LCD TV, a people-friendly home appliance that almost everyone has at home, seems to be slowly declining.
Data shows that from 2021 to this year, the price of LCD TVs has been falling for more than ten consecutive months. Now, small color TVs worth more than 200 yuan can be seen everywhere, almost falling below the cost price, and a "lose sale".
Once upon a time, as the "three major items" of the family, the TV could be regarded as a "luxury product" that only middle-class families can own. Nowadays, the TV with a price range of between 200-300 yuan is placed in the mall, but no one bought it. What exactly has it experienced? How do you make yourself die the more you "do"?
LCD TV is here, and it goes away again
Since the 1990s, TV has gradually entered the homes of the people and has become one of the three essential items for marriage. The TVs at that time were not as big as today's express boxes. However, it is very respectable for anyone who can have a TV in the whole village or in the whole building.
By 2000, the first LCD TV was launched. From 2000 to 2006, LCD TVs developed rapidly, and they changed their generation almost every year. Soon, this TV with huge screen, bright colors and light size overwhelmed the original big-headed TV and became the new favorite of consumers.
Since 2004, Chinese consumers' demand for LCD TVs has increased explosively. Sales volume in 2005 was more than four times that in 2004, and sales volume in 2006 were twice that in 2005.
At the beginning, my country's LCD TVs were mainly imported, and domestic manufacturers quickly caught up with them, including TCL, Changhong, Skyworth and other familiar brands.
By 2008, the country promulgated the "home appliances going to the countryside" policy. LCD TVs have appeared in thousands of households with this spring breeze.
I saved enough money after working in a year, and went to a department store to buy a 32, 46 or even 50-inch LCD TV to install it in the living room. First, enjoy the pride of parents, then look at the excitement that children cannot hide, and then watch the Spring Festival Gala in front of the ultra-thin, flat, right-angle, curved LCD TV. This is a valuable memory of many middle-aged people.
An LCD TV is not only decent and beautiful, but also a concrete symbol of the hard work of the year. These parameters and terms are like an open window that shows high technology and a new life.
In recent years, there are also TV cabinets among the essential items for marriage, but the TVs have not appeared much. Some parents prepare new houses for their children and mention "LCD TV", but they will be rolled by young people disagree: Who still watches TV these days?
China's LCD TV market has been cold
From 2015 to 2020, China's annual production of LCD TVs was more than 50 million units. Although there were some slight fluctuations, even in 2020, which was affected by the epidemic, China still produced 51 million LCD TVs.
The domestic LCD TV market in China continues to grow year by year, but the good days of double sales every year are over. The sales of LCD TVs increased from 27.5 million units in 2017 to 33.38 million units in 2020, far from reaching production. Therefore, all the LCD TVs produced are exported.
has a backlog of new products. In 2015, China exported nearly 70 million LCD TVs. From 2018 to 2020, exports exceeded 90 million units for three consecutive years. With the impact of the epidemic in the past two years and the impact of the economic crisis in , exports in 2020 have dropped back to 77.05 million units. Some people predict that as international shipping costs fall, China's LCD TV exports will grow again.
Is this because foreigners bid high? Bought our TV?
You are too optimistic about this. In fact, Chinese LCD TVs go overseas to make a living.
In 2013, the number of TVs owned by every 100 households in China has reached 115. From then on, my country's television has entered the stock model. In other words, people who want to buy TV have bought it, and some even have two or three TVs.
The phenomenon of oversupply of TV continues to develop. By 2021, every 100 households in my country will own 121 color TVs. TV is not a consumable.According to the good habit of thrift and frugality of our people, you have to watch a TV worth thousands of yuan for three to five years. Unless the performance of the new product has been greatly improved, people will not easily replace the TV that can still be used.
However, the resolution of the human eye is limited. No matter how high-definition and fidelity the TV evolves, or how advanced the LCD screen technology is, the human eye sees it. If ordinary people can only see from the instructions that your high-priced new products are more powerful, but cannot experience the performance improvement in person, then no matter how much money is invested to improve the quality of the TV, it will not open the consumer's pockets.
So, although LCD TV manufacturers are still working hard to update, LCD TVs have become homogeneous. No matter which TV watches it, it looks similar. Since 2018, my country's TV production has begun to decline year by year.
