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TCL Zhiping lost the Chinese market
Written by Chen Dengxin
Editor/Smart
The capital market is cold to TCL Electronics.
TCL Electronics (formerly known as TCL Multimedia), which was listed in Hong Kong, opened at HK$5.695 and closed at HK$4.050 in 2021, with a full-year market value of 28.88%; at the beginning of 2022, the monthly line showed two consecutive clouds, with a market value of only HK$9.002 billion, and it should be known that the market value at the beginning of the listing in 1999 exceeded HK$20 billion.
During this period, even if TCL Electronics released good news, it would not help.
For example, on February 23, 2022, TCL Electronics officially launched the new Silver Arc Speed Smart Screen P11 series, and the stock price did not stir up waves that day, but plunged 3.92% the next day.
Under the tide of domestic products, TCL electronics pushed new, why did not have the confidence to revitalize the capital market? After running TV for about forty years, how did you fall behind? AloT track giants are lined up, TCL Electronics is under siege?
Sales of smart screens declined, and new products were suspected of exaggerating publicity
Zhiping has always been the "pillar" of TCL Electronics.
The so-called smart screen, in fact, is a TV with intelligent attributes and focusing on entertainment, also known as smart TV, social TV, Internet TV, etc., the name varies from company to company, but the dimension is the same.
According to TCL Electronics' interim report, the operating income in the first half of 2021 was HK$34.934 billion, an increase of 103.7% year-on-year; the net profit was HK$1.041 billion, an increase of 122.9% year-on-year; of which Zhiping's revenue accounted for 66.08%, which has a pivotal position in various business lines.
If we talk about performance alone, it seems that the market value should not shrink.
However, the performance is only a thing of the past, and the capital market emphasizes expectations and pays more attention to future growth, that is, the wisdom screen, which is the core of TCL electronics, can still play in the end.
The answer is obviously not satisfactory to the capital market.
According to the official announcement of TCL Electronics, the global sales volume of TCL Smart Screen in 2021 was 23.5795 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 1.5%, and more importantly, sales in the Chinese market fell by 24.4% year-on-year.
Under the performance surface, the decline of TCL electronics is visible to the naked eye.
An Internet observer told Zinc Scale: "Traditional black electricity has long entered the shrinkage market, Zhiping has become an incremental market, ushering in various princes competing, xiaomi, glory and other enterprises with Internet thinking such as fish, and TCL electronics and other traditional home appliance companies are still a little bit worse, the tone is still different." ”
In this context, TCL Electronics has high hopes for the Silver Arc Extreme Smart Screen P11 series, and is eager to become the winner and loser of curbing the decline in smart screen sales.
Unfortunately, the Silver Arc Extreme Speed Smart Screen P11 series is embarrassing.
Fu Wenzhong, a senior observer of the home appliance industry, told Zinc Scale: "P11 is not cost-effective, the key is that there is a suspicion of fooling people, support 8K decoding, but the screen is 4K, what is the use?" The double 120Hz effect is achieved by relying on algorithms, and the real effect is debatable; 130% BT.709 color gamut looks very good at a glance, but this is an old standard, which is now less used, and it is actually moderate to use mainstream standards. ”
Silver Arc Speed Smart Screen P11 supports 8K decoding, however the screen is 4K
Fu Wenzhong further said that TCL Electronics launched the Thunderbird brand for young people, taking the cost-effective route, there is no problem in the direction, but the results are difficult to come up with.
"Thunderbird has not done a good job, or can not jump out of the TCL system." Fu Wenzhong believes that the future of Thunderbird is full of thorns, "there are problems with brand operation, channels are not done well, although some models have a bit of word of mouth, but sales are tepid, to put it bluntly, Thunderbird has no Internet genes." ”
From this point of view, TCL Electronics' wisdom screen is facing a breakthrough battle.
Strategic mistakes have changed from front-runners to catch-ups
In fact, this is not the first time that TCL Electronics has encountered a bottleneck.
According to public information, in 1987, China's total output of television sets reached 19.34 million units, surpassing Japan to become the world's largest television producer, marking the end of the era of tight color TV.
The following year, Changhong fired the first shot of the color TV price war.
Since then, China's color TV brands have gradually jumped up, slowly gained the upper hand in the game with Japanese and Korean color TV brands, and finally came to the center of the stage, with a voice that cannot be ignored.
TCL TV rose in that glorious era.
Looking back, 2001 was a watershed year for TCL, when its color TV sales reached the top, and founder Li Dongsheng had the idea of becoming the global color TV overlord in one fell swoop.
