Huawei Technologies is breaking into smart TV sector to challenge Xiaomi, TCL, Hisense in the Chinese smart TV market, with China’s largest smartphone maker releasing its new smart TV last week, during its annual global developer summit.
It appears that the high-profile tech conglomerate will not take the price war route to leaders in China’s smart TV sector, such as Xiaomi, but rather focusing on research and development to launch a premium product.
Its new smart TVs, the Honor Vision and Honor Vision Pro, would also be the first devices to be powered by the company’s own operating system, the Harmony OS.
Honor President George Zhao said Honor Vision series is meant to be used not just as a TV, but it is part of Huawei’s so called “Internet of Things strategy”, which is about building a consistent user experience across various connected devices through Huawei’s technology stack. For example, users will be able to use their phones or tablets to search for programs to watch on the big screen, and content transitioning across screens would be more seemless.
According to the company, Harmony OS will eventually be used across TV, smartwatch, in-car infotainment systems and other smart home devices. Though the company previously stated that its own OS can replace Android when necessary, no plan has been made with regard to when that would happen.
The Honor Vision TV is equipped with the new 28nm Hongjun 818 chipset, developed by HiSilicon, Huawei’s chipmaking arm, in collaboration with Chinese internet company Baidu.
Released under Huawei’s sub-brand Honor, the 55-inch Honor Vision series priced at CNY 3,799 for the standard model with 16GB storage and CNY4,799 for the Pro model with 32GB storage. Both Honor Vision and Honor Vision Pro have 2GB RAM, the difference is that only the Pro model has a pop-up camera and six far-field microphones, with 6 speakers at 10W output, while the standard model only has 4 speakers.
The 55-inch Honor Vision standard model (CNY3,799) is priced 80% higher than Xiaomi’s 55-inch smart TV, which boasts similar hardware specs.
Xiaomi, known for its competitive pricing similar to its smartphone, have seen tremendous growth in sales since its launch in China in late 2013. With dozens of smart TV and accompanying soundbar and subwoofer products available for different consumer groups, Xiaomi has managed to grab market share from traditional TV makers such as Hisense, TCL and Skyworth.
According to data compiled by O&O consulting, Xiaomi has taken the lead in the online market share of smart TV brands in China in 2018 accounted for 13.9% of total smart TV sales online in China in 2018 followed by Hisense with 13.5% shares, and Skyworth with 10,7%.
Those legacy brands have already taken the price war to Xiaomi and cut prices in various TV screen sizes to counter the newly-listed internet company.
The future growth for smart TV market in China has huge potential but the main players have been over relying on their pricing strategy to lure the price-sensitive consumer, which has caused a lack of innovation in China’s smart TV industry, according to Zhao.
In an interview with Pingwest, Xiong Jun, Vice President of Huawei Honor, said that “it is quite bizarre that cheap price and large screen size has become the only standards for the industry to value TV products in China right now.”
Xiong claimed that price war will hurt the industry in the long run, and that big brands should review their strategy before the once price-sensitive customers shift their preference. “By leveraging our R&D capabilities, we will bring true value back to the industry,” he added.