The number of new products has dropped sharply. Are the good days of panels coming to an end? The market is not interested, forcing the whole machine manufacturers to put pressure on the opposite side.

No market will support unilateral price increases. The price increase of panels, which started in the second half of last year, has lasted for 10 consecutive months. Although the momentum is still continuing, judging from the reactions of brands such as Hisense, Skyworth, TCL, LeTV, and Xiaomi, this unilateral increase is already a spent force.

In the first quarter, two new players joined the Chinese color TV market: iMango and Thunderbird. However, the number of new products released has decreased significantly. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, there were only 157 new models released offline, 47 fewer than last year. There were only 165 new models released online, 28 fewer than last year.

Harmony is just a pie in the sky

Everyone understands the principle of making long-term money, but after experiencing a long period of downturn, once the market balance tilts in your favor, you will be immersed in the pleasure of making money and cannot extricate yourself, and it will be difficult to make rational decisions to maintain stability.

Therefore, there is a cyclical market. A downturn lasts for months or even years, and a price increase lasts for months or years. The current LCD panel market is experiencing such fluctuations. Since the second half of last year, the price has continued to rise for ten months. And this trend will continue in the eyes of LCD panel manufacturers, because many panel companies have already been promoting the tight supply of panels this year, such as AUO. And BOE's recently announced first quarter performance surge and stock price trend also show that the panel industry is in a good situation.

It is not difficult to understand the occurrence of such a retaliatory rebound, because before this, LCD panel companies had experienced a long-term downturn, including CSOT, which was once the cash cow of TCL Group, whose gross profit margin even dropped to 5%.

Although some panel sales staff are distressed by the current unilateral rise in prices, because they don’t know when this good time will come to an abrupt end, they seem to have not found a suitable way to ease this tension.

The pressure on TV manufacturers is also increasing. Last year, some TV manufacturers with less orders may have faced greater pressure, and this year, the price increase of panels has obviously affected the interests of major TV manufacturers. The strong resistance of consumers to price increases has also put TV brand manufacturers in a dilemma.

The original intention was to create a harmonious ecological industrial chain environment, but due to the continued rise in panel prices, this vision was broken by reality. As a result, the number of new color TV products in 2017 saw a dramatic decline, with only 157 new models offline, 47 fewer than last year. Only 165 new models online, 28 fewer than last year.

The market is not enthusiastic, forcing TV manufacturers to fight back

This shows that the chain reaction caused by the panel price increase has emerged, and the whole machine manufacturers have shown through their actions that they will no longer compromise and tolerate.

In fact, two Internet brands, iMango and Thunderbird, joined the battle this year. However, even though the color TV camp, which includes many color TV manufacturing brands such as Hisense, Skyworth, TCL, Changhong, and Konka, many Internet brands such as LeTV, Xiaomi, Whaley, and PPTV, and many foreign brands such as Samsung, Sony, and Sharp, is still not in the mood to bring more new products to everyone.

This illustrates two points: First, current color TV companies lack concepts, resulting in not many new products being put on the table.

Last year, HDR, curved screens, quantum dots, and OLED were all hyped up, but this year, the old concepts are still being promoted. Only Hisense, which is targeting overseas markets, has launched a new generation of ultra-high-definition TVs with high picture quality, high appearance, and high experience, and Samsung has launched QLED TVs. The concepts of other TVs are not eye-catching.

For example, this year many companies have released new color TVs with artificial intelligence functions. Although we know that Changhong was the first to promote the concept of artificial intelligence in the color TV circle, there have been few companies involved in the past two or three years. They all focused on promoting technical concepts such as HDR and curved surfaces, but unfortunately the effect was not very good. It was only this year that many companies focused on promoting it. This also shows that the current color TV industry lacks concepts.

Second, due to price increases, many consumer groups have disappeared.

In previous articles in "Let's Talk About Home Appliances", many consumers have clearly stated that they will not buy TVs if the price increases, and there are quite a few consumers who hold this consumption mentality. This phenomenon needs to attract the attention of brand manufacturers.

The weakening of TV consumption demand has led to brand manufacturers not having the confidence to launch new products. As a result, in the first quarter of this year, color TV sales showed a serious decline. The monthly data performance of domestic first-tier color TV manufacturers was not ideal.

Faced with double pressure, the whole machine manufacturers have no choice but to force the upstream panel manufacturers. The reduction in the number of new products in spring is just the beginning. If the tight supply and demand relationship is still not effectively resolved, the number of new color TV products in the second quarter and even the third and fourth quarters in the future will still be not optimistic. If the panel manufacturers do not take effective and proactive measures to alleviate the situation, then only a new round of downturn awaits the panel manufacturers.

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.