Why can't opponents follow suit in the protracted battle that Liang Jun is leading LeTV Super TV to fight?

2017 has become a big year for the development of Internet TV. In addition to the continuous launch of new products by existing Internet TV manufacturers, some new Internet TV brands have joined the battle group that has already shown a red ocean trend.

Obviously, among all the Internet TV brands, LeTV Super TV, which has sold tens of millions of units in three years, has become an industry phenomenon. If it is a phenomenon, it will be benchmarked by other brands, so much so that on the eve of LeTV's 414 Ecological E-commerce Festival, competitors have concentrated their firepower on releasing new products this month to grab the attention. Liang Jun, president of LeTV Zhixin, said with a smile that these are all riding on the popularity of LeTV's 414. What the Internet TV industry needs is a marathon champion, and one or two sprints cannot determine the victory or defeat of a protracted war.

A protracted war, this is how LeTV, which is half a step ahead of the industry, views the industry development. Just before April 14, Liang Jun posted an article titled "On the Protracted War of LeTV Super TV" on WeChat Moments.

There is no doubt that at this moment, Liang Jun published this article for two main purposes. The first is to remind the internal staff to face up to the industrial environment and forge ahead. No matter whether the outside world says that super TV will be a "quick victory" or a "quick defeat", they must organize the battle in an orderly manner and not fight unprepared battles. The second is to tell the outside world that the industry has peaks and valleys, and brands have ups and downs, but LeTV fully accepts all the pain and hope, helps each other, and is in the same boat. After all, Internet TV has just started, and this is a long and protracted war.

Every major war brings new concepts. But surprisingly, in the upcoming protracted war, LeEco did not come up with a new slogan, but only strengthened its past product and service concepts without introducing any new terms.

Perhaps, this is just like what Chairman Mao pointed out in "On Protracted War" 80 years ago: "Weapons are an important factor in war, but not the decisive factor. The decisive factor is people, not things. The deepest root of victory in war lies in the people."

It is obvious that Liang Jun believes that past successes have proved that products and services are the two sharpest blades. With a little polishing and continued persistence in creating value for users, the protracted war will be won, and the users' choices will make it impossible for friendly competitors to imitate or even continue to follow up in this protracted war.

Redefining the value of hardware

Anyone who has run a marathon knows that the leader is always the most tired, and only those with outstanding strength dare to take the lead. LeEco is such a leader in the industry.

Since the first Super TV, the strategy of "twice the performance, half the price" has been throughout the development of Super TV.

LeTV often tells the outside world that "super TVs only differ in size, not in performance."

Liang Jun said that when it first entered the industry, Super TV also chose to use price as a weapon like other friendly companies, but LeTV is different from many brands. LeTV's low price does not mean that it is like traditional companies that try to obtain price-competitive products through low-spec and low-cost models. For LeTV, every product it releases has never compromised on product design innovation and configuration performance. Every product release can represent the best and top-level products at the time.

After several years of hard work, LeTV has become a "phenomenal" killer in the price war in the TV industry.

In 2013, the emergence of super TVs with twice the performance and half the price caused the average price of smart TVs in the entire industry to drop by more than 30%, forcing traditional manufacturers to transfer about 30 billion in profits to users.

At the same time, LeTV is also a "phenomenal" player that leads smart TVs into the next level of hardware performance. With the goal of meeting 5-7 years of operational needs and maintaining an unchanged user experience, LeTV has continuously achieved industry firsts and firsts in multiple dimensions of TV hardware, including seamlessly curved ID metal frame design, Corning glass light guide plate technology, Qualcomm's top processor Snapdragon 810, and standard memory upgrades to 3G for all products.

The biggest feature of LeTV Super TV in the market is that it is rare in the TV industry that the hardware value and product price, two factors that have always been in a proportional relationship, are conveyed to consumers in an almost inversely proportional relationship, making it possible for consumers to experience better products with less money.

In contrast, other competitors are following LeTV's pricing strategy and are still launching low-end, low-performance TVs with 1G RAM and 8G flash memory. After using them for a period of time, they will face the risk of lag.

In LeTV's view, the so-called low prices of these products are achieved at the expense of user interests, and are naturally unsustainable.

Operational capabilities will bring a big test to the industry

The reason why LeTV allows users to buy better TVs for less money is that it reflects the subsequent foreseeable operating income, including membership, advertising, shopping, games and other service income, in the form of advance subsidies to users in hardware pricing, thereby achieving the goal of reducing users' cost of buying TVs.

