Since 2023, Chinese companies have set off an unprecedented boom in going global. "If you don't go to sea, you will be out" has become the consensus of Chinese enterprises.
Obviously, unlike the dispensable options in the early years, now going overseas to find a "new cake" has become the only way for an enterprise to achieve scale development.
Li Dongsheng, founder and chairman of TCL, also said to the outside world: "If you don't open up the global market, you can't form a more competitive economic scale; Globalization is a must-have, not an optional one. ”
However, it is no longer the capacity transfer or overseas sales that some people understand one-sidedly, and localization and technology have become the core of the current focus of enterprises going overseas.
When going to sea becomes a mandatory question, there is always a "class representative" to give a high-scoring answer.
As one of the first Chinese companies to go overseas, TCL has been going overseas for 25 years and has now grown into a global company with a global reputation. It can be seen that in the past few years, on the road of globalization, the core key to TCL's good results lies not only in the technology-driven strategy it has always adhered to, but also in localization.
On April 19, at the 2024 TCL Industrial Global Partner Conference (GPC 2024), nearly 500 TCL Industrial customer representatives from 47 countries and regions on six continents attended the event, fully demonstrating the huge scale of TCL Industry's global cooperation network.
Nowadays, under the new wave of going overseas, TCL Industry has the calmness of a pioneer, but it also needs to seize the first-mover advantage and show its deep thinking about globalization to the outside world, so as to gain the trust of more partners and consumers and help it go further in globalization.
Facing global partners, TCL Industry has put forward its own globalization concept, including globalization is localization, globalization is quality upgrading, globalization is brand and cultural integration, globalization is responsibility and sustainable development, and globalization is cooperation and win-win.
At the same time, TCL Industrial announced a brand upgrade, redefining the brand proposition of "dare to be extraordinary", emphasizing the four major brand characteristics, namely vitality, innovation, fashion and high-end, in order to clarify the brand positioning and development of TCL Industrial.
From the former overseas pioneer to the leader of the globalization of Chinese enterprises, TCL Industry is continuing to attack.
Globalization is localization
The increasingly saturated and involuted market has made many Chinese companies go overseas as an important strategy to break through the bottleneck of growth, but only enterprises with a correct understanding of globalization and a mastery of methodology can truly take root overseas.
As pointed out in the report "Green Consumption Leads the New Development of the Silk Road" released by EY, at present, Chinese enterprises are completing the transformation from "going global" to "global". In order to better adapt to overseas markets, Chinese brands have begun to implement a deep localization strategy, from product design, marketing strategy to supply chain management, all striving to match the local market and consumer needs.
According to Wall Street, a general industry consensus is that the current domestic enterprises going overseas is no longer a cost-effective competition, but to rise in the brand and realize the localization of the supply chain.
On this path to globalization, localization is the key to TCL's success.
TCL did not hesitate to localize, and started from localization at the beginning of going overseas. In 1999, TCL took the first step of internationalization and entered the Vietnamese market through the acquisition of a color TV factory invested by Hong Kong's Luk Group in Vietnam.
After 25 years of development, TCL has grown into a large-scale global company with concerted efforts at home and abroad.
In 2023, TCL brand TVs will maintain a leading position in the world, with a market share of 12.5% in shipments, ranking among the top two in the world.
TCL has always emphasized that globalization is localization, and has achieved global leadership by adhering to the localization layout of products, manufacturing and supply chains, marketing, and human resources.
Li Dongsheng also said that TCL's global development practice shows that only by promoting localization, empowering the local industrial chain, and contributing to the local economic and social development can the sustainable development of the enterprise itself and achieve a win-win situation in the global value chain.
Therefore, the global development with localization as the core ultimately achieves cooperation and win-win, which is also one of the concepts of TCL industrial globalization "Globalization is cooperation and win-win".
Up to now, TCL Industry has set up a total of 20 intelligent manufacturing bases in many countries and regions around the world, covering TVs, mobile phones, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and other categories.
From the perspective of TCL industrial localization development, the localization of marketing is also an important part of its breakthrough, through an in-depth understanding of the local market and consumer needs, the introduction of products that are more in line with the needs of the local market, and take advantage of large-scale exhibitions, events and other events to enhance their international visibility and influence.
In fact, this is the "globalization is the integration of brand and culture" emphasized in the globalization concept of TCL industry.
Taking North America as an example, TCL has ensured the local R&D, production, marketing and service of products in the North American market by setting up a R&D center in Silicon Valley, expanding the MOKA production base in Mexico, and building a new MASA production base in Mexico, providing the most suitable innovative products in the local market and creating a unique localized brand image.
It is worth mentioning that TCL officially became the official TV partner of the NFL last year, and achieved brand debut at the NFL annual feast "Super Bowl" event that year, further enhancing TCL's brand awareness in North America.
In the European market, TCL Industrial also chose to cooperate with local sports events. Since January last year, TCL Industries France has been an official partner of the French Rugby Federation (FFR). This year, TCL Industries invited rugby star Thomas Ramos to be the TCL French brand ambassador. At the same time, TCL is also the official partner of 6 European national football teams including Germany, Spain and Italy.
