Huawei TV: Motivation, but not yet

It is not the first time that such a topic has been mentioned. Huawei will not do television and when it will be used for television. In fact, such voices came out two or three years ago. A few days ago, as Huawei's official Weibo official released a message - "As long as you don't give up, you can finally wait until you can see Huawei TV someday," and many people think that Huawei TV is ready. Huawei has the motivation to do television, but the time has not yet come.

Why can Huawei make TV

Huawei is a company that began as a communications equipment business. Currently, the three major business lines—operator services, enterprise-level services, and consumer services—are basically carried out in the area of ​​communications. The layout of television services does not seem to be strongly related to the original business.

actually not. Huawei does TV and has no problem in business logic.

First, Huawei is overestimating consumer BG business, and it is difficult for a single handset business to carry this hope. After Yu Chengdong accepted the Huawei consumer BG business, the smart phone business became very popular. Huawei has become China's largest mobile phone brand and is only behind Samsung and Apple in the world. However, if Huawei intends to cultivate the consumer BG business into Huawei's largest business line, and even independently develops it into the world's largest consumer electronics brand, then the mobile phone business alone cannot be supported anyway.

Let's look at Huawei's 2015 annual report. According to the report, Huawei's operator, enterprise, and terminal services achieved a global sales revenue of 395 billion yuan (60.8 billion US dollars), of which operator's business revenue reached 232.3 billion yuan (35.8 billion US dollars), an increase of 21%; The business revenue reached 27.6 billion yuan (4.3 billion US dollars), an increase of 44%; consumer business income reached 299.1 billion yuan (19.9 billion US dollars), an increase of 73%.

Although Huawei's consumer business is developing fastest, the volume still has a gap of more than US$15 billion compared with the operator's business. If we do not expand product lines other than mobile phones, I am afraid it will be difficult to surpass operators' business in the short term. This is one of the reasons why Huawei launched the PC and tablet business after the mobile phone. Similar business logic is also common on television.

Second, Huawei has already laid out a TV box, which lays the foundation for a possible TV business layout. Root understands that Huawei has released a number of TV boxes. In addition, in October 2014, Huawei and Skyworth jointly launched a 55-inch-inch 4K smart TV with the product name Huawei Cool Glory A55 Smart TV, priced at 6999. yuan.

Before a lot of brands that made television crossovers, such as LeTV, Xiaomi, etc., before the official release of television products, they all explored the way through the TV box and accumulated product experience and supply chain resources. It is not impossible for Huawei to use the TV box to “trick the road”.

Huawei should not do television at this stage

From the perspective of motivation and ability, Huawei is likely to do television. According to the analysis, Huawei should not consider deploying TV services at this stage.

First of all, the television industry has become the Red Sea and the best intervention period has been missed. Millet and Huawei have been clamoring for the mobile phone market in recent years. Thanks to the full transition of the functional machine market to the intelligent machine market, they have taken a stand. In fact, the television industry is the same, but the traditional TV to the Internet over the smart TV has been at least 3 years, smart TV penetration has exceeded 85%, the early dividends have been Hisense, Skyworth and other traditional color TV brands and music as This Internet cross-border brand income pocket, at this time the market has become increasingly intense competition, up to dozens of new brands, Huawei should be said to enter now is not a good time.

Second, Huawei's manufacturing, R&D, and quality control capabilities are unquestionable, but they lack Internet genes. In the TV market, which is increasingly emphasizing the operation of Internet content, Huawei is short-circuited. In 2016, the TV industry basically considered entering the first year of a big screen operation. In other words, hardware competition based on hardware manufacturing in the TV industry is getting weaker, and in-depth operations based on content, applications, and services are becoming the key competitiveness of TV brands. In this regard, both LeTV and Coolopen, Hisense, Skyworth and other brands have accumulated a lot of experience. Huawei's advantage still lies in the hardware. There is little content for the big-screen end. It is difficult to make up for shortcomings in content and operational capabilities in the short term. After Apple ended the Jobs era, Apple still did not launch TV products. The lack of content is also an important reason.

Once again, Huawei’s most important task at present is still focusing on making mobile phone products. It’s even more likely that the lack of greed and demand for products like Xiaomi’s will not reach its goal. Although Huawei’s mobile phone business has performed well in recent years, it cannot be said that it has completely gained an overwhelming advantage. For example, in the global market, Yu Chengdong repeatedly said that he would go beyond Samsung and Apple. However, the gap between Huawei and Samsung is still very large.

IDC’s data for the third quarter showed that Samsung’s handset shipments totaled 72.5 million units, still the highest of all brands, with a market share of 20%. Apple's mobile phone sales were 45.5 million units, with a market share of 12.5%, ranking second. Huawei mobile phone shipments were 33.6 million units, with a market share of 9.3%, ranking third.

In the domestic market, Huawei has surpassed OPPO and VIVO in the third quarter. In the third quarter, OPPO shipped a total of 20 million mobile phones in China with a market share of 17.5%, ranking first; VIVO ranked second with 19.2 million mobile phone sales, with a market share of 16.7%; Huawei Q3 shipments were 19,200,000, with a market share of 15.7%.

In other words, Huawei has both the space to catch up with Samsung Apple in the mobile phone business and the risk of being overtaken by OPPO and VIVO. Therefore, focusing on the mobile phone business is still the top priority. If consumers' BG services are distracted and resources are allocated to the distribution of TV services, it is likely to have a negative impact on the mobile phone business. This is obviously not worth the candle. After all, Xiaomi also has a lesson in this respect.

In summary, Huawei is motivated to do television and has R&D and manufacturing capabilities, but it is obviously not a strategic option at this stage.