Bid farewell to the 'cold' in 2017, China's color TV enterprises hold high the banner of AI this year, want to open up new space for development.
2018 FIFA World Cup, will be the TV industry's 'big year.' TCL Group February 5 signing soccer star Neymar as the image of the spokesman, Hisense is the official sponsor of the Russian World Cup, 30-year-old Skyworth is also brewing large action.
Among the top ten in the global color TV industry, the Chinese enterprises have accounted for four seats. Judging from the brand shipments in 2017, TCL and Hisense are the third and fourth place respectively in the global color TV industry. Skyworth and Haier have also entered the top ten. However, Samsung, LG is still in front of two 'mountains', Foxconn 'empowerment' Sharp also aggressively attack.Chinese enterprises can win the color TV cup?
AI heat wave
At CES in 2018, Skyworth demonstrated the independently developed AI-quality chip with super 4K supplement function etc. At the same time, its smart home has two display areas: one is based on Google Ecology and mainly faces the North American market; the other is the Based on the Chinese market ecology, Skyworth refrigerators, air conditioners, washing machines, etc. also access, but also includes a variety of TV peripheral products.
Wang Zhi-guo, head of the software division of Skyworth Group's R & D headquarters, accepted the CBN Exclusive Interview during the CES period and said: "The AI trend of China's color TV is a general trend, from using AI functions in part to completely abandoning the remote control in the future. Face, human-like anthropomorphic products.Artificial intelligence layout of Skyworth, will be carefully chosen partners, groundbreaking innovation, the focus is to be able to really abandon the remote control, to improve, improve and facilitate the use of smart TV service. '
Turning to the blueprint for the development of artificial intelligence, Wang Zhiguo said Skyworth TV is based on the advantages of expanding the refrigerator, washing machines, air conditioners and other home appliances business, has basically completed the layout.Next, Skyworth on the one hand to the content extension, on the other hand to the components, Small appliances and even kitchen products extension, they automatically networked with the TV, to complete the home entertainment, family service system expansion.
Huang Hongsheng, founder and major shareholder of Skyworth, has expanded its smart car business. Wang Zhiguo said Skyworth hopes to extend from a smart home to a smart trip. After the driver technology is mature, cars will not need to spend energy on driving in the future, Enjoy video entertainment services, 'all this string together, constitute the development blueprint Skyworth AI'.
In line with this, Skyworth's cool-down system has expanded from a smart-TV operating system to a smart home-based operating system. "Consumers who buy our TV can buy the goods that match our TV on television to form Smart home ecosystem. 'Wang Zhiguo said.
Hisense also "ambitious." January 31, 2018, Hisense VIDAAAI artificial intelligence television system released in Beijing.Hisense Group Chief Scientist Wang Zhihao that the combination of artificial intelligence technology and smart TVs, so that television with voice recognition, image recognition, nature Language processing and machine learning capabilities, based on the foundations of big data, make television a user's 'thinking ability' and 'learning ability.'
In Wang Zhihao's opinion, smart phones have infiltrated all aspects of entertainment, transportation, knowledge education, smart home, living services, information inquiry, personal assistant and other aspects, but 'SmartTV covers less than 10% of life scenes' Entertainment, knowledge education and so on.
To this end, Hisense is building artificial intelligence television open ecological platform.VIDAAAI artificial intelligence system will open up the user clothing, food and entertainment 34 categories, hundreds of mainstream life scene service, television is no longer a simple audio-visual services, take-away, translation, taxi, hotel , Ticket booking, shopping, Wikipedia Q & A and other mainstream life services can be achieved on the TV side.
TCL also has the layout.TCL Group Vice President, TCL Multimedia CEO Wang Cheng in January this year, a color TV industry summit frankly, the fragmentation of the use of television to bring a big impact, the TV's turn on rate dropped, the TV boot time down. Has become competing with other equipment for the time from this perspective to understand that TCL competitors in the domestic market is not Hisense, nor Changhong, may be mobile phones, WeChat, today headlines.
Wang Cheng believes that 'artificial intelligence to bring more personalized application scenarios, users will significantly increase the viscosity of the TV. TCL artificial intelligence small T image, so that the more the TV with the user, the more understand the user. In the future living room, bedroom , Toilet, bathroom, kitchen and other scenes, there will be TV or display of living space, it will bring more scene service.These scene service, if you really can help consumers solve some problems, I believe that the industry New opportunity.
At present, TCL Multimedia (01070.HK) has completed the related asset restructuring. It will expand its business from color TV to mobile phones, home appliances (air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators) and smart speaker businesses and rename them as 'TCL Electronic Holdings Co., Ltd.' (000100.SZ) holding 52.52%, intends to build for the internationalization of TCL brand consumer electronics terminal industry group.This for the TCL color TV business to expand the scene of smart home applications, laid a foreboding.
Overseas expansion
Leveraging AI, China's color TV giants not only focus on innovative applications, but also hope to speed up the expansion in the overseas market pioneer.
Interestingly, at the CES in 2018, the Chinese color TV giants that have aggressively expanded their overseas markets have quietly stood "in line" with different smart ecosystems.
For the intelligent voice engine, Skyworth chose Google Assistant, Hisense chose Amazon's Alex, and TCL has been working closely with Roku, the US streaming platform service provider.
Wang Cheng admits that the big screen of smart TV can better interact with people, is the new entrance to a more ideal smart home, but there is not enough intelligent voice control, but also need an ecology. TCL will choose the direction of development in line with their own interests '' Alex and Google can work together. '
Wang Cheng believes that the Chinese market has entered a mature period, there is a lot of room for overseas markets in developed markets, the Chinese brand has not yet entered the mainstream, TCL in the United States market is just the start.Many developing countries such as Southeast Asia, India, Africa, there is a lot of demand for small and medium size TV, Chinese brands have a great opportunity.
It is in order to establish a more global, young brand image, TCL Group announced in February formally signed an international soccer star Neymar as the spokesman for the image, hoping to continue to expand market share in the World Cup.
Hisense contracted to become the official sponsor of the Russian Cup in 2018 in 2017. In November last year, Hisense acquired a further 95% stake in Toshiba's color TV business for approximately RMB798 million. Vice President of Qingdao Hisense International Marketing Co., Ltd. Zhu Xi told CBN reporter that he expected Hisense's overseas revenue in 2017 to surpass domestic revenue for the first time in 2017.
IHS China Research Director Zhang Bing believes that Hisense acquired Toshiba, Japan and North America can expand market share and access to Toshiba's 8K, OLED TV technology, dual-brand operation will help Hisense truly become a global brand.
Samsung, LG, Sony 2018CES have demonstrated the latest products and solutions in the direction of artificial intelligence, the Internet of things.Industry believes that Chinese companies need to be faster development in order to narrow the gap even in the world's largest single color TV market in China , The high-end market also need to continue to capture.As Skyworth has ranked first in the Chinese OLED TV market, but there is still a gap between the unit price and Japanese and Korean enterprises.
However, Skyworth Group spokesman Li Zhao confidently said: 'Just as Koreans recognized Samsung, LG and the Japanese recognized Sony, the next five years the Chinese will definitely recognize the local high-end brands.'