sales volume of the mobile phone industry turned from strong to weak, in order to survive, highly gimmicky products such as YotaPhone YOTA dual-screen mobile phone, Meizu PRO 7 small-screen mobile phone, and ZTE Axon M folding mobile phone were also launched.

However, the subsequent market gave these "weird ideas" a good lesson.

Take Meizu Pro 7 as an example. Due to misjudgment of the real market demand, millions of orders were completely "unsold", and the company was eventually forced to reduce the price to hundreds of yuan to clear all inventory.

At the same time, Sunrise Big Data shows that in 2017, the shipment share of models with screens below 5 inches in the smartphone market shrank from 63.6% in 2014 to 25.6%. The shipment share of models with screens above 5 inches increased from 36.4% in 2014 to 74.4% in 2017. The full-screen market is on the eve of an explosion.

With the lessons learned from the past of manufacturers such as Meizu and the guidance of market trends, many smartphone manufacturers have entered the full-screen track. It is under the guidance of this correct route that many micro-innovation products have gradually won market favor.

For example, vivo NEX, the first phone to adopt a pop-up camera solution, sold more than 2 million units in half a year, making it a well-deserved star model in 2018. The foldable phone, which expands the screen size in another dimension, also became a star model in 2019, with total shipments reaching 1 million units.

Therefore, if we go back to the television industry, we can find that television has now reached a similar "a hundred flowers contending" moment as mobile phones once experienced, and the market has also given two similar answers, one positive and one negative.

Referring to the evolutionary path of the mobile phone industry, if TV manufacturers want to gain incremental space, it is definitely not enough to sit at home and think about user needs with the most confident attitude. They must look users in the eye, understand their needs, and completely abandon blind product concepts before they can gain market support.

Products are sold to users. If you, as a manufacturer, are unwilling to listen to the users’ voices and just spend all day in isolation, what is the difference between this and chronic suicide?

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.