Huawei, OnePlus, and Pinduoduo have joined the battle of smart large-screen displays. Which one will be stronger in the future?

The History of Television and Television Technology

Domestic and foreign market

Domestic Smart TV Wars

TV timeline scroll

In 1906, the world's first electronic television image receiver was born in a German laboratory.

In 1925, British John Lodge Baird successfully invented the world's first television, a mechanical scanning television camera and receiver.

In the autumn of 1936, the BBC began broadcasting television programs in London.

In 1941, black-and-white television began broadcasting in the United States.

Color television was introduced in the United States in 1954, and the radio and television industry developed rapidly.

March 17, 1958, was the day when China's first black-and-white TV was born, and the history of China's television industry began. From black-and-white to color, from wired to wireless, from traditional to smart.

As people born in the 80s and 90s, we must clearly remember that when we were little, after school, groups of friends would trot home and watch cartoons together. That was a kind of enthusiasm that modern drama fans cannot match.

Gradually, television has accompanied us through twenty or thirty springs, autumns, winters and summers. Under the gears of time, the television industry has also been quietly changing. From color, pixels, size, material, craftsmanship, functions to the roles played, everything is changing. The black and white televisions of that year have long become the past wave, washed up on the beach and entered the museum's booklet.

Today, the Chinese brand BOE's LCD flat-panel displays have become the world's largest flat-panel display company, and have successfully produced the world's most advanced flexible displays and 4K, 8k ultra-high-definition displays, leading the world in the development of flat-panel LCD display technology. my country has also become the world's largest color TV producer and the largest color TV consumer market.

Television Technology Scroll

From tube TV to transistor TV

In the early days of radio and television development, transistors still did not perform well, had poor reliability, and could not meet the high-frequency, high-voltage, and high-current requirements of television scanning circuits. Only tube-type black-and-white televisions, which were relatively mature at the time, could be produced. The main disadvantages of tube televisions are high power consumption (170W), heavy weight, short tube life, and high failure rate. Therefore, starting in 1970, many companies learned from the experience of Japanese companies and began to trial-produce 9-inch transistor televisions. Based on a lot of research and experimental verification by engineering and technical personnel and teachers from television manufacturers and colleges and universities, a joint design plan for 23cm (9-inch) and 40cm (16-inch) transistor televisions was proposed. In 1977, my country began to mass-produce 12-inch transistor black-and-white televisions jointly designed products to supply market demand and meet the needs of the general public.

From transistor TV to integrated circuit TV

In the 1950s, the production level of electronic tube televisions in my country was basically at the same starting line as that of advanced countries such as Japan, the United States, and Europe. Although my country has been able to produce medium and small screen transistor televisions in large quantities and stably through the joint design of transistor televisions, foreign countries have begun to produce integrated circuit televisions. Based on the original reference prototype of Hitachi's P24 12-inch integrated circuit black and white television, Chinese engineers completed the first 12-inch integrated circuit television consisting of six integrated circuits in 1978 after a year of intensive research and improvement. Subsequently, Japan's Sanyo Company's three-chip machine was promoted, completely completing the gorgeous transformation from transistor televisions to integrated circuit televisions.

From analog TV to digital TV

Japan, as a television giant at that time, spent a lot of manpower and resources on improving analog televisions, but it still could not withstand the "attack" of digital televisions and suffered heavy losses. Compared with analog televisions, digital televisions have the advantages of high frequency band resource utilization, strong anti-interference ability, the ability to transmit surround sound, facilitating integration with computer networks, the use of large-scale integrated circuits, relatively simple structure, and higher reliability. Therefore, the transition from analog televisions to digital televisions is a historical choice.

my country's development from analog television to digital television has gone through three stages: the first stage realized the digitization of ordinary analog televisions, using the MPEG-1 standard to compress the data rate to 2.048Mb/s, and its image quality was better than that of home video recorders; the second stage adopted the MPEG-2 main standard to compress the data rate to 8.44Mb/s, and its image quality could reach studio quality; the third stage used the MPEG-2 advanced standard to compress the data rate to 20Mb/s, and its image quality reached HDTV quality.

