Can Changhong, which is a step behind, get out of the quagmire of innovation rickets?

The first quarter of 2017 is drawing to a close. The severe market situation this year has caught everyone by surprise. The momentum of the late spring cold snap is very rapid. Hisense, Skyworth, and TCL have all accelerated the pace of new product releases, and everyone's main focus has been on large-screen high-end products. What is strange is that only Changhong remains silent. Can this elephant, which was extremely glorious in the CRT era, still dance? Is Changhong suffering from innovation weakness?

The market is in crisis as the large-scale plate is weak

According to the market data released by CMM in February this year, the sales volume of the overall color TV market fell by 21% year-on-year, and the sales revenue fell by 14.33%. The market situation is extremely severe. The top three brands Hisense, Skyworth, and TCL all saw a decline of more than 1 percentage point, and only the fourth-ranked Changhong achieved a positive growth of 1.52 percentage points. Did Changhong achieve victory without any tricks?

Behind Changhong's positive growth, we see that in the 55-inch size segment, which is the current mainstream size segment in the market, Changhong ranks only fifth. In the 65-inch size segment, which is expected to have high growth this year, Changhong ranks only sixth. In the 65-inch and above flat-panel TV market, Changhong's retail volume share ranking has slipped to seventh place, falling behind Sharp and Sony, which are re-focusing on the Chinese market.

Whoever loses the large screen will lose the world. Changhong is already in danger in the future large-screen competition.

It must be said that Changhong's CHiQ TV Q3T is a rare highlight in recent years, and has achieved good market performance since the second half of last year, which is the key to driving its positive growth. So, in the future competition in the high-end large-screen market, can Q3T bear this burden?

How competitive is the “3-second start”

On July 28 last year, Changhong released the CHiQ Q3T TV, which Changhong defined as the third-generation artificial intelligence TV. Changhong promoted the product as having the following biggest feature: "It can quickly respond to voice searches within 3 seconds, and the specific voice recognition rate can reach 97%." Other features are in terms of appearance, craftsmanship, and performance configuration. Quite simply, the biggest highlight of this product is "starting broadcasting in 3 seconds."

It is reported that the advantages of Changhong CHiQ TV voice system lie in its high recognition rate, fast response speed, accurate far-field recognition, and strong adaptability to accents and dialects.

These functional features are useful in impressing consumers in terminal stores, but it is difficult for them to carry the banner of artificial intelligence.

In fact, "voice control" has been available since the rise of smart TVs. At least five years ago, voice control and video calls were the basic features of smart TVs. The reason why smart TVs can be widely used today is that "intelligence is simplicity", which has won the recognition and acceptance of consumers. In recent years, the development of smart TVs has focused on video content. The number of movies, TV series, and live dramas, the speed of online release, and image quality have become the core experience that users pay most attention to.

Is Changhong's return to "voice control" a copycat or a new approach that has caught the new pain points of users? It is still difficult to determine.

In the future, artificial intelligence and smart TV will definitely be the direction of industrial upgrading, and Changhong has also clearly seen this. If "start broadcasting in 3 seconds" is the third generation of artificial intelligence TV, then artificial intelligence TV is nothing special, at least it dare not be touted as the trend and direction of the industry.

The core of artificial intelligence is not just algorithms, but more importantly, learning, two-way perception and communication. The language recognition and image recognition functions currently available on television are only the initial stage of artificial intelligence television.

At the Shanghai AWE in March this year, AI TVs began to make significant progress. Many companies released products that can not only control TVs with voice, but also control air conditioners and refrigerators, and use voice to control air conditioner temperature adjustment, voice control of light brightness, curtain opening and closing, etc. Two-way communication between the system and various devices is realized.

I hope that QIKE TV can break through the limitations of the "TV screen" in the next step, realize the interconnection between smart home devices, and catch up with the pace of technological development of its peers.

How long can the old capital last if innovation is weak?

Changhong Qike Q3T has grasped the "point" of voice control and has received a certain market response. So where will Changhong go next? OLED, laser or artificial intelligence? It seems that Changhong wants to do all three, but from Changhong's strategic layout of future technology, Changhong is always hesitant and hesitant, and has not found a clear direction.

Judging from Changhong’s sales structure in February, LCD TVs accounted for 99.52%, OLED accounted for 0.20%, and laser TV accounted for 0.01%, which also indicates certain problems.

Changhong is in an awkward situation now, as its "voice control" is of low value, and it does not have core technologies in OLED and laser TVs, and can only do rough assembly and processing. Looking at the top three brands in China, Hisense has accumulated ten years of experience in the laser field, and has achieved independent design, research and development, and manufacturing. It has launched 4K laser TVs, and will launch dual-color laser TVs in the next step; although Skyworth does not have OLED screens, it is also ahead of the industry in the production and manufacturing of OLED complete machines; TCL has made new progress in the picture quality of LCD TVs by focusing on quantum dot technology, so where is Changhong's core technology?

Today, as the era of large screens has arrived, the competition is still about technology, to see who has a stronger control over core technology and who has a better strategic vision. In the late 1990s, Samsung surpassed Sony by relying on its accurate layout and core control of LCD TVs, and has been the leader in the global color TV market with a share of more than 20%. This year is the critical point of industry transformation again. If Changhong does not make efforts early, it will not only be left further and further behind by the top three Chinese brands, but it is also likely to be surpassed by Japanese and Korean brands in the Chinese market, becoming the first Chinese brand to fall in the high-end large-screen market, which is something none of us want to see.

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.