Text: Liu Buchen
On March 22, Skyworth Group (00751. HK) released its 2021 performance report, achieving revenue of 50.928 billion yuan during the reporting period, an increase of 27.0% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to owners of the parent company of 1.41 billion yuan, an increase of 82.08% year-on-year.
As the core segment of Skyworth Group's TV business, it achieved revenue of 22.565 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 9.9% year-on-year. Among them, the Chinese market achieved revenue of 12.949 billion yuan, an increase of 5.9% year-on-year; overseas markets of 9.616 billion yuan, an increase of 15.8% year-on-year.
Skyworth TV has 4 major highlights in 2021:
1. OLED product strength continues to lead, and the market position is further consolidated. In 2021, Skyworth OLED's new products have accelerated, and have released the world's first glass-sounded 8K OLED TV W92, the world's first deformed OLED TV W82, the OLED TV S82 with △E 0.86 ultra-high color accuracy and the first e-sports OLED display G90. From the perspective of market performance, Skyworth TV on the one hand leads the offline channels in China, on the other hand, it has obtained a gratifying increase of 46% in OLED sales overseas, and its leading position has been further consolidated.
2, 8K products broke out, the market showed geometric growth. In 2021, Skyworth's 8K product sales increased by 370.4% year-on-year.
It should be pointed out in particular that Skyworth is one of the most extensive enterprises in the TV industry with the most extensive 8K layout, and its 8K products are equivalent to 8K TVs, including 8K cameras, monitors, 8K Cool Kering, 5G expanders and other categories, which is a complete product ecology.
Among them, Skyworth TV Q71 achieved the original color 8K presentation of movies, and in January 2022, it achieved a sales increase of nearly 550% month-on-month.
3. The large-size TV market performed well. In recent years, the trend of tv large screen is obvious, and the size of products above 65 inches has grown rapidly, which is the focus of TV companies. In this area, Skyworth also performed well, with products in the 75-inch and above size segment achieving a 90.5% year-on-year increase in sales and a 106.6% year-on-year increase in sales in 2021.
4. Overseas markets are growing steadily. In 2021, Skyworth TV's overseas market revenue increased by 15.8% year-on-year, and its online business increased by more than 50%, especially in Southeast Asian markets such as Thailand, Vietnam, and Italy in Europe.
In the Vietnamese market, Skyworth's Internet brand coocaa (Kukai), sales in 2021 increased by 251% year-on-year, ranking first in the Lazada channel, and the annual sales exceeded the sum of Japanese and Korean brands such as LG, SAMSUNG, and SONY.
In Italy, Skyworth's high-end brand METZ (Mezz) has established a deep connection with Juventus fans, and with the help of super singles, it entered the TV category Top 1 within 1 hour of the black five promotions.
Skyworth TV's top-level strategy
In recent years, Skyworth TV has become more and more eye-catching, showing strong sustained growth, and the trend of brand high-end + product high-end is obvious.
It is generally believed that this result is inseparable from Skyworth TV's brand upgrade strategy in 2019.
Ten years ago, Skyworth left the impression of "excellent but not outstanding"; but today, it is transforming into a mid-to-high-end brand widely loved by the elite.
The data speaks best.
According to the data of the second kantar brand survey released in December 2021, Skyworth TV will perform prominently in multiple dimensions such as "brand recognition", "brand segmentation" and "brand goodwill" in 2021. "Brand awareness" ranks first in the industry with a proportion of 79%; "brand without prompt first mention" and "no prompt all mentions" two major cognitive indicators, Skyworth TV ranks second, 13% and 46% respectively; "brand segmentation" and "brand goodwill" rank in the top three in the industry.
11% of the respondents said that they would prefer the Skyworth brand when buying TV in the future, 51% of the respondents said that they would consider buying Skyworth TV when buying TV in the future, and 16% of the respondents believed that Skyworth TV was their "beloved" brand.
Wang Zhiguo, chairman of Skyworth TV, said in his 2022 New Year's speech that since the launch of the brand's "high-end, high-tech, and youthful" strategy in 2019, Skyworth TV has made significant progress in brand, business, product, technology, strategic layout and other aspects.
The effect of brand upgrade is reflected in the average retail price of Skyworth TV. Since the brand upgrade three years ago, the average retail price of Skyworth TV's domestic and overseas markets has increased by 25% and 14% respectively.
Industry analysis believes that the continuous upgrading of Skyworth TV brands and products stems from the establishment of two major concepts of management.
The first is a thorough productist view. Skyworth TV believes that providing consumers with value for money and even surprising products is the key to achieving sustainable growth of enterprises. To this end, Skyworth spares no expense to create competitive products. Skyworth OLED TV S81Pro, which is positioned in game equipment, and 10,000 yuan 8K TV Q71, are representatives of such products.
The second is to adhere to meaningful and valuable innovation. With the upgrading of consumption, the boundaries of the consumption scene are constantly broken and reshaped, and the only effective way to jump out of pure price competition and break through the stock market is to constantly innovate and return to the origin of consumer orientation. At present, Skyworth has built a complete innovation system, which includes multiple dimensions such as business model, brand, product, process, culture, manufacturing, research and development.