From TV to smart screen

In the past, televisions occupied an important position in people's hearts. As an important home appliance that integrates text, sound, and images, televisions enriched family cultural life. Mom said "Don't get too close", and when there was no signal, Dad turned the antenna, and the screen of "This program ends here" flashed... Even if the screen was full of "snowflakes", a family or even several families gathered together around the screen, talking and laughing, which was particularly warm. Televisions are like bridges, connecting the excitement outside with the happiness in the living room, and have become the daily life landscape of tens of millions of families. Today, televisions are still in the living room, but the rate of turning on is different from before.

Compared with the peak of mobile phones, TVs seem to have fallen to the bottom. How can TVs continue to be the center of the living room? Faced with the market environment of TV content saturation and the elimination of the inferior after the bonus period has passed, major manufacturers are optimistic about the smart home market, and TVs are an important part of smart homes. Therefore, they have made efforts to catch the big ship of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, and smart TVs have transformed into smart large screens, and the demand has also risen accordingly.

Domestic and overseas smart TV & smart large screen market

Looking at the global market

According to a new market report from Futuresource Consulting, global TV shipments remain high, with a growth rate of 6% as of 2018, the highest level in 10 years. The report also shows that despite some obstacles, 8K smart TV shipments will achieve a significant increase compared to 200,000 units in 2019. At the same time, as major brands begin to support 8K technology, the annual compound growth rate of 8K smart TV shipments will reach 130% in 2023. "Last year, global TV shipments reached 227 million units, with a total transaction volume of US$85 billion, setting a new record." Matthew Rubin, senior market analyst at Futuresource Consulting, said, "Achieving such shipments and transaction volumes is the result of the combined influence of many factors."

A Glimpse of Foreign Market

According to statistics, more than half (51%) of German households now own a smart TV, compared to 46% in 2018 and only 42% in 2017. Currently, 67% of users use the smart features of their smart TVs, compared to 61% in 2018 and 56% in 2017. The above data comes from a study commissioned by the German Industry Association (gfu Consumer & Home Electronics), which surveyed 2,000 households in April and May 2019.　

Domestic market

It is a market consensus that the domestic color TV market is sluggish, and a multi-level structural consumption is emerging under the overall pressured market environment.

According to statistics provided by AVC, the penetration rate of smart TVs in my country was only 45% in 2013, but it had risen to 89% in 2018. It is expected that the penetration rate of smart TVs in China will further increase to 93% in 2019.

According to the "2019 H1 Home Smart Large Screen Industry Ecology Report" released by Gouzheng Data, a third-party big data company in the field of home data marketing, as of the first half of 2019, there were more than 200 million smart TV households, the smart TV household penetration rate reached 36%, and the daily active volume was 95.53 million households, and the average daily usage stickiness was 300 minutes. The marketing value of smart TV large screens is highly reflected. At the same time, the terminal activation scale of each brand has maintained continuous growth. The activation volume of the top five domestic brands exceeded 120 million units, followed by foreign brands with an activation scale of 32 million units, and Internet brands with nearly 29 million units. The rapid expansion of OTT and IPTV has accelerated the expansion of the smart TV large screen market and the development of vertical ecology. It is estimated that by the end of 2020, the overall revenue scale of OTT and IPTV smart large screens will exceed 60 billion, and the commercialization and monetization model of smart TV large screens will be further enriched.

See how major domestic manufacturers are conquering the market?

Domestic home appliance manufacturers such as Skyworth, Hisense, TCL, Konka, and Changhong have seized the opportunity and are ready to transform and enter the smart TV industry. At the same time, Internet manufacturers are not to be outdone. Brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, OV, OnePlus, and Pinduoduo bring their own traffic to seize market dividends.

Five domestic veteran manufacturers come up with new ideas

Skyworth