The key to making operating income subsidize hardware price costs truly effective is that LeTV insists on giving priority to improving TV user stickiness.

Liang Jun said that the opportunity of Super TV is precisely the cold winter that those TV companies that rely on low-quality and low-price competition and have no Internet operation capabilities will face. In addition, outstanding Internet operation capabilities are also a guarantee for bringing excellent experience to users.

On the one hand, for users, the Open Eco ecosystem embodied by LeTV on Super TV has solved the "island effect" of content experience often encountered by Internet TVs. In the past three months, Super TV has continued to break the boundaries of applications, connecting a large amount of content including CIBN, Wasu TV, and high-quality PGC to LeTV's large-screen ecosystem, providing users with a unified and consistent user experience. The latest user operation tool LeFaner brings users various third-party benefits and shopping discounts.

On the other hand, in order to further explore and operate high user value with better user experience, the upgrade of hardware products naturally needs to be carried out simultaneously, just like the free motherboard replacement service launched by LeTV for users of old models last year, and the new Super TV products are fully equipped with a remote control that supports intelligent voice function as standard, and continue to bring new technologies at the basic hardware level such as sound quality and picture quality that affect the user's audio-visual experience.

Of course, there are also people in the industry who simply understand the LeTV model as the integration of terminal hardware and content resources, so much so that not long ago, traditional TV manufacturers teamed up with third-party Internet content providers to launch a new Internet TV brand to challenge Super TV.

However, what these later competitors did not really pay attention to is that, based on the strength of Super TV's software and hardware, the realization of operational capabilities is supported by five major intelligent platforms: LeTV Cloud, Ark Advertising Service System, BOSS One-Stop Business, AI Intelligent Algorithm and Stargazing System that has insight into users.

For example, LeTV Cloud's transmission of high-definition and high-definition programs corresponds to 750 CDN nodes around the world and 30Tbps of export bandwidth. LeTV's forward-looking construction in Internet operations like this cannot be completed across the time period by competing manufacturers simply by spending money. The imperfect Internet operation support capabilities are also the fundamental reason why other traditional TV brands cannot replicate the LeTV model.

LeTV is the only one to take the lead in the three major turning points of the TV industry

The emergence of smart TVs is seen as another growth point in the TV industry. With the rapid popularization of smart TV products in recent years, the beneficial effects of intelligence and the Internet on the TV market are obvious.

But just as the development of smartphones has entered a bottleneck period and Apple's iPhone has also encountered a ceiling, in the era of smart TVs, the three major turning points of the TV industry have become increasingly apparent.

First, it is the turning point of market competition.

From Liang Jun's recent judgment on the TV market, we can see that with the growth of the smart TV market slowing down, production costs rising, and the lack of effective pull from the real estate industry in TV product sales, the TV industry is still overdrawing the market with more low-priced and low-quality products. This will inevitably lead to a new round of survival of the fittest for TV brands and products. Those facing the risk of elimination are TV manufacturers who are still relying on low configuration and low cost in exchange for low prices to attract users.

Secondly, it is the turning point of the profit model.

Under the strategy of "twice the performance, half the price", LeTV has changed the pricing rules of the Internet TV industry. The entire industry has reached a turning point where hardware alone cannot support the normal profitability of enterprises. This will force more TV manufacturers to integrate content resources and strengthen their commercial value operation capabilities beyond hardware profitability. This is also the core concept of the development of LeTV Super TV.

Similarly, LeTV's redefinition of the TV business has also pushed the industry to a turning point where change is inevitable.

Can a TV company that can adapt to the trend and needs of the times simply by manufacturing TV products? It is reasonable to place the ability to grasp the greater value of users behind the hardware in a more important position in measuring TV companies.

After the TV becomes smart, one of its key roles is to serve as a channel and port for Internet resource output. For TV companies, selling TV terminal products will no longer be a one-time deal as in the past. Consumers moving TVs into their homes is only the beginning of a strong connection with TV brands. When users turn on the TV, what else can TV companies bring to users? Its importance is self-evident.

Therefore, the protracted war for super TV proposed by Liang Jun should be understood as the transformation of super TV from an industry disruptor to a leader. LeTV will also stick to its own values ​​- in the fiercely competitive Internet TV industry, only by insisting on making good products and services can the brand demonstrate stronger vitality.

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.