In fact, LeTV and other popular Internet TV brands, when Internet TV entered the 'second half', are now fading all the way. At the same time, due to the 'dumb fire' of the Internet TV brand camp, Skyworth's cool open, TCL's Thunderbird, Konka The Internet sub-brands of traditional color TV companies such as KKTV have begun to transform, focusing on simply selling hardware to Internet TV operations.
Collective misfire
When Jia Yueting continued to realize his dream of building a car in North America, LeTV’s loss was further expanded.
According to the semi-annual performance forecast, LeTV (300104.SZ) net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of 2018 is expected to be a loss of 1.105 billion to 1.11 billion yuan, a loss of 640 million yuan in the same period last year. Estimated LeTV 2018 1 The net assets attributable to shareholders of listed companies in June are negative. This means that LeTV's risk of delisting is increasing.
LeTV.com explained that the company’s reputation and credibility are still mired in a serious negative public opinion turmoil due to the constant funding of related parties and liquidity. In the first half of 2018, LeTV’s terminal revenue, advertising revenue, membership and distribution business Compared with the same period of last year, the income showed a significant decline. Except for the normal operating costs (such as labor costs), the company's other costs did not fall during the reporting period.
Debt pressure is still heavy. LeTV said that the debt maturity of some financial institutions is approaching, which brings certain uncertainty to the short-term fund planning and arrangement. Currently, it is actively negotiating loan extensions with relevant financial institutions, renewing loans; seeking third parties Capital increase to solve the financial pressure faced by the subsidiary; Coordinating related parties to repay the arrears to the listed company by cash or assets.
A dealer in the original LeTV in western Guangdong told the First Financial Reporter that he now sells Sharp TV. The existence of LeTV has little effect on the industry. In contrast, Xiaomi is crazy to open stores online. Only offline dealer network is stable, and earning money can better support online development and provide landing services.
The low price of LeTV brand and the risk of LeTV's delisting have made the second shareholder of Lexun, which is currently the leading LeTV network, a 'single portal'.
On July 18th, Liu Shuqing, who is also the chairman of LeTV and the CEO of Lerong Group, said that Lerong is an open brand, not only serving LeTV, but also serving Sunac and other partners. Sunac is a staunch supporter of Lerong. .
This year, LeTV, a subsidiary of LeTV, which is responsible for the color TV business, has completed a new round of financing and introduced strategic shareholders such as Tencent, Jingdong, Suning and TCL. The proportion of LeTV's holdings is decreasing. In this regard, Liu Shuqing said that the relationship between Lerong and the listed companies has not changed. LeTV management is doing its utmost to restore all the business of listed companies.
The First Financial Reporter noted that not only LeTV, Stormwind Group (300431.SZ) also experienced a significant decline in its performance in the first half of the year. The company’s net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of 2018 is expected to be a loss of 85 million yuan to 90 million yuan. The profit for the same period last year was 15.725 million yuan.
In this regard, the company explained that the main reason is that the Internet TV business is in a period of rapid business expansion. The sales volume in May hit the highest monthly sales volume since the listing of Storm TV. It is estimated that the operating income in the first half of this year will be 657 million to 662 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.22%. In order to accumulate users, further seize the market share of the Internet TV, ensure that Storm TV completes its business objectives, increase marketing and promotion efforts, and increase costs and expenses. At the same time, the company's Internet video advertising business revenue decreased year-on-year, affecting the company's overall profit level.
Ai Youyi, senior vice president of Aiqiyi, said in a public occasion not long ago that companies that used video websites to make TV rumors that half of the traditional TV brands will disappear in 3-5 years; nowadays, traditional TV brands are still there. It’s just that the profit is not as good as before, but many video websites that are doing TV are no longer there.
In fact, the once-popular micro-whale, CAN-watching and other Internet TV brands have had little voice since this year. A related person from Micro-Whale told the First Financial Reporter that the micro-whale is undergoing transformation, sorting out the internal structure, redefining Products, still hope to do the TV business deep, but it takes time, it is expected that there will be sound before the end of this year.
