How Can Laser TV, Which Brings "Visual Revolution", Become The New Fulcrum Of China'S Display Industry?

"Laser TV, No.1 in the world", the eight character slogan is frequently flashed on the enclosure of the 2021 European Cup. Recalling the world cup three years ago, it was only "laser TV, China is the leader". In just three years, from "leading in China" to "No.1 in the world", behind the four word change is a great leap forward in China's display technology.

Display technology goes to bifurcation

At present, China has become the world's largest producer of color TV sets, but "manufacturing" is not equal to "creating". With the scale becoming larger and larger, the industry's profit is becoming increasingly meager. China's color TV industry seems to have changed from incremental market to stock market. According to AVC data, the retail volume of China's color TV market will be 44.5 million in 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 9.1%, and the retail sales of 120.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 11.7%.

This is a familiar situation. China's display technology has experienced three iterations: black and white display technology, color CRT display technology and liquid crystal flat panel display technology. However, no matter in which stage, Chinese TV manufacturers are always at the bottom of the smile curve. When the price of 40 inch LCD TV on the market has been going down again and again, from 1999 yuan to 1799 yuan, and then to 1599 yuan... At this time, the whole industry upstream and downstream should think carefully about how to get rid of the vicious circle of price competition and more and more sales and losses. Qiao Yueshan, deputy director general of the electronic information department of the Ministry of industry and information technology, once said in a speech: Chinese color TV enterprises must think about where the future direction lies.

"Science and technology is the first productive force", the way out of China's TV and display industry will surely fall on the new generation of display technology.

As Xu Zuyan, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering, said, with the gradual saturation of the LCD market, the display technology has gone to a fork in the road, and the global display market will also usher in a major reshuffle. The development trend of display industry is that the display size is larger and the image quality is better and better. The traditional display scheme has obvious technical bottleneck in the field of large-scale display.

At present, the global display industry has formed a number of camps, including OLED, laser display, micro led and so on. At present, the main technical advantage of OLED display is high contrast. Relatively speaking, laser display has three characteristics: high brightness, good directivity and good monochromaticity. However, it is easy to be affected by ambient light, resulting in reduced image quality and contrast. Therefore, the laser TV categories on the market are generally equipped with anti light screens as standard to eliminate the influence of ambient light. Since Apple acquired luxvue in 2014, micro LED technology has attracted more and more attention.

In the era of large screen display, laser display and micro led have their own unique advantages, which can solve the shortcomings of traditional display solutions in the field of large size. But relatively speaking, there are still many deficiencies in the process technology of micro led. It is difficult to form large-scale production capacity in recent years, and the product price is high in the short term.

Laser display technology and products have been mature for seven years, and have been widely recognized by the market and users. According to AVC statistics, from 2015 to 2020, the composite growth rate of global laser TV is as high as 213.8%. Since last year, in addition to Hisense, Guangfeng, Xiaomi, Jimi, Changhong and other local enterprises, Samsung, Sony, LG and other enterprises have also increased the number of laser display. According to market monitoring data, the current number of laser TV brands has reached 34.

How can Chinese enterprises fight against oversupply?

If we say that the industrialization of LCD technology started in Japan, and the industrialization of OLED technology started in Korea, laser display, a brand-new visual solution, will provide an opportunity for Chinese TV manufacturers to reverse the ultra.

As early as 2006, laser display technology has been included in the national medium and long term science and technology development plan, and has become an important part of the national strategic emerging industry. According to the white paper on China's laser TV industry released in August 2020, China, Japan, the United States and South Korea account for about 90% of the global output of this technology. Among them, China's patent layout is the most adequate, leading the technological output in the field of laser display with absolute advantage.

Among them, Hisense is undoubtedly the most important contributor. Since 2007, it began to lay out the laser display. In the absence of standards and products to refer to, all key technologies need to be explored by ourselves. Finally, it launched the world's first 100 inch laser TV in 2014, opening the era of China's super large-scale TV and laser TV. As of April 2021, Hisense has applied for 1366 domestic and foreign patents in the field of laser display, 531 of which are authorized, including 55 foreign patents.

Now, Hisense laser TV has carried out five product iterations, and has made continuous breakthroughs and innovations in size, image quality and form. From 2K to 4K, from monochrome to tricolor, from 100 inch to 300 inch and then down to 75 inch, the terminal price covers multiple price ranges from 10000 yuan to 100000 yuan, meeting the large screen consumption demand of middle and high-end and high net worth people.

In the Chinese market, the popularity of laser TV is steadily increasing. Hisense accounted for 53% of the market in the first quarter of this year, with a year-on-year growth of 6.9% and a year-on-year increase of 60%. According to AVC Omni channel data, from January to April this year, Hisense laser TV sales increased by 49.87% and 40.13% respectively.

The explosion of laser TV industry cannot be separated from mature products and rich industrial chain support. In terms of industrial chain, domestic upstream industrial resources have risen rapidly. At present, the core components such as anti light screen and ultra short focus projection lens can be localized, and the technology accumulation in display chip, laser and other fields has also been accumulated. This has fully guaranteed the rapid maturity of the laser display industry. Hisense not only continues to promote the three-color laser light source technology and develop 8K laser TV, but also takes advantage of the laser display category to develop products such as screen sound and curly lifting screen. Besides, it also hopes to promote the products and scale of relevant manufacturers in the industry and promote the overall development of the industry through the external development of display platform and technology.

Based on the development trend of large-scale TV in China and the increasing number of laser TV brands, it is estimated that the annual output of laser TV will reach 1 million within three years, which will usher in the stage of industrial explosion. Although the market scale of the laser TV industry is not large at present, the Chinese TV manufacturers represented by Hisense, with sales volume, share, standard layout and patent application as the "first in the world", lead the whole market to the future and compete for the mainstream position of the new generation of display technology.

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