In short, in order to deepen global operation, TCL Industry pays attention to symbiosis and win-win with overseas partners and attaches importance to enhancing brand value. This is a difficult but sustainable path.
Driven by the development of localization, TCL Industry has achieved outstanding results in some countries.
According to the latest reports from GfK and Circana, TCL's TV shipment market share in 2023 will rank among the top five in nearly 30 overseas countries. In North America, TCL ranked second and third in the United States and Canada, respectively, and ranked first in some emerging markets such as Australia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Pakistan.
Technological innovation is an iron law
If localization is the only way for Chinese enterprises to achieve globalization, then the fundamental driving force to promote their progress on this road is scientific and technological innovation, which is also the core element of the development of new quality productivity.
Judging from the historical lessons of the collapse of companies with a market value of up to 100 billion US dollars such as Nokia and Blackberry in the past, no company can always be high in the face of technological development. If TCL wants to always be in the first camp of global technology companies, it must always be at the forefront of science and technology.
Leading innovative technology is not only to meet the basic needs of consumers, but also to continuously improve the user experience, or stimulate a new wave of consumer demand, which is the key for a company to maintain market vitality.
It is not difficult to understand the "globalization is quality upgrading" proposed by TCL Industries. In fact, only by insisting on scientific and technological innovation can an enterprise always maintain product quality upgrading and be competitive enough in the process of globalization.
As a world-leading technology company, TCL Industry has always adhered to the main line of display image quality, intelligence and green energy saving at the technical strategic level, continued to promote technological research and innovation, enhanced the competitiveness of intelligent terminal products and technology, and explored innovative businesses and continued to consolidate the technology platform around the ultimate picture quality experience, healthy life experience, home energy management, intelligent perception interaction and services.
At present, TCL has 24 R&D centers and 7 ecological cooperation laboratories around the world, and actively deploys Mini LED, quantum dots, AI, IoT, OS, AR/VR, new materials, 5G, cloud computing, intelligent manufacturing and other technical fields.
Nowadays, large size has become one of the trends in the development of the TV industry,With years of technology accumulation,TCL has been the leader and promoter of large size,TCL average size growth rate in the global market leads the industry。
It is reported that in 2022, the average size of TCL will exceed the average size of the industry, and in 2023, it will maintain a substantial growth while driving the average size of the industry to grow significantly.
Zhongyikang data shows that in 2023, the retail volume of TCL98-inch ultra-large screen TVs in the Chinese market will rank first, with a market share of 52.3%.
TCL is also a leader and promoter of Mini LED technology, and since TCL released the world's first mass-produced QD-Mini LED TV X10 in 2019, it has released industry milestone products year by year, becoming the absolute leader in this technology.
Last year, TCL showcased the world's largest QD-Mini LED TV overseas115InchQD-Mini LED TV, this TV is equipped with 20000+ backlight partitions, which directly raises the large-screen display technology to the top level in the industry.
In this conference, TCL Industry also exhibited the QD-Mini LED TV X11H, which is known as the "2024 picture quality ceiling", and the 163-inch Micro LED giant screen TV X11H Max that adopts cross-era Micro LED display technology.
Of course, TCL Industrial's product innovation is not only limited to TV, but also the direction of its efforts in the whole category of intelligent IoT ecology. For example, TCL Xiaolanyi P7 fresh air conditioner realizes healthy breathing without peculiar smell, dry mouth and dizziness in the whole house, and the ultra-power-saving AI big data model algorithm greatly improves the energy saving rate; TCL ultra-thin zero-embedded series refrigerator has a 580mm ultra-thin body, equipped with molecular fresh-keeping + technology; in addition, it has also launched the industry's first TCL super cylinder series washing machine with a washing ratio of more than 1.2.
Not only that, TCL Industry also conforms to the AI wave and actively uses AI to empower its terminal products to bring users a more personalized and active experience.
Behind all this, TCL has always maintained a high level of R&D investment. In the past six years, TCL's cumulative R&D investment has exceeded 60 billion yuan, and R&D investment has been increasing year by year.
In this context, TCL has applied for more than 100,000 patents through TCL Industry and TCL Technology, including more than 17,000 PCT patents, and has built four national R&D platforms for key strategic technologies, material technologies, equipment technologies, and device process technologies, and formulated 270 domestic and foreign technical standards.
These are the basic plates that TCL can always maintain its competitiveness internationally.
Globalization is localization, but in the end, it also depends on products and scientific and technological strength. After 25 years of global development, TCL has now achieved a two-legged walk.
Focusing on localization with one hand and high-tech with the other, TCL has higher goals to achieve in the future. At the beginning of last year, Li Dongsheng said in the CCTV financial "Dialogue" program that he hoped to build TCL Technology and TCL Industry into two Fortune 500 companies in the future.
Under this goal, TCL must always maintain "dare to be extraordinary".
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