Despite the forecast of growth particularly in the hi-res 4K TV sector, China's TV market crashed last year, leaving manufacturers high and dry and ambling for other means to save the industry.
The rise of the mobile devices has caused a major impact among TV manufacturers in terms of sale. 2015 forecast released by China Electronics Chamber of Commerce claimed a sale of approximately 42 million flat TVs in 2014. However, that figure was 6.7 percent less year-on-year.
China's leading TV maker TCL Corp. claimed that last year's sales decline is a turning point for the whole industry. TCL Chief Executive Officer Li Dongsheng said that this incident is unprecedented, meaning to say that this is the biggest blow yet to ever happen in the TV manufacturing business. A number of local manufacturers experienced gargantuan profit loss and some went bankrupt.
Another TV giant, Sichuan Changhong Electric Co. Ltd. claimed a loss of $50.68 million last year, while another major player named Hisense Group also admitted a considerable amount of profit slump. Needless to say, almost a billion dollars were lost from the industry.
Aside from the popularity of mobile technology, a lot of factors are also being pointed out as major contributors to TV's decline, such as lack of government subsidies for home purchases, decreasing value of properties, and wailing state of consumer finances.
Another major factor is the rise of Internet streaming video available on the consumers' mobile phones.
However, experts say that the battle is not lost. There is yet one more way to save the TV business. This is to build a bridge to lure the consumers' attention away from their mobile phones and back to the big screen. One way to do it is through collaboration with companies specializing on Web-based streaming content.
The mobile phone is not about to go away, and TV needs to adapt. Manufacturers acknowledge this bit of analysis. The key therefore is to make the TV work with the mobile technology.
Consumers can be suggested to access the contents on their mobile through wifi and stream them on the TV. This is a seemingly simple solution, but this would totally revolutionize the way consumers use their TVs.