Domestic smart TV touches the river

Internet companies enter the smart TV one after another

In September, the weather turned cold, but smart TVs are hot.

On September 3, iQIYI announced that they would jointly launch T V + Smart TVs with T CL. The first batch will be available on Jingdong in the early morning of September 4. The 48-inch princely version of the T V+ will be priced at 4,567 yuan and the classic version will be priced at 2,999 yuan. . At the same time, iQiyi launched the “iQ IY Iinside” strategy, where users can watch iQiyi and PPS video content on TV+.

People in the industry believe that there are three highlights of the cooperation between TCL and iQIYI.

The first bright spot comes from the innovation of the model. The cooperation with iQIYI added TCL TV's internet elements and the products are more youthful. The cooperation with TCL also solved the shortcomings of iQIYI's TV production in the supply chain, channels, after sales, etc.; Highlights come from the innovation of the remote control. Prior to this, one of the tasks that TV manufacturers did was to simplify the remote control in order to comply with the trend of minimalist smart TVs, but it was doing a poor job in blinding operations. TCL iQIYI TV's remote control uses a highly-differential design, which can basically achieve full blind operation, and this remote control can also control the TV set-top box; the third bright spot comes from content free. iQIYI and PPS's video resources were integrated and announced to users of TCL iQIYI TV for free.

Following the iQI, the millet TV has been widely circulated in the outside world.

On September 5, Xiaomi Technology released its first smart TV in Beijing. The price was an unexpected 2,999 yuan.

"The first TV for young people." This is the definition of Xiaomi TV's CEO Lei Jun. Lei Jun said that Xiaomi TV is a combination of "a TV + Xiaomi box + Android game machine."

"Thinking about TV is to make mobile content appear more on TV screens." Lei Jun directly defined Xiaomi TV as a revolutionary. After Tucao finished “TV hasn’t changed in 20 years”, Lei Jun said that smart TV is not smart enough, and Xiaomi TV will bring disruptive and revolutionary design to the entire industry and “influence TV industry for a long time”.

The release of the millet TV is also amazing: the 8.4mm ultra-narrow frame, 47-inch 1080P full-HD screen, using Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the screen provided by Samsung and LG, 2 * 2 dual antenna, can interact with computer phones, wireless Projecting pictures, video, Bluetooth 4.0 support, using a Bluetooth controller to control the game on the TV, the remote control button is only 11 keys.

It is reported that millet TV will release a test version of the engineering machine on September 16 and will be officially listed for sale in mid-October.

Apple Samsung does not "lead the way"

Compared to domestic companies, "in full swing," Apple, Samsung and other international giants in the smart TV's action is flat.

With China becoming the world's largest consumer market, Apple, which originally paid little attention to the Chinese market, began to change its attitude.

On September 11, Apple will hold a new product launch in China for the first time – removing the time difference and almost synchronizing with the new product launch held at the US headquarters on September 10. However, apart from bringing in two iPhone products that are known throughout the world, the long-awaited Apple TV still remains silent.

Does Apple TV still have a show? Although there are still "fruit powders" to give a positive answer to this, but the long-term wait has also wiped out a lot of people's confidence.

Apple TV is a fortress that Steve Jobs finally wanted to conquer in his life. “Debord Steve” has described Apple TV in such a way: Jobs hopes to create an integrated TV that is completely easy to use and can be seamless with all user devices and iCloud. Synchronization, no need to switch between various remote controls, has the simplest user interface.

Before Apple CEO Tim Cook also said that Apple's next major product will be related to the living room in the family. Cooke said at the time: "When I was sitting in the living room watching TV, I felt that time had gone backwards for 20 to 30 years. This is an area of ​​great interest."

However, although Apple’s rumors about launching Apple TV are always heard, in the end they always "listen to the stairs and not see people down."

Like Apple, Samsung is also a company that has high hopes in the field of smart TVs, but Samsung seems to have a paralysis.

Samsung has already demonstrated its status as a leader in the consumer electronics industry with its performance. However, throughout the entire smart TV market, Samsung's performance does not match its own industry status.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Berlin, which opened on September 6th, Samsung demonstrated on the spot 65-inch, 55-inch two-dimension designs with OHD (Ultra High Definition) O LED curved screen TVs.

