Rather than cut costs and reduce losses, it is better to create products that consumers like. Sony, which is experiencing a winter of hardship, faces an unprecedented crisis. In the face of continuous loss of television business, their strategy is to place more investment in the innovation of display technology.

Sony 4K TV

Sony's former CEO, Stringer, has spent a lot of time on the company's cost reductions, promoted the sale and integration of production sites, reduced television factories, and followed European and American companies to gradually get rid of the simple home appliance assembly and processing industry, but they have not been able to The television business has pulled out the quagmire of losses.

On April 1 this year, the new CEO of Sony Hirai Hirai began a series of restructuring plans, not only to peel off the small and medium-sized LCD display to the Japanese display company, and will shift to larger-scale TV production. In his view, Sony TV business should focus on better quality, lower energy consumption OLED and 4K TV (4 times the resolution is full HD, HD 8 times), can maintain the high-end image of Sony, away from the price Competing mud sheds higher profits.

Hiroshi Hirai improved the operating efficiency of the entire group including Sony's organizational structure including management and other departments. Mr. Imamura Masaki, the head of Sony TV's home entertainment and audio division, shared his feelings when talking about this change: “In the past, each product division in each division had its own production product plan, and now the product planning of each division is integrated. Afterwards, from the company's overall level, it will consider how the product's planning is developed and the development path will bring more room for product innovation."

In order to make the television product get the most perfect experience, Sony integrates the original audio department with the television department. "The combination of audio and video technology really enables users to realize the telepresence experience." 4K TV launched by Sony began to restore the user's confidence in Sony.

As with Sony, traditional TV companies that have begun to be threatened by Apple and Google TV have come to realize that what they can really compete with is their accumulated hardware technology. As televisions tend to be larger screens, TV companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, and LG and Samsung have begun competing for 4K televisions in an attempt to allow users to have a keen interest in televisions and regain their right to speak on televisions.

Sony TV turning losses

From CRT to LCD, Blu-ray, 3D to 4K, Sony has been trying to make itself a leading brand of high-end imaging technology through its own technology.

In the era of CRT TV, Sony responded to the world with Trinitron CRT technology and once became the dominant player in the market. After entering the flat-panel TV in 2002, the CRT became the burden of Sony. When Samsung, LG, and domestic brands began to select plasma and LCD (liquid crystal television) technologies, Sony finally decided to develop LCD TVs and use "BRAVIA" as a brand promotion in 2005. In the past three years, its television market status was rapidly replaced by Korean Samsung and LG TV.

In spite of this, Sony has been deeply studying the quality of television images. Four years ago, when Blu-ray and HDDVD competed for the right to speak in high-definition video, Sony ultimately won with its own technology and content advantages. When the LED was extended to OLED, Sony launched the first 11-inch OLED TV in 2007. It was the first company to launch OLED in China. However, subject to expensive prices, Sony stopped producing consumer-grade OLEDs in 2010. B2B market. Although Sony still has unique OLED technology, Samsung and Sharp have begun to share the same.

In the face of fierce competition from Korean and Chinese companies, Sony does not have a price advantage. Since Apple launched the iPod in 2001, Sony's 3D headband theater, 3D camera, etc., have made the industry shine. But the hope of regaining the dominance of electronic technology with the value of a single product has diminished.

Sony began to realize this and looked for products that could provide users with more added value. In the 3D era, Sony began to promote the concept of 3D business development from the lens to the living room. Its products and services have covered the entire solution including shooting, editing, playback, and display.

Kazuo Hirai devoted great attention to integrating entertainment content with a series of hardware product platforms, such as game controllers, smart phones, and tablet computers. He believes that the establishment of a huge entertainment network, and try to connect all its products with this, so that equipment and content have been more widely promoted.

In the next display technology of the TV 4K, Sony began to lay out on the overall product chain. At present, Sony's 4K products already cover 4K camcorders (professional and home), 4K production and broadcasting equipment, 4K players (theater and home), 4K decoding TV chips, 4K movies (in production) and 4K televisions. Sony expects that they will be able to play a synergistic role in retrieving the TV market that Sony lost over $12 billion over nine years.

Who is a potential competitor?

The continuous loss of performance has made the Japanese household appliance giants, which had once gained global household appliance hegemony, face the predicament of being marginalized. Who is further eroding the share of the traditional TV market?

