From 1958, when China made its first television set, to 1987, when China surpassed Japan in terms of TV sales to become the world's first, it took China only 29 years.
In 2011, China became the world's largest market for LCD TVs, in 2013 China became the world's largest 4K TV market, in 2020, the world's top 5 TV brands, China exclusively 3, China has been creating TV glory. But behind the brilliance is the difficult catch-up process of Chinese television companies.
In the CRT era, Chinese companies have the advantage of competing with Japanese and Korean TV brands with a complete industrial chain and lower production costs, which also makes China surpass Japan in 1987 to become the world's first CRT TV producer.
Unfortunately, the good times are not long, just across the new century, LCD TVs have begun to penetrate rapidly with the advantages of thin and light and large screens, and Japanese and Korean color TV companies have a complete industrial chain from materials, parts to display screens to the whole machine. In China, which stays in the assembly stage of the whole machine, there is no panel factory in the country that can get its hands on it, and it is completely dependent on imports, and about 80% of the profits of the finished color TV products will flow into the pockets of foreign-funded enterprises.
Chinese companies that are not willing to work for others have begun to fight back from two aspects. In 2007, changhong, the tv leader at the time, announced that it had entered the game of plasma television, and invested 4 billion yuan to bet on plasma tv to compete with Japanese and Korean LCD TVs. In 2009, TCL spent 24.5 billion yuan on MCA Optoelectronics to build its own panel supply chain system.
In the following years, plasma TVs lost in the market competition, and Changhong fell into trouble, but Huaxing Optoelectronics withstood the pressure and became a double male of China's panel industry together with BOE.
However, China's TV industry has not gained a chance to breathe, and while LCD TVs have entered glory, Japanese and Korean companies such as Sony, Samsung and LG have begun OLED TV research and development and mass production. Once again, relying on the first-mover advantage, a technology monopoly has been formed, and by 2017, South Korea's OLED panel shipments accounted for 97.2% of the world's total, and the revenue accounted for 98.9%. The problem of less screens in the high-end market of Chinese brands has further intensified.
In order to get out of the predicament again, Skyworth chose to make a positive breakthrough in OLED TV, TCL launched qLED quantum dot TV on the basis of liquid crystal, and several major TV manufacturers in China are seeking changes in their own way.
After years of catching up and massive R & D investment, the technology generation gap between Chinese enterprises and foreign leading enterprises is gradually eliminating, OLED TV, QLED TV have achieved good results, TCL in the new generation of display technology Mini LED has completed the surpass, whether it is the number of patents or sales are in the world's leading position, BOE, Skyworth and other enterprises have also begun to Mini LED layout.
From OEM to innovation, from catching up to surpassing, I believe that more Chinese TV companies will use technology to walk in the forefront of the world in the future.