According to the manufacturer's theory, the curved screen is more in line with human retinal arcs, and images can be more intuitively accepted and processed by the brain to obtain a more comfortable look. The curved screen of the cinema is based on this principle, and it has acquired a shocking sensory experience.

However, many people in the industry believe that Samsung is only pursuing the technical lead in hardware, especially the screen, and it has not reflected the promotion of smart TV itself.

According to Hong Shibin, executive chairman of the China Home Appliances Commercial Association Marketing Committee, today's smart TVs have not yet met user needs. Samsung’s selling point is probably the same as 3D display technology of the year. In addition to bringing high prices, it is difficult to bring real value to consumers. Feelings.

A similar phenomenon has also occurred at this year's Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (C ES), when Brian W hite, an analyst at the Topeka Capital Markets in the United States, said that he was disappointed with Samsung Smart TV. In his view, the so-called "smart TV" is not so smart. Samsung's related products lack innovation and have not left a deep impression on it.

The American well-known technology blog BusinessInsider even said in the article that Samsung has more opportunities to develop perfect smart TV products than any other manufacturer. However, it is not difficult to find after the products are displayed. Samsung still has a lot of work to do: voice recognition. It's not always effective. Gesture control is like a pure gimmick. How to get back to a regular TV channel has become something that is not easy to do.

Domestic companies "cross the river by feeling the stones"

Apple and Samsung are considered as the vane of the consumer electronics industry, but Apple's hesitation and Samsung's "hardware first" make it difficult for smart TV to find the direction of "imitation." There are domestic manufacturers joked, "Apple does not launch smart TV, we do not know how to copy the copy."

Even so, many domestic manufacturers could not help but jumped into the "big river" of smart TVs, and the entire market fell into a melee.

Shortly after the launch of Xiaomi TV, LeTV reported that a 50-inch smart TV might sell for 3,999 yuan. However, the latest rumors update the price to 2,999 yuan, which is obviously at the price of 2,999 yuan for Xiaomi TV. .

On August 27, LeTV released the LetvU I2.3 operating system named "Schnauzer" (Chinese name Schnauzer). This is LeTV's first smart TV operating system released separately from the outside world, but the new operating system obviously cannot include all the new trends of LeTV. On the same day, LeTV announced that it had suspended trading for major events. LeTV's director-general Zhang Te indicated that LeTV is in the process of integrating the important links upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. Then, on August 29, LeTV announced an announcement that it had reached an underwriting framework agreement with Gome for 100,000 super TVs. In addition to selling Super TVs under Gome Online and offline, LeTV will also set up an Experience Hall at Gome's 20 stores.

Under the impact of Internet companies, traditional TV manufacturers are unwilling to sit still. Recently, Konka released smart TV KKTV, 55-inch price of 6666 yuan, in the price close to the Internet smart TV, Konka and the depth of the future TV cooperation, to provide users with more than 500,000 hours 14 video resources. This model is exactly the same with iQIYI and TCL.

In addition to Konka, Skyworth and Alibaba built a smart TV on September 10. At the same time, the major "men" also have come up with their own killer.

Although Lei Jun did not positively explain why Xiaomi TV was making money, the industry agreed that Xiaomi must transplant the mobile phone model to TV. LeTV described its super TV profit model as a four-fold source of revenue: "hardware revenue + content revenue + application sharing + terminal advertising." Iqiyi chose deep cooperation with traditional manufacturers such as TCL. For iQIYI, it avoids the hardware areas where it is least able and costly. It adheres to TCL's brands and channels. Its products are excellent and its foundation is firm.

As to which model is more suitable, Luo Qingqi, a senior expert of appliance experts and senior consultants at Pall Consulting, believes that, “Overall, smart TVs are still unverified in terms of software and interface form, user Internet access rate, and profitability of content. "New markets," and while international giants such as Apple and Samsung have not given "answers" but the opportunity to seize the market is not to be missed, domestic companies can only "cross the river by feeling the stones."