The color TV industry has entered a critical period of transformation and needs to grasp the core needs of users

When talking about the performance of domestic color TV in recent years, people in the industry have to sigh: it was said that the industry encountered a cold winter and hoped to get out of it next year, but it gets worse every year, and it seems that there is no way out of this cold winter.

Data from China Market Research Group shows that the size of China's color TV retail market is expected to reach 45.4 million units in 2019, a year-on-year decrease of 3.5%. This is the third consecutive year of decline, and it is expected to continue to decline in the next few years.

Just looking at the data and forecasts, we can see that the domestic color TV market not only has dismal performance, but will also continue to go downhill. However, we must know that this is ultimately just the performance reflected by the market. What we really want to discuss is why color TV retail sales have been declining for three consecutive years. What exactly is the problem?

In fact, the three consecutive declines in domestic color TV sales were also affected by multiple factors: the downward trend in the overall economic environment, the strict regulation of the real estate market, and the decline in consumer demand have all had more or less impact on the three consecutive declines in sales. In addition, the rapid decline in color TV user stickiness is also an important factor.

Once upon a time, color TV firmly occupied the most important position in people's entertainment life. For example, when the most popular TV series in China in the last century, "Desire", was broadcast, almost every household watched this popular series in front of the TV, and the streets were deserted for a while.

In that era, people developed the habit of watching television. Whenever there was a popular TV series, sports game, or cultural performance, the whole family, young and old, would sit in front of the TV to watch it on time. It can be said that television was the entertainment center of Chinese families at that time, and it was the undisputed center of attention.

When China entered the Internet era, the situation changed slightly. With the help of personal computers, users can surf the Internet and seek more abundant changes, and the way people obtain information has also quietly changed: in the TV era, people passively obtain information, and watch whatever is broadcast on TV. On computers and the Internet, people find what they want to see, and actively obtain information. From passive to active, the behavior pattern of consumers has undergone a relatively large change. Many people began to linger on the Internet and abandoned color TVs, and the stickiness of color TVs has also become less strong since then.

In the era of mobile Internet dominated by smart devices such as smartphones and tablets, the changes are more dramatic. Due to the development of mobile communication technology, people can easily obtain mobile traffic and use it on smart devices: compared with color TVs and computers, smart devices represented by smartphones are easy to carry, have good battery life, can be charged at any time, and can watch programs, obtain information, and even conduct remote social networking and online shopping without being restricted by time and place. Even because smartphones are too convenient, consumers will play with their phones all the time even when they return home, which greatly reduces the utilization rate of color TVs.

Data show that, except for the elderly over 65 years old, the daily TV viewing time has remained basically unchanged in the past five years. The daily TV viewing time of other age groups has declined rapidly. Even the 55-64 age group has seen a rapid decline in the past two years.

To sum up, the decline in color TV sales is due to the fact that consumers' demand for color TVs is decreasing. If the color TV industry wants to boost market demand, it must have a deep understanding of the changes in the times and the market, and carry out product innovation and upgrading to truly meet consumers' core needs.

So, what are the future innovation directions for the color TV industry? Industry insiders believe that there are several directions for reference:

1. High-definition large screen: As a color TV product, it has the natural advantage of a large screen, which is unattainable by any smart device on the market. The 8K ultra-high-definition resolution, which is regarded as having great potential, also needs a large screen to better play its strengths. In this way, color TV manufacturers might as well play to their strengths and avoid their weaknesses, make the large screen to the extreme, and fully tap the potential of 8K, so as to bring consumers back to the color TV with outstanding audio-visual experience.

2. Remote social interaction: As we all know, smartphones are very convenient for remote social interaction. With the front camera and microphone, it is easy to talk with relatives and friends far away. In fact, color TVs can also take this route. Nowadays, a series of newly released color TV products such as Hisense Social TV S7 and Skyworth Q80 TV have cameras as standard. Color TVs with "camera + large screen" can realize multi-person video calls. Compared with smartphones, they are more in line with the Chinese definition of "reunion" and "family" and are believed to be favored by domestic consumers.

3. Smart experience: Since we have seen that smart devices such as smartphones and tablets conquer consumers with smart experience, is it possible for color TVs to make achievements in smart experience? In fact, color TV manufacturers have been constantly innovating in smart experience in recent years, and Internet color TV brands have also played a significant role in this. Even the Huawei brand has launched a new species such as "smart screen", which has refreshed people's traditional perception of color TV products. From the current smart experience of "smart screen", its performance in social interaction, education, audio, life assistant, home smart device control, etc. is very good, and it can also interact with devices such as smartphones, opening up a future space full of imagination for consumers, and its recognition among consumer groups is gradually increasing.

Through the analysis of the above directions, it is not difficult to see that at the critical moment when the color TV industry enters the transformation period, manufacturers and brands need to grasp the core needs of users, use innovation to expand more abundant application scenarios for color TV products, and bring fresh life fun to users, so as to be attractive enough to consumers and let the market get out of the winter.