/ Asnews.com/August 25, 2022 GUANGZHOU -- With the overall decline of China's color TV market, the volume decline has become the most frequently mentioned keywords in the first half of the year. Recently, GfK ZhongYikang released a report, the domestic color TV market in the first half of 2022, 16.36 million units, down 8.5% year on year; Retail sales were 55.1 billion yuan, down 11.5 percent year-on-year.
Finding certainty in uncertainty and building stability in instability has almost become the belief of the whole industry. In view of the polarization of the color TV market in the first half of the year, especially the gradual increase of high-end products, high-end brands represented by SONY highlighted their advantages, seizing the industry trend in adversity.As the absolute king of "high-end large screen", SONY TV is also a bellwether of the industry. Many TV brands also compare their flagship products with SONY TV, as a representative of the brand's high-end improvement.
As the image of the SONY of technology takes hold, consumers are voting with their feet. In the first pre-sale phase of 618 this year, SONY ranked first in the pre-sale amount of JD's flat-panel TV category. In the CHnBrandChina Satisfaction Index 2021, SONY topped the list of color TV brand satisfaction.
In order to let consumers experience the charm of SONY TV up close, on August 17, SONY held a new TV experience at its Hangzhou direct store. Among them are SONY's first domestic TV A95K with QD-OLED and Mini LED TV X95EK released this year. The new products, which include an XR chip and a new smart camera, have attracted much attention.
SONY is almost paranoid in the pursuit of audio-visual experience. From this year's new products, it can also be seen that SONY has improved the design of localized applications in order to get close to the living habits of Chinese people and create a Sony-style smart living room.
In China's color TV market, where foreign TV brands have almost disappeared, SONY TV not only stands firm, but also shows new vitality against the background of challenges on both the consumer and the supply side. How on earth can it do this?
01 "big screen era" maker
"In recent years, the whole macro economy has a variety of uncertainties, the Chinese market changes too fast, the market direction is not a segmentation industry or a manufacturer decided." Xie Biao, president of SONY China's consumer electronics division, explained to 36kr the uniqueness of the Chinese market and the process of SONY's short journey.
Xie Biao has been with SONY since the end of 1991. Since 2013, he has been the President of Consumer Electronics Business Department of SONY (China), responsible for the full range of consumer electronics business of SONY China. To some extent, Xie Biao has witnessed and promoted the development of SONY's consumer electronics (consumer goods) in the Chinese market. He is also one of the main witnesses of the development of China's home appliance industry, especially the color TV industry.In his experience, people's demand characteristics for color TV mainly fall into two categories: "new family or upgrading". Among them, the new family is mainly affected by demographic dividend and the environment, and the renewal iteration is mainly affected by the fixed service life of TV products and technological innovation.
From 2005 to 2010, the entire industry made the transition from picture tube TVS to flat panel TVS. Since then, there seems to have been no explosive revolution in television technology. Around 2016, China's TV industry officially entered the stock stage. The conventional wisdom in the industry is that getting consumers to iterate quickly on their TVS requires insight and a consistent grasp of their preferences.
"We found that consumers who decided to change their TVS chose better, larger TV products with specific needs, such as the burgeoning OLED market." Xie Biao introduced that SONY TV as the advocate of "high-end large screen", this period of strategic deployment can be traced back to 2014, eight years ago.
In 2014, SONY locked in the direction of focusing on high-end and large screens in the Chinese TV market. In 2016, SONY pioneered the Z9D series of 100-inch 4K HDR TVS.
SONY 4K LCD TV Z9D series, launched in 2016
In 2017, Xie Biao made clear the development direction of SONY TV in the Chinese market, formally established the macro strategy of "high-end large screen", focused on the high-end large screen market, and took high-quality people as the focus. SONY TV image quality, sound quality, design, application of four core advantages to the target population.
Within the industry, more brands are seeing this trend. Samsung and TCL have both released 98-inch TVS, but SONY is the real leader in the "high-end large-screen" category.
