Ignition Dimension (ID: chaintruth) original
Produced by Burning Finance
Author | Cao Yang Zhang Lin
Edit | Cao Yang
The once-popular smart TVs are being abandoned by users.
"After booting, you can't go directly to the TV program you want to watch", "There are many devices (set-top boxes, TV sets), I don't know how to switch between each other", "The operation is complicated, I don't know how to find the content I want to see", "There are too many remote controls, I don't know how to use it", "I can't find anyone to help when I encounter problems"...
Recently, the "2022 China Aging TV Survey Report" released by the State Grid of China shows that among the difficulties encountered in the process of using smart TVs, the above problems have become the most complained pain points of users, accounting for 49.6%, 28.0%, 20.9%, 17.6%, and 13.4% respectively.
At the moment when the elderly have become the main force in watching smart TVs, smart TVs bring the experience of "less and less use" to the elderly. According to the CSM Media (China Guangshi Sofrey Media) research, the viewership survey data of 71 large and medium-sized cities across the country (2019 data), the proportion of 55-64-year-old TV viewers who are younger and have just entered the ranks of the elderly has reached 18.6%, and the group over 65 years old accounts for 21.8%, and the audience proportion has remained basically stable in the past three years, becoming the largest group of TV program audiences at present.
In fact, the "will not use" is not only the elderly. Recently, a woman in Handan, Hebei Province, sent a video complaining that the newly bought TV set was too difficult to use, which resonated with netizens. "I'm a young man, and I can't turn on a TV set with 3 remote controls, not to mention that the people watching TV now are all elderly."
Below the video, netizens have left messages to complain. "Don't say the elderly, I don't understand it after a 90s, when the big screen is used, in addition to the projection screen, basically not open", "the TV set that beats the TV set", "Before there was electricity, you can watch, and now the money may not be able to watch all." ”
In addition, smart TV ads are also enough to dissuade many users. In the above video, the woman said that there are more than ten seconds of advertising after the TV is turned on, and the TV series she wants to watch involves multiple apps, and you need to buy members to watch. Even if you open a VIP member, there is still an advertisement of more than 10 seconds, and as a result, the TV series did not watch for a while, and then inserted an advertisement of more than 70 seconds, which took more than an hour before and after.
More netizens said bluntly to Burning Finance, "Smart TV is to make advertising smarter." In the Zhihu post," the data shows that nearly 50% of the elderly can't find the TV program they want to watch, why is the operation of the "smart TV" designed so complicated? Below, there are 1152 netizens' answers.
Among them, the answer of the user who knows the ID is "I want to cherish the account", "Because every additional step of operation, there is one more page to display advertisements." On the mainland, smart = more efficient ad serving, not a better user experience. Below, it received 18,000 likes and 607 comments.
In addition, many netizens, including the poorest million big V, the ID of "Three Uncles Kankan", and the ID of "Lao Xiao", have also said that the purpose of smart TVs is to make money.
However, despite the complaints of young people on the one hand and the inability of the elderly to use on the other hand, the players who enter the domestic smart TV market do not seem to be affected by this at all. Whether it is The Internet companies such as LeTV and Xiaomi, which have been laid out since 2012, or the traditional color TV companies with innate technological advantages, the battle for the smart TV market has never been as full of smoke as the smart phone market, but it has also been staged.
Industry insiders told Burning Finance that if the early launch of smart TVs is to seize the living room economy in order to seize traffic, then nowadays, it has become an important part of the layout of smart home scenes, and more and more are regarded as intelligent control hubs. "Around smart TVs, we can build a complete smart home ecological chain, and then create scenario-based life services."
But at the same time, the above-mentioned people also said that in terms of the current market pattern of smart TVs and the relationship between various manufacturers, there is still a long way to go to truly realize the role of the smart family hub they play.
Smart TVs are not friendly
Yang Yu, who is nearly sixty years old, began to use smart TVs as early as 2014. He told Burning Finance that even so, until now, he still had to ask his son remotely for help from time to time.
