Plasma TV has come to an end

Panasonic, the former “big player”, announced last November that it would stop producing plasma panels. Samsung and LG also said they would stop producing plasma TVs at the end of this month. The latest news is that even the "individual" Changhong of the plasma camp has also made a "difficult decision" and announced that it will transfer the plasma TV business. In this regard, industry sources said that this actually announced the complete failure of plasma TV products.
Changhong is overwhelmed by the speedy rejection of "baggage"

After being suspended for more than one month due to the “planning of major issues”, Sichuan Changhong announced that the company intends to transfer 61.48% of the shares of Sichuan Hong Europe Display Devices Co., Ltd. to Mianyang Dakun Investment Co., Ltd. by way of a contractual transfer. 64,200,000 yuan. Sichuan Hong Europe is the main company responsible for plasma TV business under Changhong.

Changhong once was full of confidence in the plasma business and its investment was also high. In 2006, Changhong began to launch a plasma panel production line. At that time, the planned total investment was more than 2 billion U.S. dollars. Subsequently, in 2008, Changhong added another one billion yuan to become the controlling shareholder of Hong Europe, and continued to invest in and build plasma screens and module projects. However, such investment did not bring corresponding returns to Changhong, but it has become a huge drag on its performance. Sichuan Changhong's financial report for two consecutive years showed that Hong Europe showed a loss of 738 million yuan in 2012 and a loss of 347 million yuan in 2013. In the first half of this year, Sichuan Changhong had a total loss of 181 million yuan, of which Hong Europe showed a loss of 130 million yuan.
Sichuan Changhong stated that the continuous loss of Hong Europe was mainly due to major changes in the plasma industry environment in recent years, the continuous shrinking plasma market, the shortage of plasma front-end supply chain resources, and the increase in plasma screen and module product costs. To this end, Changhong had to dispose of and divest its plasma business and assets to further enhance its profitability. In fact, as early as May of this year, Zhao Yong, chairman of Sichuan Changhong, said that "the company will start a new round of internal reforms," ​​and it will strategically reorganize or withdraw from subsidiaries that do not meet the company's strategy and cause drag on development. At that time, the outside world speculated that the plasma business would be the first to bear the brunt of it, but did not expect to come so fast. According to analysis by industry insiders, Changhong’s first loss in two years since this year’s mid-year report, and the continued losses of the three quarterly reports, were the main reasons for accelerating Changhong’s decision to dump the burden.

Plasma is on the "end" is the trend

In fact, plasma has long been a "non-mainstream" in the color TV field. According to data from third-party market research organizations, the market share of plasma TVs in the color TV market was only 1.32% from January to August this year, which was a decrease of 2.25% compared to 2013, and the market share of only one family of Changhong Electronics exceeded 50. %. After the previous plasma "big family" quitted, Changhong, who was a "lonely soldier," was "abandoned" and declared a complete failure of the plasma.

It is understood that the principle of plasma television is to inject a mixture of gases between two ultra-thin glass plates, and apply a voltage to the fluorescent light to image it. Compared to CRT TVs at the time, it has a high resolution more than a decade or two ago. With the advantages of large screen, ultra-thin, rich colors, and vivid colors, after entering the LCD era, it still has better performance in terms of dynamic resolution, visual comfort, color reproduction, contrast, and viewing angle. In the coming year, the industry is circulated with the notion of “an amateur watching a liquid crystal and an insider watching a plasma”.

However, the market performance of plasma has been relatively normal. Liu Buchen, a veteran household appliances industry observer, pointed out that with the development of liquid crystal display technology, LCD panel products have not only completed product coverage from small size to large size, but also continuously improved in display technology, and won comprehensive performance in terms of price, function, and energy saving. Consumers’ “hearts” have seen ultra-high-definition and curved surface types in recent years. Difficulties in contrasting technologies and narrow product lines have made the competition more and more obvious. Once the plasma camp’s big customers have “turned” to the LCD. Display technology camp.

Since 2008, Pioneer and Hitachi have announced that they will withdraw from plasma panel production. In the second half of last year, Panasonic, the world's largest plasma panel and TV manufacturer, shut down its plasma TV assembly plant in Shanghai and sell the discontinued plasma panel factory. In June this year, South Korean media reported that LG Electronics will completely withdraw from the plasma TV business. In mid-year, the Beijing Development and Reform Commission released the “List of Prohibited and Restricted New Industries in Beijing (2014 Edition)”, in which plasma TV manufacturing was included in the list of prohibited investments. At this point, the plasma camp was completely defeated and faced with new display technologies such as 4K and OLED.

Will exit the market completely in the next 3-5 years

The relatively closed environment of the industry and the failure of the corporate market strategy are considered to be the main reasons for the continuous decline of the plasma camp. Liu Buchen believes that in the early stages of plasma development, manufacturers such as Panasonic, Samsung, LG, Hitachi, and Pioneer firmly controlled the technological advantages and upstream plasma panel manufacturing resources, and in order to obtain higher profits, they did not open their entire industry to other manufacturers. The chain, which has led to the poor living environment of the plasma industry, also limits its commercial prospects.

Although the industry believes that Changhong's sale of plasma panel business means complete failure of plasma, plasma TVs are not completely disappeared in the market, and some plasma products including Changhong are still on sale, but there are few physical channels available. seen.

The reporter visited several home appliance stores in Tianhe and did not see plasma TVs in the television product area. A salesman from Suning said that the plasma is behind the technology and no one sold it. At present, the HD set-top box is the main one. Clear video playback, local 4K video playback without stall, this kind of content can be completed in a high-definition set-top box, we mainly sell smart LCD TVs, ultra-high-definition products. "Online channels, the reporter looked at Jingdong There are two plasma TV products for Changhong and Samsung, and three plasma products for Changhong and Panasonic are available for sale at Suning. At the Changhong official flagship store of Tmall.cn, a plasma product has sold 170 in the last month. In Taiwan, prices have become an important factor in attracting consumers to purchase. The price of this 51-inch 3D plasma TV is less than 2,700 yuan, which is lower than the price of the same-size LCD TVs and is even higher than that of domestic 4K TVs of the same size. It is almost half lower.

Industry insiders predict that plasma TVs will completely withdraw from the civilian consumer market in the next 3-5 years. Lu Jiebo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce, said that for consumers, the biggest "sequelae" of plasma delisting is that after-sales service will become unknown. According to China's "Regulations on the Replacement, Return, and Responsibility of Certain Goods," the current plasma users are 5 years old. There will be no parts to be replaced when repairs are to be performed.