Will a 150,000 yuan large-size OLED TV bet on the high-end market to reshape Sony?

The launch of A1 is helping Sony to develop a new television market, mainly to attract the attention of two new user groups. One is a group of fashionable young women who buy products because they love the industrial aesthetics of this TV. The other is the game player, A1's screen performance capabilities can help them better experience the fun of the game. Previously, Sony differentiated consumers more towards wealthy people, people seeking new technologies, and many cable powders.
However, looking at the entire TV market, the OLED camp dominated by LG, Sony, Skyworth and other brands has not yet made this category widely available.
The data from Yikang, a third-party research company, shows that from January to May 2017, OLED TV sales in China totaled more than 30,000 units. From April to June, the overall sales volume of the color TV industry was 5.87 million units, which shows that the share of OLED TVs is not high.
Compared with mature LCD TVs, the low yield of OLED TVs and the high cost are the root causes of this product's inability to quickly become popular in the short term. But this does not affect the company's continued investment in OLED TVs and has full confidence.
This confidence is largely due to the product itself and Sony's overall strategic grasp of the TV market.
In the contrast experience of the Sony 65吋A1 and LG OLED E7 with the same size, it can be clearly seen that the former is superior in the detail performance and light control ability of the shadows, and the sound and the design are full of personality. The company's engineers are "sticky" to adjust the screen's color performance in accordance with their ideas, hoping to find the best balance, rather than simply emphasize the color's brightness and brightness.
Earlier, Sony made adjustments to its television product line and cut off a lot of small-size TVs in the Chinese market, focusing on large size TVs with a size of 55 baht and above.
The advantage of doing so is that more energy and resources can be concentrated in higher-end high-end televisions, changing the previous loss situation. On the other hand, Sony's sales staff need to withstand the temptation and give up many immediate benefits.
Hong Gang, vice president of sales headquarters of Sony China Consumer Electronics Sales Department, told the interface news reporter that many channels had hoped that Sony would provide more TV models with high performance-price ratio and large-scale shipment, but they were rejected by Sony. "If they accept their request, Sony is no longer a 'Sony'." Hong Gang believes that the reason why Sony can reverse the difficulties and get rid of the shadow of loss, the fundamental reason is to know how to give up and persist.
Gao Qiaoyang, president of Sony (China) Co., Ltd., has also repeatedly emphasized in public that "Sony has been operating for more than 70 years and there are climaxes and troughs, but we never had the idea of ​​relying on brands to run at low prices because once the brand image Affected, it takes five to ten times to re-establish. "
From the financial figures, Sony's insistence not only achieved a loss but also promoted the recovery of the original core business.
Sony's 2016 fiscal year report as of March 31, 2017 showed that although sales revenue from home entertainment and audio services decreased by 10.4% year-on-year to 1,039 billion yen (US$9.277 billion), operating profit increased by 7.9 billion yen to 585. Billion yen ($522 million).
Another set of figures from Zhong Yi Kang can also illustrate some issues. In April-June 2017, the sales volume of the Chinese color TV market decreased by 9%, and Sony increased by 30%. When it comes to the reasons, Sony executives emphasized that they mainly aimed at mid-range and high-end people in the market segments and prepared products that meet their needs. They thus succeeded. According to Ichiro Takagi, senior executive vice president of Sony and president of Vision Products, the high-end products currently contribute more than 60% of the profits in Sony's color TV business.
In addition to the above reasons, the re-emergence of Sony TV is directly related to the organizational structure reform from 2012 to 2014. At that time, Sony announced that it would turn the TV business unit into an independent subsidiary, giving greater authority and responsibilities, and could decide on some matters without having to apply for it.
“The most obvious change is that the front-line staff has more enthusiasm and efforts. The operation of the centrifugal force has helped Sony to turn a deficit.” Gao Qiaoyang said that Sony has not forgotten how to integrate everyone’s strengths at the same time as “division”. together. The company often holds technical horizontal exchange liaison meetings. If there are duplicated development technologies, they will hand over individual technologies to one of the companies for centralized development and then share the technology.
"Sony OLED TVs use a lot of technology in the audio sector. Sony phones are useful in the digital imaging industry. Sensors in mobile phones come from semiconductor companies," Takahashi added.
The 2017 fiscal year is the final year of the second medium-term plan for Sony's fiscal year 2015 to fiscal year 2017. Director of the Sony Executive Director and CEO Hiroyuki Hirai commented on the progress of the medium-term management plan at the business policy briefing on June 29 stating that he is committed to achieve ROE of more than 10% and operating profit of 500 billion yen or more. Financial indicators.
This is a huge challenge for Sony. To know that in the past 20 years, Sony reached the above financial goals only in 1997. If Hirai's goal is achieved, it will mean that Sony, who has experienced countless downturns and challenges, will return to a historic high.
Among these, TV business will undoubtedly continue to play an important role as a profit contributor. Hiroshi Hirai stated that "Sony's performance improvement is to start with the television business and it will be prioritized to ensure profits by not pursuing scale. It is expected that all consumer electronics sectors will turn a profit in this fiscal year."
Many Sony employees can feel the status of the television division in the entire group. For external competition, this company seldom participates in any price war initiated by China's domestic TV brands. "Our biggest rival is ourselves," Takahashi Yang emphasized.
In the most profitable games and network services area, Sony raised its sales target for 2017 from “1.4 trillion to 1.6 trillion yen” to “1.8 trillion to 1.9 trillion yen”, and the operating profit rate is from “7% to 9”. %" is raised to "8% to 10%." Music and financial services will also continue to contribute high profits.
It looks like the company already has the foundation to complete the high profit target. But what is more important is whether it can reshape a creative Sony in the future.