Yang Yu's TV set is mainly watched by him and his lover, as well as his 90-year-old mother. "In order for us to learn to use smart TVs, my son did not bother. My mom couldn't read, but she studied very seriously. In order to chase the drama, the old lady deliberately took a small book to draw arrows, and pressed them a few times up and down, left and right, and marked clearly. After studying for two whole days, I could finally barely find the TV series I was chasing. ”
"But sometimes, whether it is the automatic update of the system or the continuous enrichment of the series, it will change the position of the TV series, so that the old lady will have to re-draw the picture." Yang Yu told Burning Finance that sometimes there will be a case of missing the paid program, "Once I went to pay the money, I found that I deducted 150 yuan, and the staff said that it was a paid project." The 90-year-old did not have the need to watch paid programs at all, and I explained to the staff for half a day before they helped apply for cancellation. ”
In addition to the inconvenience of operation, membership payment and endless advertising have also become the most complaining points of Internet smart TV.
Like Yang Yu, wang xi after the 80s has also begun to "stay away" from smart TVs. Wang Xi and her lover are working outside the home, but also earned a little money, in order to filial piety to their parents, two years ago bought a smart TV for their parents in their hometown. As a result, every time I go home, I find that the old man does not look much, and when I asked, I learned that the advertisement of smart TV is much more than the advertisement of traditional satellite TV.
Wang Xi said that not only are there many advertisements, many TV series need to be opened to watch, and these members cannot be used with mobile phones. "Take iQIYI as an example, I have always been an iQIYI member on the mobile APP, but this cannot be used on tv, but it must be purchased separately."
In desperation, Wang Xi had to honestly pay the membership fee. "The first thing showed was 9.9 yuan a month, I saw that the price was very cheap, I rushed 50 yuan, thinking about using it for a few months." As a result, in the third month, I was prompted that the membership expired, and I took a closer look to know that the first month of membership was 9.9 yuan, and the second month was 30 yuan per month. ”
Wang Xi told Burning Finance that even if you become a member, there are still many programs that you can't watch. Some TV series or variety shows can only be watched on some or some APP, and the freedom to watch dramas cannot be achieved without one hundred and eighty yuan per month. "The most critical thing is that parents also feel that they are not used to using it. Until now, they continue to spend time with old TVs, and the smart TVs they bought have been shelved. The membership fee is naturally saved. ”
TV maintenance master Wang Yi told Burning Finance that there are often elderly people who say that there is no program because they will not use smart TV, and they look for him to repair it. "Traditional TV is a fool mode, up and down two keys can choose their favorite channels, now the smart TV function and computer is similar, the operation interface is the same as a variety of APP software, for young people is convenient, but for the elderly, the operation is too difficult."
Wang Yi said that usually the elderly hope that they can set the smart TV to be like a traditional TV, and turn it on to enter the live TV. For many elderly people, those buttons choose the rear raised frame edges, they can't see clearly, not to mention some TVs that need to be converted between 2-3 remote controls.
Yang Yu said that he still misses the traditional TV of the past, which is easy to operate and good in quality. "When I got married, I bought a 32-inch TV and spent more than 5,000 yuan. At that time, it was still a 'big ass' TV, although it was bulky and heavy, but it was used for more than ten years, and it was convenient to open the channel that stayed when it was turned off by default, and it was very convenient to find a program. Later, I changed the LCD TV, and I watched it for three years. Then there is the smart TV, which has been used for three or four years and has a black screen. ”
Yang Yu said that the increasingly troublesome smart TV also made him and his lover choose to give up. "Unless it's a newscast, if you can watch it on your phone, you won't turn on TV again."
The Smart TV is a sweet cake
But despite the poor user experience, manufacturers are flocking to smart TVs. After all, under the business model of "hardware is free and software is paid", the smart TV market is an indispensable big cake.
According to the monitoring of ccData smart home large-screen users and viewing behavior data of China Science and Technology Network, in order to obtain better video resources, nearly a quarter of consumers have directly purchased the membership services provided by smart TV brands.
On the smart TV terminal platform, consumers spend about 30 yuan per month on average. The average monthly cost of smart TV users on smart TVs is about 31 yuan, which includes both the cost of buying memberships and the behavior of paying for a single film.