Nowadays, industry data proves the accuracy of the "high-end large-screen" strategy. Although the market is relatively saturated, data from Aowei Cloud show that sales of TV sets of 75 inches and above both online and offline increased significantly in the January-June period of 2022. As you can see, users are increasingly upgrading from smaller screens to larger ones.
Among them, in the 65-inch and above, especially 80-89 inch, the price of more than 8000 yuan of the super large screen TV market, SONY TV has always maintained a high market share, behind the remarkable achievements, is the success of the product and the Chinese market strategy.
02 more focused, more subdivided
< P > There are not a few enterprises selling large-screen TVS in the industry, and SONY has really achieved the trend of leading the high-end large-screen industry, which benefits from its deep cultivation of subdivided groups.
"In 2016, the total color TV market in China exceeded 50 million units, and the popularity of color TV sets in the country was basically completed. Once popularization is complete and the quality of life is further improved, the next consumption trend will be diversification of demand, and price will not be a special factor. Xie Biao told 36 Kr.
With the rise of the Chinese market, home economy, SONY in the subdivision circuit investment effect is remarkable.
During June 18, SONY X90K and X91K series of game TVS attracted much attention, showing coherent and smooth game pictures with high frames and sensitive operation feedback. The immersive game experience made them the purchase choice of console players.
As we all know, SONY is one of the major game manufacturers in the world and has a deep understanding of the needs of gamers. Based on this, SONY can better meet the various needs of the gaming crowd, and improve the production and technology of TV products. Through Xie Biao's introduction, SONY is the first brand to open a complete product line of game TV in the Chinese market. Back in 2020, before the next generation of consoles came out, when there was little competition from gaming TVS, the SONY X9000H series added features that were important to gamers, such as 4K120 Hz and HDMI2.1. From the production of game content to the realization of gaming terminal experience, this fully demonstrates the advantages of SONY's own ecosystem of connectivity. Not only understand the product, but also understand the user.While SONY is doing well in the game TV circuit, Xie Biao does not forget to emphasize that "the core group of TV is still film and television fans", so the best audio and video experience is the cornerstone of the product. In addition to the game track, SONY in sports events, fitness and other subdivisions of the track also dabbled.
03 Truly understand foreign brands in China
Actually, SONY can grasp the segmentation track in the Chinese market, it is inseparable from SONY's long-term insight into the Chinese local market.
The focus on Chinese consumers was first demonstrated this year by the addition of SONY's BRAVIA camera. This camera was formed by SONY China's suggestion to the headquarters and finally adopted, which includes SONY China's insight and understanding of Chinese consumers.
In addition to realizing the regular interactive experience, it also has the AI environment induction adjustment Pro, which can adjust the audio and video effects more intelligently and intelligently according to the distance between people and TV, bringing consumers more immersive and comfortable experience of watching movies and playing games. SONY, the king of sound and painting, continues to put television sound and painting in the first place. Just as Xie Biao said, "Television, in its essence, is for watching and listening." In addition, according to Xie Biao, SONY TV in the "remote control" details of the change is also SONY China's claim.
"When customers first complained that the SONY remote was inconvenient, we changed it to a simple 'up and down' button. Technically, it's not hard at all. Based on continued feedback from users, we have improved the design of the remote control again this year."
According to him, SONY China is continuing to push forward the localization process as fast as possible. At the end of 2021, SONY moved its product planning department related to the Chinese market from Japan to Shanghai, which is also a sign of its confidence in the Chinese market. "We are willing to seriously plan SONY products for Chinese consumers that are suitable for local needs."
As for the "IoT terminal", which is indispensable for intelligence, SONY hopes to build an open ecosystem. On the one hand, SONY Group creates unique value for users through its existing business advantages and accumulation of the whole industry chain "from lens to living room". Because SONY's products share the same technology in audio and video.
