Is the smart TV market really activated? Applications need to be more powerful!

In the era of rapid development of the Internet, we are beginning to become familiar with intelligent devices. In the past two years, the slogan of smart home has become more and more popular, and as the earliest smart home product and the only public display screen for all family members, "smart TV" has gradually filled people's living rooms.

The real rise of the smart TV industry has only been two years, but the speed of development cannot be underestimated. According to relevant data reports, the global shipment of smart TVs reached 51.13 million units in 2012, with a market penetration rate of over 20%; in 2013, about 50% of color TV sales came from smart TVs, with an annual growth rate of 56.84%. Among them, domestic brands accounted for 64.66% of retail sales, far exceeding foreign brands. In the domestic market, the sales of color TVs in the first half of this year were 20.85 million units, of which the penetration rate of smart TVs was 56%; the sales of smart TVs from January to August were 17.69 million units, an increase of 24.4% over the same period last year; it is estimated that by 2015, the global shipment of smart TVs will exceed 153 million units, and the penetration rate of smart TVs will reach 54.6%.

However, in sharp contrast to the ever-increasing sales volume, the current activation rate of smart TVs is less than 30%. Most of their intelligent applications have failed to give users a truly smart experience due to shortcomings such as low remote control sensitivity, uneven effects, and overly boring applications.

Just as popular apps or games such as WeChat, Weibo, Angry Birds, and Fruit Ninja have accelerated the advent of the smartphone era, we have reason to believe that the real arrival of the smart TV era will also be driven by truly "killer" apps. Here is a list of several types of apps that may ignite the smart TV market in the future.

First, video on demand. Whether for smart TV or traditional TV, video playback is undoubtedly the only eternal application of TV from its birth to its demise. However, the Internet TV industry represented by TV boxes has become difficult due to the constraints of the policies of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the chaos of the copycat product market.

In the past two years, with the enhancement of 3D technology, 4K display, and the ever-increasing size of TV screens, they have begun to have certain advantages in the broadcasting of online movies and TV series. This market has also continued to expand with the emergence of smart TVs. Users can get rid of the time and content restrictions of traditional TV stations and make truly intelligent self-selection.

Second, large-screen games. Unlike video on demand, large-screen games on smart TVs have greater market development value. People in the gaming industry said that TV games may usher in a new era of paid games in China, and this new model of game development will not only help regulate industry competition, but will also help guide users' choice of games.

Unfortunately, in the field of smart TV, TV games have not received enough attention. Hardware adaptation and game development are important bottlenecks that restrict the development of TV games. Many gamers have reported that 90% of the TV game content on the market is a simple transplant of existing mobile games and online games. The adaptability to smart TVs is extremely low, the operation is inconvenient, and the experience is poor.

By referring to the content of foreign console games, it is not difficult to find that future smart large-screen games may focus on large-scale plot story games with strong experience and sense of immersion. Such game content may be difficult to accept in terms of development costs, but it may be the ultimate key to its paid development model.

Third, TV shopping. The application of TV shopping is not a new topic, whether abroad or at home, but the "TV shopping" we talk about today is no longer the "TV shopping" of that time.

In the past, TV shopping was mostly advertising shopping, and the purchase method was limited to TV ordering. But the TV shopping we are talking about now is the shopping mall APP built on the smart TV platform, which is another battlefield opened up by e-commerce.

At present, TV shopping has shown signs of rising, and the smart TV application platforms include Shafagou, LeTV Mall, Suning.com, Tmall Mall, etc. Of course, there are still several major shortcomings in the early stage of TV shopping, such as operation mode, payment method, user habits, etc.

Fourth, online education. It can be said that the homogeneity of smart TVs has always been looming over the industry. Like TV shopping, online education is also an application driven by the industry and the market.

In fact, online education has been the leader in education modernization in recent years. According to statistics, the online education market size reached 84 billion yuan in 2013, and the compound annual growth rate is expected to exceed 20% in the next three years. With the improvement of online education platforms and the enrichment of content, consumers' understanding of online education content is also increasing year by year.

According to relevant sources, Hujiang.com, a well-known domestic Internet education platform, may reach a cooperation with LeTV. The two will jointly create a new model of online education through LeTV's large-screen products such as LeTV App Store and Super TV.

Whether it is video on demand, large-screen games, TV shopping or online education, they can actually be seen as the continuous upgrading of smart TV intelligent applications; in general, if smart TVs want to retain and cultivate user stickiness, they must rely on new highlights that match them. In the future, TV applications and the entire smart TV industry will also present a benign situation of complementing each other.

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.