According to Aowei Interactive Entertainment's calculations, in 2020, the total revenue of Internet TV advertising operations will reach 12.1 billion yuan, of which the system layer revenue will reach 2.62 billion yuan, the content layer revenue will be 8.04 billion yuan, and the application and other income will be 1.44 billion yuan, and the profit is still expanding.
This may also be one of the reasons why Internet companies and traditional TV manufacturers are scrambling to enter the game.
In 2012, LeTV announced a high-profile investment of 1.5 billion yuan to enter smart TVs, opening a "revolution" in domestic TELEVISION. Xiaomi, Storm, PPTV, etc. followed, and the concept of Internet TV has since entered the public eye.
Subsequently, traditional TV companies have also launched their own Internet brands, such as Haier's mooka, Skyworth's Cool Kai, TCL's Thunderbird, Konka's KKTV, Changhong's CHiQ, Hisense's VIDAA, etc., and have received financial support from Internet giants. In 2017, Tencent invested in Kukai, and in 2019, Alibaba invested in Konka Group's Yi Square and Kai Kai Vision (KKTV).
After 2018, mobile phone manufacturers such as OnePlus, Huawei, Honor, and OPPO have successively entered the game, giving more new concepts to smart motors, namely smart screens and smart screens. For most users, the biggest difference between smart screens and Internet TV is "more cameras", which brings a variety of personalized functions such as social, fitness, and child care to the TV. Among them, the most typical application scenario of the camera is video call.
In August 2021, Baidu released the V86 MiniDu smart giant screen TV and announced its official entry into the TV industry, becoming the only new entrant in the TV circle in 2021.
The data shows that LeTV STARTed up 1.8 million ads per day in 2017, which means that its ads can earn about 1138 yuan per second. At the end of 2017, LeEco fell silent due to the outbreak of debt problems, but LeEco's TV and advertising business did not stop.
At the end of 2021, An internal letter sent by LeEco to employees showed that "in November 2021, TV operations, mobile operations, advertising commercialization and other businesses have reached their annual business targets ahead of schedule." For the first time in several years, the latest operating figures, which are the first of its kind in years, have achieved a double balance of operating profit and cash flow, regardless of the impact of historical debt. ”
Xiaomi's third quarter 2021 financial report shows that in September 2021, the number of monthly active users of Xiaomi Smart TVs and Xiaomi Boxes increased by more than 33% year-on-year. As of September 30, 2021, the number of paying subscribers to Xiaomi TV increased by 13.5% year-on-year to 4.7 million.
The position of smart TVs in AIoT has also become another reason for the layout of various players.
Xiaomi's third quarter 2021 financial report shows that the revenue of the IoT and consumer products segment increased by 1.0% from RMB20.7 billion in the second quarter of 2021 to RMB20.9 billion in the third quarter of 2021. Revenue from smart TVs and laptops increased by 18.3% from RMB6 billion in the second quarter of 2021 to RMB7.1 billion in the third quarter of 2021, mainly due to the further expansion of the high-end large-screen TV product portfolio (including Xiaomi TV 6 Extreme Edition, Xiaomi TV ES Series, Xiaomi TV Master 77"OLED) and smart TV and laptop demand growth.
Jie Meijuan, deputy general manager of the consumer electronics division of Aowei Cloud Network (AVC), pointed out in an interview with the media that TV, as a just-needed product in the home environment, has the advantage of natural strong interaction, with the development of AI, 5G, and big data, TV will assume more roles, and the construction of diversified family scenes can be gradually developed around the landing of TV.
The dilemma of smart TVs
In the nearly 10 years of smart TV development, although the data shows that by the second quarter of 2021, the overall penetration rate of mainland Internet smart TVs has exceeded 50%, reaching 53.3%, but it does not seem to have completed the "task" given to it by Internet companies.
Instead, shipments are declining. According to data released by the statistical agency TrendForce, the total global TV shipments fell by 3.2%, and the cumulative sales of about 210 million units. In addition, the controversy that the product quality is not too hard, there are many advertisements, and it is only for making money is becoming more and more intense.