"If a tiger chases you, everyone can climb the Himalayas." Li Dongsheng said.
Li Dongsheng, who is full of ambition, has set his sights on Thomson, France, known as the originator of CRT, a Fortune 500 company with a deep background in picture tube technology and a mature global market layout.
As a result, in 2003, TCL staged an international merger and acquisition of "snake swallowing elephant", and became the world's largest color TV company as desired, and Li Dongsheng was also rated as "the world's most influential business leader" by "Time", receiving countless flowers and applause at home and abroad, and his reputation reached the peak of his life.
The strategy is just the beginning, the most important thing is the result, Li Dongsheng is not Li Shufu, Geely successfully acquired Volvo, but TCL Electronics' international mergers and acquisitions have "failed".
Unexpectedly, soon after, the LCD TV revolutionized the life of CRT, Li Dongsheng's wishful thinking failed, and Thomson became a "hot potato".
According to public data, TCL once had a profit crisis of 18 months of net loss of 1.8 billion yuan.
To this end, it took Li Dongsheng almost 5 years to completely get rid of the burden brought about by strategic mistakes, but the market competition pattern at this time has already undergone earth-shaking changes.
Li Dongsheng reduced his holdings in TCL Electronics
In China, TCL's LED layout has slowed down a step, Hisense, Skyworth, etc. have run ahead; in foreign countries, Samsung and LG have made great strides and become the "double males" of the global market.
What's worse is that Xiaomi, LeTV and other Internet players have crossed the border to compete for the market through dimensionality reduction, and when traditional enterprises wake up, they have been overtaken by curves, but they have become catch-ups, and then they are lagging behind step by step.
In fact, Li Dongsheng's focus has long shifted to the panel business, and he stepped down as the chairman of the board of directors of TCL Electronics since August 9, 2021.
At present, the market value of TCL Technology (panel-based) is as high as 78.010 billion yuan, which is almost 10 times that of TCL Electronics.
Bet on AloT, but it is difficult to pull out the second curve
In addition to television, TCL Electronics' AloT is also facing the siege of the crowd.
At present, TCL Electronics' business line involves many subdivisions of home appliances such as TVs, refrigerators, door locks, stoves, washing machines, etc. It is AloT (artificial intelligence + Internet) that string together the above business lines.
In other words, TCL Electronics is eager to build a new AIoT format to unlock greater growth potential.
According to iResearch data, China's AIoT market size will exceed 580 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 53% year-on-year; the market size is expected to reach 750.9 billion yuan in 2022.
TCL founder Li Dongsheng
Although the market cake is close to the trillion scale, it is not easy for TCL Electronics to seek to pull out the second curve.
On the one hand, giants are gathered, and TCL Electronics has no advantage.
Whether it is the domestic Internet giants such as Baidu, JD.com, Xiaomi, and Huawei, or technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, they all cut into the AIoT track.
This means that TCL Electronics needs to compete head-on with it, but the strength of the two sides is not proportional.
Leaving aside the above opponents, Gree, Midea, Haier and other head home appliance companies, as well as hisense, Skyworth, Konka and other old opponents of the same era have also been down.
This means that in terms of ecosystem confrontation, TCL electronics has no advantage.
On the other hand, there is a lack of "moats".
Chen Tingtao, a manager of a private equity investment department, told Zinc Scale: "The core of AIoT is artificial intelligence, which has great advantages for Internet companies, while the understanding of traditional enterprises is relatively not deep, and it is not equipped with a large screen that can be called AIoT home appliances." ”
As we all know, TCL electronics is not known for AI.
Chen Tingtao further pointed out that the current entrance to AIoT is either mainly mobile phones, representing enterprises as Xiaomi, or smart speakers as the mainstay, representing enterprises as Baidu, and less consideration is given to TV as the entrance.
"The TV screen is larger and the weight is not light, usually placed in a fixed position, far less flexible and convenient than mobile phones and smart speakers, and the power consumption is relatively higher." Chen Tingtao believes that TCL Electronics' AIoT strategy lacks a cornerstone, "There are mobile phones, why stare at the screen of the refrigerator and integrated stove? ”
All in all, TCL Electronics' smart screen business has encountered a growth ceiling, especially in the domestic market, while the prospects of AIoT business are still uncertain, and its "low gross profit margin, low net interest rate" dilemma is difficult to change in a short period of time.
The tasteless food and the pity of abandonment have become the true portrayal of TCL Electronics at present.
END
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