Pan-Television Induces Asian Panel Strategy Failure

As color TV companies have disclosed their interim results one after another, signs of a slowdown in the growth rate of the entire industry have become evident. At this time, global color TV companies have turned to smart TVs and sought to eliminate the impact of global industrial changes through product intelligence. In fact, since IT giants such as Google and Microsoft announced their entry into the television industry, the global TV industry has created a wave of pan-TV: On the one hand, TV is breaking through the attributes of its single audio-visual terminal and has evolved into a multi-screen architecture and video. Entertainment and communication functions are integrated in the information terminal; on the other hand, mobile phones, computers and other products have also become the playback terminals for video programs. The global industry is forming a pan-TV product architecture with television, mobile phones, and computers as the main products.

The biggest change brought about by the Pan-TV era is to fully amplify the consumer's right to choose home entertainment terminals, and to achieve a direct reversal of the status of television content providers and consumers. A notable feature of the era of pan-TV is "video is television". Electronic terminal equipment has television attributes because of its video playback function, and it has become a television in a wide sense. In the era of pan-TV, the role of the hardware terminal will not only be limited to receiving content, but will be an integrated information terminal that integrates communication, video, and entertainment functions. The relative shift in the role of the product requires that the pan-TV terminal must have stronger data processing capabilities, which makes it necessary for operating systems and chip suppliers to enter the television field.

We have seen that the current foreign-funded enterprises are accelerating their strategic deployment in the field of pan-TV-based TV terminals. Microsoft, Intel and other companies are rapidly entering the attempt to establish a Wintel monopoly advantage similar to that of the computer industry. In fact, with the advent of the pan-TV trend, especially under the trend of triple play, the global color TV industry chain has clearly become differentiated into software (including chips) and operating system providers, content producers and operators, and network operators. , terminal equipment manufacturers and other subjects, in these roles, the role of terminal equipment manufacturers will gradually be weakened, and the Asian color TV industry, mainly panel and machine manufacturing, is facing tremendous pressure in the new color TV industry ecosystem.

Objectively speaking, the pan-TV era engendered the role of a new industry and completely subverted the original rules of the global industry game: The industrial chain of hardware resources such as panels is gradually being weakened, and soft elements such as operating software and core chips are being weakened. Is becoming a key factor in determining the status of the industry. Specifically, the competition among global color TV companies in the era of pan-TV will focus on four major factors: operating systems and application software, core chips, panels, and content. Operating systems and chips will become key competitive factors for the industry, while the panel will retreat to a relatively secondary position. Companies that master operating systems and application software and chips are expected to act as industrial change drivers in the era of pan-TV. At the same time, in the era of pan-TV, color TV companies, with the exception of operating systems and chip suppliers, are on the same starting line, and a new round of industry qualifying will be launched rapidly. The Asian color TV industry, which does not grasp the key elements of future industries such as operating systems, is in danger of becoming promoters and distributors of corporate products in Europe and the United States.

It is foreseeable that in the future, the color TV industry will become a mixed industry of hardware and software. From any single point of view, it will become impossible to gain the right to speak of industrial competition. In the future, the competition in the color TV industry will inevitably be a small front desk and a large backstage competition. The front end is a terminal device based on product hardware, and the back end is a broader operating platform including operating systems, software, chips, and content. system. Under this circumstance, the Asian color TV industry needs to formulate a clear industrial development strategy, and under the guidance of the strategy, consolidate the existing panel industry advantages, and at the same time cultivate competitiveness in the areas of operating systems and application software.

The arrival of the pan-TV era rewritten the single competition mode in which color TV industry used panel as the key element, and formed a new industrial value distribution system with operating systems and chips as the main body. Regarding the Asian color TV industry, which is a core source of competitiveness with hardware such as panels, how to build new industry support based on operating systems, application software, etc., on the basis of consolidating the established advantages of panel resources, and realize the subversion of the development model. Change is the core strategic issue faced by Asian TV companies in the era of pan-TV.

For Chinese companies, the era of pan-TV will cause the domestic color TV industry to face dual pressures: On the one hand, the domestic color TV industry has not yet come out of the constraints of panel resources. Multiple panel production lines are being stepped up and there is no need to build independent technological innovation platforms. On the other hand, the era of pan-TV is rapidly rewriting the original industry competition rules. How to achieve strategic breakthroughs in operating systems, chips and other fields through strategic adjustment has become the biggest challenge faced by domestic color TV companies. Although the current domestic color TV industry is actively promoting product deployment in the era of pan-TV, if there is no clear strategic path to overcome the strategic limitations of these two dimensions, the long-term development of the color TV industry will be difficult to sustain, and it will become a global era of pan-TV. Industry spectators.