Therefore, some manufacturers have come up with their last trick to fight - "volume price" . After the price war between
began, LCD TVs as low as 1,000 yuan are everywhere. During shopping festivals like Double Eleven, small color TVs that can be obtained for only 200 to 300 yuan are also available. Even so, merchants did not expect the peak of TV sales. Some manufacturers of LCD panels have even gradually reduced their investment in the TV market and switched to computer monitors and tablets.
Will TV leave our lives?
With the development of smartphones, short videos, mobile games, etc., which use mobile phones as carriers to sweep the three generations of old, middle-aged and young people, so the voice of singing the TV began to appear.
The whole family and the young and old sat in front of the TV in the "Golden Eight Oct" waiting for " I Love My Home ". When the children are on summer vacation, the "pulls and wait for the lights" in " Journey to the West " will ring... These scenes faded out of people's vision.
The phenomenal dramas that have been popular in recent years, such as "The Undocumented Crime", " The Hidden Corner ", etc., are all online dramas. web drama is on your mobile phone and can be watched at any time, which fits the fragmented time of the younger generation. However, TV series must be played on TV and watched on TV during a fixed period. , a regular and fixed-point viewing method, does not adapt to the fast-paced and irregular modern urban life, so gradually, with TV, the audience is aging and the market is marginalized.
As for the must-see " News Broadcast ", which is a must-see for the TV, it has also become a daily news push in young people's mobile phones. Click on it when you have time, and you will never have to wait for 7 o'clock in the evening.
In order to reverse the decline, the TV industry has come up with various tricks. The two key aspects of betting are TV members and smart TV .
Seeing that the video platform is popular, the TV industry has also joined hands with the online drama platform to launch TV + membership services. In short, if you buy a TV membership on a certain platform, you can watch its content on TV. However, TV members and mobile members are not universal. It costs two times to watch programs with two devices. Members like
are not considered useless, but at least they can be said to be chicken manure.
For young people, having a mobile phone is enough. If you want to see a large picture, buy a projector or connect to the projection screen. Isn’t it delicious to save membership fees and drink milk tea?
For middle-aged and elderly people, it is difficult for people to accept that watching TV costs money. If you want to watch programs on different platforms, you actually have to buy several members, which is really breaking the bottom line of the older generation. This generation of people has been through hardships, and they are unwilling to spend more money for themselves, let alone to watch a show?
Therefore, many middle-aged and elderly people also started playing with mobile networks, posting WeChat messages on their mobile phones, watching videos, learning to cook, and even becoming internet celebrities. These features are much more fun than the shows on TV members, and they don’t have any money!
The concept of smart TV is the same as that of mobile phones. It can not only watch, but also have a control system that can install or uninstall software. The functions will be continuously upgraded and human-computer interaction can also be performed.
The post-00s generation who grew up with their mobile phones and tablets may like this concept of smart home and smart life. About 63% of smart TV users are under 34 years old.Therefore, the services and content of smart TVs are also tending to face young people in the sinking market. With this part of purchasing power, the sales of smart TVs and the supporting set-top box have steadily increased, and is in incremental battles in third- and fourth-tier cities.
In 2019, the number of smart TVs grew rapidly in fifth-tier cities, with a growth rate of about 43%. The growth rate in third- and fourth-tier cities also reached 17.8% and 23.1%.
Look at it this way, converting an ordinary LCD TV into a big mobile phone - a smart TV, seems to be the way out for LCD TV manufacturers. Many large domestic manufacturers, such as Skyworth, TCL, and Changhong, have targeted new markets and are eager to try.
However, there is a group that seems to be abandoned.
Sometimes, the old man just wants to turn on the TV at a fixed time, see a familiar program, and after watching it, press the switch and turn it off, and it's fine.
But this smart TV needs to be on demand, interact and voice conversation. After a long time of struggle, I finally got the program I wanted to watch, but said that I had to be a member to be exempt from advertising. With the help of the younger generation, I learned how to operate it, and it was upgraded in just two days!
The TV industry seems to have a stake in it, and it is too early to call it yesterday's industry. However, for middle-aged and elderly people, the habit of watching TV that sprouted in the 1990s and established in the millennium may really be at its end.
