The "college entrance examination" in the home appliance industry is more difficult. Who can laugh out of the examination room?

In the hot June, we ushered in the hot college entrance examination again. To a large extent, the fate of tens of millions of candidates in the second half of their lives will be rewritten by this single-plank bridge-like exam. At the same time, the current home appliance industry is also facing the test of fate.

After 13 months of the longest price increase cycle in history, the price growth momentum of panels has finally begun to slow down. Compared with the panel manufacturers whose net profits have nearly doubled, the soaring cost of panels, as core components that account for more than 70% of the cost of TVs, has caused color TV manufacturers to repeatedly stage life-and-death races.

According to Witsview data, global color TV shipments plummeted by 31% in Q1 2017, with the average decline of the top five manufacturers reaching 29%. Focusing back on China, data from China Market Research shows that Q1 domestic sales of color TVs were 11.38 million units, a decline of 14%. Under the cold wind of weak domestic sales, the quarterly shipment decline rate of major Chinese TV brands is also more than 30%. Another negative signal for domestic TV manufacturers is that the popularity of Internet brands has cooled down. The leading LeTV saw a 61% decline in shipments in the first quarter amid the financial storm. The color TV industry is in the turmoil of change, and color TV companies are facing development difficulties.

The TV Internet fever has cooled down, and traditional giants are making a comeback

As panel prices rise, the domestic color TV industry is gradually saying goodbye to a simple price war. Behind this, there are both the monetization difficulties encountered by the content that has burned countless money, and the exhaustion of technological innovation in Internet TV that has been over-exerting. The demographic dividend has been exhausted, and the era of "content is king" in the TV industry has ended. "Channel is king" and "picture quality is king" have once again proved themselves to be irrefutable truths.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to generate sales at the low end, and making profits in high-end product lines has become a consensus among all color TV companies.

It is for this reason that it is not surprising that foreign-funded color TV companies, which have always insisted on research in core technology fields, exerted their efforts in TV picture quality innovation platforms, and have outstanding brand premium capabilities, have returned to the throne.

The most obvious example is Samsung. Although its overall shipments have declined, Samsung has successfully increased the proportion of large-size UHD products through transformation and investment in new equipment, catering to the sales demand for large-size TVs with better profit margins. As a result, its 75-inch TV panel shipments grew by 30% in the first quarter, reaching 130,000 units, ranking first in single-size shipments among TV panel manufacturers.

In addition, Samsung has a clear understanding of the future of the TV industry. In terms of the choice of core technology routes, Samsung decisively abandoned the OLED camp, which was immature in terms of yield, cost and lifespan, and instead acquired the American company QD Vision. It began to turn to quantum dot technology research and development, and this year successfully jointly organized the QD Forum with TCL and Hisense to establish the QLED camp.

Compared with OLED technology, quantum dot technology using inorganic materials is expected to successfully solve a series of production problems of OLED panels and have a longer lifespan and display effect. Samsung's move is similar to Samsung's battle to become the king of LCD from CRT 20 years ago.

In terms of its grasp of core television technologies and its understanding of design and intelligence, Samsung is still far ahead of its competitors and will continue to lead the industry in the foreseeable future after the ongoing industry reshuffle.

Refrigerator and washing machine companies are in a profit dilemma, and the high-end route is broken

While the battle in the black electronics market is stalemate, competition in the refrigerator and washing machine market is also fierce.

Driven by price increase expectations and real estate demand, the overall sales performance of refrigerators and washing machines in the first quarter was relatively good. Overall, the industry showed an upward trend in both volume and value. However, in terms of profitability, affected by the upward cost of raw materials, product price increases did not fully cover the upward pressure on the cost side. The overall gross profit margin of the industry was still negatively affected and the overall gross profit margin declined. Against this background, the profitability of white appliance companies declined in the first quarter.

The sharp rise in raw material costs has brought the same profit problems to the refrigerator and washing machine industries. Attacking the high-end market, expanding the user base, and seeking breakthroughs in health and convenience have become the main themes of the industry.