One phenomenon is that, as PCs, the Internet, tablet computers, smart phones and other products erode, television is no longer the only tool for users to play video, the TV industry status has begun to decline. According to the latest statistics released by the China Internet Information Center, as of the end of December 2011, the number of online video users in China has increased to 325 million. There are more and more viewers watching TV shows and variety shows on the Internet. The viewing habits of the audience are also slowly increasing. change. According to NPD DisplaySearch's investigation report on global TV consumer replacement, the number of consumers using their tablets to watch TV and video shows has more than doubled. More than 70% of consumers watch television and video programs using tablets, laptops, smart phones, MP3 players, and desktop computers.

In addition, the invasion of the living room by Apple and Google poses a threat to some traditional television manufacturers. From Microsoft's Venus project in 1999 to Apple and Google TV, some tech giants are trying to connect various devices, changing the way TVs are passively viewed, and giving users a fun experience on Apple and Google TV.

Google (microblogging) Nexus Q and Apple TV have already taken this step, using WiFi to obtain music, movies and applications in the cloud, connecting the user's tablet computer, mobile phone, and allowing content to be transmitted directly to the TV.

More new entrants who have a keen interest in TV sets, such as video maker LeTV, and mobile phone company Xiaomi, began to take advantage of this yet-too-internetized television product and launched a new round of attack.

The road to salvation by traditional TV manufacturers

As a traditional TV manufacturer, Samsung, LG, and domestic TCL, Skyworth, and Hisense all launched smart TVs to make televisions more intelligent through operating systems.

"It just blindly adds it to some smart functions, ignoring the basics of high-definition images and the large screens that televisions have. These products are not televisions." Imamura Imamura, head of Sony TV's home entertainment and audio business unit. think.

Innovation factory Kai-fu Lee (microblogging) said publicly that the current smart TV on the market is not smart enough, the use rate is only 10%, the user is eager for: Internet mass content + traditional TV's ease of use and high-definition; to achieve Apple Iphone's software and hard service integration Experience + user choice + mass application store.

However, traditional television manufacturers lacking experience in software development are difficult to break through in the short term. The Internet content and applications on televisions are undoubtedly the expertise of IT and Internet companies. On the contrary, the advantages and accumulation of traditional TV manufacturers in hardware make it difficult for new entrants to surpass their IT internet companies.

"Spend more effort to create consumer favorite products," which is precisely what Sony, Sharp and Panasonic companies are competing with Samsung and Apple are doing.

What kind of TV can get the user's favor? Is it the function of attaching some computers to the TV? Users use such a large object to do some private things of chatting and sending e-mails. Obviously, he is not willing to open it. PCs and mobile phones can be more easily implemented. Is loading more game apps on the TV? Users will be more accustomed to enjoy on their own machine.

“The television must be a product derived from the living room culture.” Luo Xiaobu, deputy general manager of Gehua Cable, believes that TV is more of a family's platform than PCs and personal computers.

From the TV's development path LCD, LED, OLED to 3D, the user's dependence on the TV image, picture quality and sound quality is enough to explain the core of the TV. And some traditional TV giants have already begun to realize this point, through the display technology to consolidate the dominant position in the TV field.

With the increasing size of television screens, the picture quality that 2K presents has not been able to meet the needs of larger-sized TV sets. A 4K TV set with a physical resolution that is 4 times higher than HDTV is being used by global TV giants. After the pursuit, Sony, LG, Toshiba has launched 84-inch 4K TV, then Samsung began to join the camp, plans to release 85-inch 4K TV during the 2013 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

Whether it is shooting professional equipment for the film or various terminals in the hands of users, such as mobile phones and video cameras, 4K technology is infiltrating the entire industry chain.

It is reported that Sony has begun production of various products, from image sensors for cameras to 4G projectors. The former can capture ultra-high resolution video, and the latter can display these images. The world's first commercial camera, the Sony F65, which can shoot 4K video, is being used for the shooting of "After Earth", an upcoming sci-fi movie starring Will Smith. The film industry has long embraced 4K technology, Hollywood's "Dragon Tattoo Girl", "Penalty", "Land of the Lost" and other from shooting, post-production, distribution until the show, 4K penetrated into every link.

Content bottlenecks are still the biggest factor hindering the rapid spread of 4K TVs, but the ultimate in image quality of TVs is the path that Japanese companies hope to rejuvenate the TV market. CEO Hiroyuki Hirai, CEO of Sony Group Said that the introduction of "through the five senses, experience the soul of the TV." To obtain television users of all ages. Like Samsung and LG companies, these traditional TV manufacturers hope to firmly control hardware technology to compete with Apple and Google.