Skyworth TV to high-end to seek industry development space, aiming at the core needs of young users and differentiated pain points, in the young + game equipment layout can also be remarkable, Skyworth launched the "flagship game TV + professional e-sports display" product matrix, to create "Skyworth game equipment", not only leading the trend of game equipment market segmentation, but also laid the new category industry leader dominant position.
The underlying logic of Skyworth TV
If high-end transformation is the top-level strategy, then the underlying logic supporting Skyworth's top-level strategy is technology and products.
Let's take a look at what products with wide influence Skyworth have launched in recent years and what technological breakthroughs have been achieved.
In OLED, a recognized high-end frontier field, Skyworth began to lay out in 2008, becoming the second in the world in 2019 and the first enterprise in China to have OBM (OLED module self-made) capabilities, which means that Skyworth has obtained the product capability of independent innovative design OLED, providing the possibility for the development of more cutting-edge and more innovative TVs: Followed by the continuous launch of four OBM representative products - wallpaper OBM TV W81, screen sound OBM TV S81 Pro, Morphing OBM TV W82, Feng thin OBM TV S82, these four TVs are known as the "four King Kongs" of Skyworth OBM TV. At the same time, in 2021, Skyworth OLED TV will be a heavy fist: launch the Skyworth Glass Sound 8KOLED TV W92, creating a new peak of industry picture quality.
According to the data of Aowei Cloud Network, in 2021, skyworth TV OLED offline channel sales continue to lead the industry.
2021 is known as the "first year of MiniLED commercial use". Similarly, MiniLED is another display area in Skyworth's key layout, and has launched the Mingli screen MiniLED TV Q70, and the Skyworth Mingli screen SmartMiniLED TV Q72 based on the new generation of COG glass-based technology. In terms of industrial chain, Skyworth Wuhan MiniLED Display Technology Industrial Park, with a total investment of 3.5 billion yuan, is currently under construction.
In addition to having the absolute leading OLED TV production technology and high public awareness, Skyworth TV also has a differentiated competitive advantage. As an enterprise that strives for technological excellence, another technical area that Skyworth TV focuses on is picture quality. Under the background of convergence of core device supply chains such as upstream screens and chips, picture quality algorithms and picture quality adjustments have become the key to truly opening up the picture quality level of TV products. At present, Skyworth AI quality engine and Skyworth 30+ picture quality adjustment technology have become the industry benchmark picture quality technology.
Skyworth AI quality engine, Skyworth self-developed AI quality optimization solution, through AI technology to search, identify and reconstruct the picture image, frame by frame real-time comprehensive optimization of picture quality. The same is to do OLED TV, Skyworth Glass Sound 8K OLED TV W92, due to the "Skyworth AI Quality Engine 8K Version", this high-end TV has become the "picture quality ceiling" of the TV industry; the same is to do 120Hz high-brush TV, because equipped with "Skyworth AI Quality Engine 4K Version", Skyworth A20 Pro has become a true 120Hz screenless splash painting flagship that redefines the high-brush large-screen experience.
In addition, relying on more than 30 years of experience and technical accumulation in image quality tuning, Skyworth TV has gradually formed Skyworth 30+ picture quality adjustment technology with "Skyworth 30+ picture quality adjustment model", "professional picture quality test sequence library" and "more than 500 picture quality experience test cases" as the core. From S81 Pro to Skyworth's first high-color product matrix in 2021 - S82, Q72, A20Pro, G90, Skyworth TV continues to break through the limits of picture quality technology and rewrite industry standards, which is based on Skyworth 30+ image quality tuning and refreshing the consumer experience.
In fact, at present, Skyworth TV has formed a complete technology matrix, from the screen module (Skyworth OBM, Skyworth Mingli Screen), picture quality (Skyworth AI quality engine, Skyworth 30+ picture quality adjustment), sound quality (Skyworth acoustics), intelligent interaction (TrensAI full-time AI intelligent life housekeeper, Swaiot Xiaowei Intelligent Link), eye protection (Chuangwei eye health technology) and other multi-dimensional self-research technology matrix, to build a wide technical moat, peers are difficult to overcome.
In many communications with Skyworth's leadership, the author felt their pursuit and dedication to technological innovation.
Skyworth TV has a group of R & D team known for "professionalism", and each innovative technology product is the result of their almost "crazy" excellence.
Skyworth TV believes that the high-end of the brand and the high-end of the product have never been the water without a source and the wood without a root, but are rooted in strong technical capabilities and innovation capabilities. Skyworth TV firmly believes that today's Skyworth TV can lead the global smart display industry, thanks to their dedication to technological innovation, their insistence on providing the best consumer experience and their belief in "long-termism".
The success of Skyworth TV provides a benchmark for Chinese brands to go to the high-end and go global.
(The author is a senior observer of the home appliance industry)