Traditional enterprise counterattack
In order to deal with Internet brands such as wolf-like tigers and low-cost shopping, many traditional color TV companies have launched Internet sub-brands in recent years. Including the Internet sub-brands of Skyworth's Cool Open, TCL's Thunderbird, Konka's KKTV and other traditional companies. Transformation, from simply selling hardware to 'soft and hard combination', shifting focus to Internet TV operations.
TCL Group (000100.SZ) The net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of 2018 is expected to be 1.55 billion yuan to 1.65 billion yuan, which will increase by more than 50% year-on-year. One of the reasons for the increase is the color TV product structure and channel optimization.
In the first half of this year, TCL LCD TV sales reached 13.51 million units, up 37.8% year-on-year. Thunderbird Technology, which operates TCL's smart TV platform business, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Jingdong in May after introducing Tencent as its second largest shareholder. Value is realized.
Shenkangjia (000016.SZ) The net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of 2018 is expected to be between 320 million and 350 million yuan, an increase of about 10 times compared with the same period of last year. Among them, Anhui, which is responsible for Konka Internet TV sub-brand KKTV, opened its horizons. E-Commerce Co., Ltd., intends to transform from a pure hardware company to an Internet operation company of 'content + hardware + operation', and has introduced 10% of Guangdong Southern Ai Shi Entertainment Technology Co., Ltd., which has the joint operation right of full license. Rich content resources and years of experience in OTT operations.
Skyworth's Cooler Company also focused on the TV big screen eco business this year, namely operating system, content operation, etc. Baidu and iQiyi have been introduced as strategic shareholders.
Wang Dong, general manager of Suning Tesco's black electricity business, told the First Financial Reporter that traditional TV brands are not inferior to Internet brands in terms of intelligent functions and content operations, but Internet brands pay more attention to fan marketing and community marketing. Therefore, the future will go even further. In the long run, it will be a company with hardware manufacturing capabilities and software layout, including Hisense, Skyworth, TCL, Changhong, etc.
In fact, in addition to the accelerated transformation of traditional TV brands and the decline in TV panel prices, the price difference between traditional TV brands and Internet TV brands has also narrowed. In addition, the hardware of Internet TV brands such as LeTV and Storm has been losing money, while capital markets and Investors no longer support the 'blind burning of money' model, which adds up to the decline of many Internet TV brands.
Although Suning's PPTV will retain the TV brand, Wang Dong said frankly that PPTV will become an entry point for content ecology in the future, providing sports and entertainment content services for many TV brands.
Zhang Weijun, research director of Avi Cloud (AVC), said that China's color TV market has exceeded 50 million units in 2016 driven by smart TVs and new brands. The adjustment in 2017 has fallen back, marking the end of the market's high growth era and entering structural adjustment. stage.
In the first half of 2018, domestic color TV sales increased slightly by 4%, but due to fierce competition, panel prices fell, retail sales did not increase. The industry's Matthew effect is more obvious, market share from the first, second, long tail three camps In the first camp of the first quarter of 2018, the share of foreign brands increased by 1.8%, mainly by Xia Pra; the share of Internet brands decreased by 0.9%, and Xiaomi moved against the trend; The traditional brand share also dropped slightly by 1%. Overall, the market share of traditional brands, foreign brands and Internet brands is 7:2:1.
Zhang Zhuoyu expects that the domestic color TV market will reach 26.53 million units in the second half of this year, a slight increase of 3.2%; but due to the panel price, sales will drop by 2%. He judges that the TV product positioning and profit model will change in the future. In the second half of the year, the color TV industry transformation will experience 'pain pain'.
Peng Xiandong, general manager of Zhongyikang Black Power Research Center, also believes that in the future, traditional brands will survive better if they seize the opportunity. Brands that integrate smart homes in new brands will also have opportunities, but the pressure to do Internet TV alone will be relatively high.