However, unlike the color TV market, the technology in the refrigerator and washing machine industry is highly concentrated, and there is no cross-border entry from the Internet industry. Under such circumstances, Samsung, which is originally stable and conservative, has become the most outstanding manufacturer in the refrigerator and washing machine market that combines products with intelligence, and technology with humanity.

This year's CES and AWE became the showplace for Samsung's new Family Hub 2.0 refrigerator and FlexWash+FlexDry four-in-one laundry system. The intelligent interaction and add-on functions directly hit the user's pain points, performed brilliantly, and won multiple innovative design awards.

At the same time, Samsung's flagship refrigerator product this year, the Pindao Family Banquet Refrigerator, has also been equipped with multiple patented technologies to perfectly solve the functional conflict problem between large capacity and high freshness preservation brought about by consumer upgrades, bringing a full-space exquisite freshness preservation covering the refrigerator and freezer, up to 662L, refreshing the industry standard.

Optimizing product portfolio, strengthening technological innovation, and decisively promoting thorough high-endization are undoubtedly Samsung's killer weapons to break into the white goods market.

The big test of market competition is coming. Who will be the next number one in the home appliance market?

Generally speaking, mass consumer products that participate in deep market competition often do not have sufficient room for innovation in a broad sense.

However, with the rapid improvement of people's living standards and the wave of consumption upgrading, the TV industry is at the cusp of technological replacement, while refrigerators and washing machines are in a period of intelligent and healthier upgrades, giving the industry and manufacturers an excellent opportunity for evolution.

Samsung, which has always been in a leading position in the international home appliance industry, has always been subject to the price war tactics of domestic competitors. However, as domestic users' high-end demand is prominent and their price sensitivity continues to decline, Samsung may have ushered in the best time for its layout. Samsung's TV picture quality continues to crush domestic TVs. It holds the lifeline of global panels and masters the next generation of display technology - quantum dot technology. Moreover, in terms of intelligence, Samsung has humanized the voice search function and turned the TV into a medium for communicating with family members, which instantly made a cold technology product warm. It is worth mentioning that Samsung's new product design every year will become the trend of the next year. The creative base and curved screen have led the design trend of the color TV industry. This year, Samsung has launched a more creative thin screen line design, which solves the existing problem of messy wiring. With the replaceable easel base, it is like a work of art.

As consumers' requirements for quality of life continue to upgrade, people have stronger expectations for the intelligent, convenient and interactive functions of home appliances. Samsung's self-developed "Pindao Family Banquet" series refrigerators and "Anxintian" washing machines have accumulated sufficient user reputation and industry recognition. Among them, Samsung's "Pindao Family Banquet" refrigerator innovatively creates a delicate fresh-keeping system that effectively controls the temperature difference within 0.5℃. Samsung's "Anxintian" washing machine, a washer-dryer, has brought consumers into a new era of clothing washing and care with its innovative technologies such as "Bubble Cleaner", "Anxintian" and "Hot Air Freshener", and won the "Ergonomic Design" award at the ACED conference.

Most importantly, Samsung has a complete industrial chain and has the advantages of the entire industrial chain. It can control every link in the industrial chain from core technology to each link that can directly affect product prices and consumer experience. Take TV as an example. From patented technology, panel production, material research and development to whole machine manufacturing, to downstream channel supply and after-sales service, Samsung occupies a dominant position in every link of the entire industrial chain. Therefore, Samsung has a strong ability to control costs.

Currently, Samsung has 34 R&D centers around the world, with more than 60,000 R&D personnel dedicated to exploring future technologies. By continuously increasing its investment in cutting-edge technology research and development, it leads the global technology companies. For domestic home appliance manufacturers who have always been struggling in the quagmire of price wars and have seriously insufficient investment in core technologies and user demand control, this may be a final test that is more cruel than the college entrance examination and a matter of life and death.

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.