Internet TV has entered the era of large screens, and a new round of price-performance war has begun

When it comes to buying a TV, almost all consumers discuss the topic of screen size, and many people believe that the bigger the better.

Today, television has entered the Internet era, and major Internet TV brands are all targeting the large-screen TV market.

Weijing, Fengxing and Baofeng have all launched TV products with a maximum size of 55 inches. Xiaomi TV 3 has increased the screen size to 60 inches this year. The largest model of LeTV's fourth-generation super TV, which was just released some time ago, has even reached 70 inches.

As screens become larger, competition in the Internet TV industry has entered a new stage.

Bigger screens, bigger profits

Just as more luxurious cars can bring higher profits to automakers, the profit margin of television products is also proportional to the screen size.

The screen is the most important component of a television, accounting for 75% or even more of the total cost of the device. Taking a 32-inch LCD TV as an example, the screen cost, which is originally priced at just over 1,000 yuan, is close to this figure. Even if Internet TV brands have raised the bottom line for small-size TVs to 40 inches, Xiaomi, which has always been known as the "price killer", rarely allows the price of the 40-inch version of Xiaomi TV 2 to fluctuate too much.

However, when it comes to the large-screen stage, the profit rules of the TV industry are completely different. Two years ago, many manufacturers announced that they would focus their research and development on large-size models. Currently, new TV products on the market are getting bigger and bigger. We can understand this as a trend towards larger screens, and we can also see that the pursuit of higher profits by most mature TV brands has never changed.

In the era of big screens, who can afford the price-performance ratio?

When it comes to TVs, bigger usually means more expensive, there's no doubt about that.

Taking the Internet brands that advocate cost-effectiveness as an example, Xiaomi and LeTV have jointly set the baseline of product size at 60 inches this year. However, the price of a 60-inch Xiaomi TV 3 set has reached nearly 6,000 yuan. Although it is still not expensive compared with traditional TV brands, this is obviously no longer the Xiaomi TV that can be bought for two or three thousand yuan.

So, what if you can’t buy a 60-inch TV for two or three thousand yuan? In the era of large screens, it is inevitable that some brands will be more extreme in terms of cost performance than Xiaomi.

As New Year's Day is approaching, the Internet brand Coocaa has taken the lead in reducing the price of 60-inch TVs to less than 4,000 yuan. The starting price of its new product Coocaa K60 is finally set at 3,999 yuan, and this is a product equipped with a 60-inch LG IPS full HD hard screen.

The 60-inch screen is 20% larger than the industry's common 55-inch TV display area. What's more interesting is that the price of Coocaa K60 is 1,000 yuan lower than the starting price of the 55-inch Xiaomi TV 3. It can be seen that there are always people playing the price-performance game in the market, but the one with the highest price-performance ratio has changed.

A new round of reshuffle in the Internet TV industry is about to begin

When it comes to Coocaa's launch of a 60-inch large-screen TV priced at less than 4,000 yuan, people who are familiar with the Internet TV industry will definitely be a little surprised. After all, this brand just released a flagship product priced at nearly 8,000 yuan a month ago. This is obviously not the inherent image of Internet brands in our eyes.

Looking at Coocaa's product line in 2015, there is the A43 three-in-one TV that can be used by the whole family, the A55 TV specifically for "Apple fans", the T55 art TV that emphasizes style and taste, and the U50 and K60 that rewrite the pricing strategy for 4K TVs and large-screen TVs. While "playing with attitude", it also pays attention to market trends.

Therefore, it is foreseeable that although low prices are important to Internet brands, future Internet TVs will not be able to win the market solely by relying on price.

There is no doubt that Internet TV brands have grown from the well-known Xiaomi, LeTV, and Coocaa to the point where the number of brands in the market is already too large to count on one hand. However, among these brands, some do not forget technological innovation while focusing on cost-effectiveness, while others simply follow the trend of low prices and lack some connotation in brand and product. For these two types of brands, the final market results will naturally be different.

As Coocaa Chairman Wang Zhiguo said some time ago, the Internet TV industry experienced an explosion in 2015, but after the reshuffle in 2016, there may be only five brands left in the industry.

Who will be the lucky five brands in a year? We will have to wait and 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.