Chinese TV Brands Likely Not Capable of Global Leadership, Says Consultant

With the possible exception of TCL, the biggest Chinese TV brands “have not invested in display technology to compete as fully integrated electronics players,” and that’s one reason they’re unlikely to make it onto the “global leadership” stage occupied by Samsung and other big global players. So said a Thursday blog post by Bob O’Brien, president of Display Supply Chain Consultants, the consulting firm he recently co-founded with former DisplaySearch CEO Ross Young (see 1606150021). “Japanese companies started investing in CRT technology in the 1960s, and Sony’s introduction of the Trinitron allowed them to capture the premium TV market for a generation,” said O’Brien, former director-marketing intelligence at Corning Glass Technologies. Most Chinese brands have refrained from making technological investments on the same scale, “and therefore rely on their suppliers to provide picture quality innovation,” he said. “The rising importance of China in the display and electronics industries cannot be overstated. China has become indispensable in the assembly stages of production, as well as a growing presence in both display capacity and as an end market. However, at a brand level the top Chinese brands lag far behind the global leaders, and given the structural changes in the industry, it is far from certain that any of them will be capable of achieving global leadership.”