In the black cat complaint search "Xiaomi TV", a total of 3383 results, mostly related to "quality problem black screen", "crash, stutter", "Xiaomi TV VIP" and other related. The anonymous user with the complaint number "17357230796" wrote, "I placed an order for a 'Xiaomi TV ES43 2022 model' at the Xiaomi Home Appliance Store on the Pinduoduo platform. On December 18, 2021, after receiving the TV, it was installed and used normally. After a month of normal USE and viewing of the TV, the black screen phenomenon of booting began to appear on January 21, 2021. ”
Chiyu is a rice noodle, he told Burning Finance, in February 2020, he placed an order in the Xiaomi Mall "Xiaomi full-screen TV PRO 43-inch E43S", the price at that time was 1499 yuan. However, after using it for less than half a year, there were "flower screen restarts" and "noise blue screens" and other situations. "I remember very clearly, in July 2020, I also applied for Xiaomi's after-sales, after-sales attitude and the speed of maintenance above is very fast, but I didn't see any problems." Can not return and exchange goods, the problem will occasionally be there, just look at it. ”
Internet analyst Yang Jianyong told Burning Finance that TV has long had no market space, "but no matter how bad the market, there are people doing it, this is just another form of harvesting the market." ”
Overall, Xiaomi has a price advantage and has a position in the color TV market. In contrast, Huawei's TV (smart screen) is louder, "because it is difficult to see the shipment data of Huawei TV in the reports of various institutions." ”
Yang Jianyong added that this is a market that is declining every year. But at least at this stage, Xiaomi is a relatively large winner in this market. At present, smart TVs are more of a screen and don't have too many roles.
"If you have to give it a function, it's nothing more than interactive entertainment." Yang Jianyong said that now interactive entertainment has long been replaced by pads and smart speakers with screens, and consumers' interactive entertainment at home has been replaced by mobile phones, pads, and smart speakers with screens. For some high-end users, those who have demand for large screens and sound effects will take the high-end private theater mode.
Wang Fang, senior analyst of the brand retail industry of Analysys, said that in fact, at present, for manufacturers, the profit margin of smart TVs is not high. But the construction of a complete smart home ecological chain around smart TVs may be the beginning of real money.
Wang Fang added that whether it is a smart phone or a traditional TV industry, in fact, it has entered the era of stock, and even negative growth, and related brands need to develop new business and find new business growth points. In the AIoT era, who occupies the user's mind first may establish a complete smart home ecological chain around it, which is behind the huge market space and opportunities.
As Wang Fang said, iResearch data shows that from 2016 to 2020, the scale of China's smart home market continued to expand, and the scale of China's smart home market in 2020 increased by 11.4% year-on-year to 170.5 billion yuan. With the increase in the penetration rate of the Internet home improvement market, it is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan by 2022. To a certain extent, this gives the smart TV more room for imagination.
But even so, on the road to completing the layout of smart homes as soon as possible with the help of smart TVs, it seems that there is still a long way to go.
On the one hand, in the current market penetration of smart TVs in the mainland, there is a big gap between the overall market penetration rate of Internet brands and the traditional five major brands. According to the "2021 Q2 Internet TV Media Report", Skyworth currently ranks first in the domestic Internet TV brand with a market penetration rate of 11.7%, TCL and Hisense rank second and third with 11.6% and 10.6%, respectively, and Changhong and Xiaomi rank fourth and fifth, with a brand penetration rate of 7.9% and 7.7% respectively.
It can be clearly seen that in the top five market penetration rates of Internet smart TVs in the mainland, only one Internet brand is Xiaomi, while leTV and KKTV in the second echelon are only 4.9% and 2.2% even if the penetration rate is relatively high, and the penetration rate of other Internet brands is less than 1%.
On the other hand, the concept of a smart home scene is not really accepted by most families. Wang Fang said that the main reason for this is that the current smart devices cannot be seamlessly linked. Wang Fang stressed that at present, most intelligent devices are in the stage of single product intelligence, intelligent products are not systematic, and the matching between different series and different brands of products is poor, the interconnection ability across categories is weak, and the data cannot be shared, which greatly reduces the intelligent experience.
"If even the basic user experience can't be satisfied, how can we talk about intelligence?" This is clearly not a consumer's idea.
Reference material:
"2022 China Ageing Television Research Report", source: China State Grid.
*Captions and text images are from Visual China.
*Yang Yu, Wang Xi, Wang Yi, and Chi Yu are pseudonyms in the text.