On the other hand, SONY chooses to cooperate with local business partners, such as Jingdong Xiaojia, Tencent Xiaowei, etc., to connect with different brands of hardware with a more open attitude, which is more convenient for consumers to use. With this year's products and features as a starting point, we can look forward to the success of SONY's product planning department, which has moved to China.
With the growth of domestic "digital native" consumers born after 1995 and 2000, SONY also pays more attention to the cooperation with Tencent and other local social software.
In 2016, SONY TV was the first to cooperate with Tencent Games. Immediately, SONY and Tencent's scope of cooperation involves content business, wechat terminal and other aspects. In 2020, SONY and Tencent will cooperate to develop "Aurora Calibration Mode", which will raise the content level of film and television streaming media to a higher standard and restore creators' intentions from the audio-visual performance of TV.In Xie Biao's introduction, SONY is more willing to meet the social needs of young consumers. "We found that young Chinese rely on social media much more than consumers in other countries. SONY also hopes to upgrade the product features based on the social behavior of Chinese youth."
In terms of channels, SONY China also takes different strategies for online and offline.
Because of the unique value of e-commerce, SONY has directly cooperated with the major e-commerce platforms in 2009, and attaches great importance to the efficiency, customer coverage and penetration of the e-commerce channel supply chain. According to Xie Biao, SONY can do scientific marketing based on various big data technologies, while feeding the supply chain and product design.For offline, SONY is mainly concerned with two aspects: one is to build a strong supply chain system to better distribute products to the major retail end; Second, direct contact with consumers through offline retail terminals.
Therefore, Sony has been steadily promoting the construction of offline directly operated stores over the years. Up to now, it has 7 directly operated "SONY Stores" in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou and other cities, aiming at better communication and interaction with consumers, and bringing excellent experience to consumers.
In Xie Biao's opinion, the best way for a product to be well promoted and have a foothold in the market is to let consumers directly experience the real machine. The real experience is also one of the most important values of offline channels. This value will not disappear in the long run and cannot be completely replaced online.
"And from the point of view of most consumers, if you want to buy 10, 20 yuan of goods, not only rely on a photo to make a decision, will be in-depth study of this product, these are based on our research and insight of consumers."
For high-end products, obviously, only after the actual experience, can we fully understand the feelings brought by every detail, which is impossible to experience through flat pictures and videos. The combination of products and channels gives consumers more opportunities to experience the high-end advantages of SONY TV up close, which in turn makes it easier for users to make decisions.
04 What is the core competitiveness of SONY TV?
Look back and you can see SONY at every important point in the evolution of television. Since its entry into China in 1978, SONY has become one of the brands that truly understand the Chinese TV market and develop healthily.
Based on consumer insight and SONY's core competitiveness, namely SONY's exploration and deep cultivation in the field of TV technology, SONY TV products in recent years, whether the Z9D series known as the "master of light control" at that time, or the new generation of "QD-OLED TV" series A95K, SONY TV with innovative technology, Fight our way out of the domestic TV market where hundreds of schools of thought contend."Making TV is easy, making it good is hard." According to Xie Biao, SONY has been able to stay ahead of the industry for two reasons: one is consumer insight and the other is always playing to its core competencies. In its 44 years at home, SONY is one of the few brands whose TV business has continued to be healthy since its inception.
"We always adhere to sustainable, long-term, healthy development, never blindly price to volume." Xie Biao said.
In his opinion, after the rapid development and popularization stage, the household appliance industry will enter the upgrade stage of diversified demand, at this time, the whole household appliance industry will show a state of decline. And SONY adhere to their core competitiveness, restore the real scene, do a good sound and picture experience this matter.
No matter how the environment changes, SONY will always be the SONY of Technology.
It is reported that the eighth Sony Store in Wuhan will be opened in the near future, which is also a sign of SONY's optimism and investment in the Chinese market. SONY always believes that along with the effective prevention and control of the epidemic, the orderly recovery of the national economy, the color TV market will also benefit.
< /p>According to GfK ZhongYikang preliminary forecast, 2023 color TV market retail volume will be positive year-on-year, orderly recovery.
