TCL Came Out of Nowhere To Capture the US TV Market. Up Next: Cheap Phones. (protocol.com) 81
After capturing the U.S. television market with aggressively priced Roku TVs, China's TCL wants to replicate that success with inexpensive phones, IoT devices and connected appliances -- and in the process, turn its still relatively unknown brand into a household name. In other words: TCL wants to be the next Samsung. From a report: It won't be easy. The phone market, TCL's next target, is firmly dominated by Apple and Samsung and hard to penetrate for newcomers. The company also faces headwinds from the Trump administration's ongoing trade war with China, as well as political resistance to fellow Chinese tech companies like Huawei. And while TCL's partnership with Roku has been key to building its U.S. TV business, it has also forced the company to operate with razor-thin margins as Roku cashes in on a rapidly growing advertising business that's been a newfound source of revenue for other TV manufacturers.
TCL was founded as an audiotape manufacturer in China's Guangdong province in 1981. It has since become a growing force in the consumer electronics industry, manufacturing phones, TVs and appliances that are sold worldwide under a number of brands. In 2019, TCL sold 32 million TVs globally, it recently told investors. Across all of its businesses, TCL's 2018 revenue amounted to $16.3 billion, with a net profit of $586 million. Two-thirds of TCL's TV revenue already comes from overseas, and the company is looking to grow its international business even further. TCL is set to officially enter the U.S. smartphone market under its own brand in the second quarter of this year. After spending the last few years slapping licensed names like BlackBerry on phones it manufactures, the company previewed its first line of TCL-branded handsets at CES in January. It's expected to reveal official launch dates, specs and carrier partnerships at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month.
TCL was founded as an audiotape manufacturer in China's Guangdong province in 1981. It has since become a growing force in the consumer electronics industry, manufacturing phones, TVs and appliances that are sold worldwide under a number of brands. In 2019, TCL sold 32 million TVs globally, it recently told investors. Across all of its businesses, TCL's 2018 revenue amounted to $16.3 billion, with a net profit of $586 million. Two-thirds of TCL's TV revenue already comes from overseas, and the company is looking to grow its international business even further. TCL is set to officially enter the U.S. smartphone market under its own brand in the second quarter of this year. After spending the last few years slapping licensed names like BlackBerry on phones it manufactures, the company previewed its first line of TCL-branded handsets at CES in January. It's expected to reveal official launch dates, specs and carrier partnerships at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona later this month.
Cheap Phones (Score:1)
Good Value Phones (Score:2)
Well unless you are more interested in showing off how much you can give to a mega corp. Then it is what you get for that money. In context of the article you seen to get a lot of phone... With 5G something many expensive phones lack.
Came out of nowhere in the US (Score:1)
Re:Came out of nowhere in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Came out of nowhere in the US (Score:5, Interesting)
It likely means that the Beijing government provided some level of support to let TCL dump their product at below market pricing to snatch market share. Like they did in myriad other industries.
If you are accusing the Chinese of permanently subsidizing American consumers, then please explain why that is a bad thing.
If you are accusing the Chinese of temporarily offering low prices to seize market share, and then jacking up the prices once their monopoly is established, then please provide a few examples of the "myriad of other industries" where they did this.
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No, that isn't what was said. You erected that straw man yourself, sillypants.
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No, that isn't what was said. You erected that straw man yourself, sillypants.
If the low prices are neither permanent nor temporary, then what is the 3rd option?
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That was not said.
Now you have two straw men.
No, setting up a third won't make the first two look dandy.
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The restaurant industry. Chinese restaurants do this as standard practice and always have, as far I've been told.
The unfortunate evolution of low cost (Score:3)
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The warning of the Race to the bottom. (Score:2)
There is the concept of the Race to the Bottom.
Where you build your market on being cheaper then your competitor.
So what happens is your competitor will then counter their price forcing you to go lower. Until you reach a point where you cannot sustain your business, unless you find alternate funding (such as Ad revenue) to push the price down further.
This creates poorly build ad infested products. Which may last for a few years and drop out of the market.
Apple doesn't play that game, and it is part of the
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The obvious solution is to buy a TCL TV, and then don't set up Roku.
Nobody is forcing you to turn it on. You can still use your TV as a "Smart TV" with Apple-TV, Amazon Fire Stick, Google Chromecast, or any laptop or PC with an HDMI port.
Disclaimer: I bought a TCL TV at Costco because it was cheapest and the display model looked fine. I am happy with it. I enabled Roku and I don't care if they track me.
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Yes, companies do that but it's not like customers are innocent either. We say we don't want it (duh) but when it comes down to it a lot of people aren't willing to put their money where their mouth is and pay the full price. A bit of ads here, a sponsor there, a product placement or two, some affiliate links, telemetry, freemium and so on. You can blame Facebook for selling your data but if there was a subscription fee to sign up they'd never gotten off the ground. Putting up a paywall is a good way to los
It's called competition (Score:2)
Apple does indeed not play that game...which I why I have a phone that is better than Apples most expensive offering for an eighth of its price. Enjoy your Veblen good.
Re: The warning of the Race to the bottom. (Score:2)
7 Minute Abs!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=... [youtube.com]
Re:The unfortunate evolution of low cost (Score:5, Informative)
Actually TCL is one of the few brands that doesn't do this. The Roku interface has an unobtrusive 'suggestion' which basically recommends a random channel.
Samsung is the worst followed closely by LG, they go to an ad-channel every time you turn them on and you can't turn it off or remove it and every setting (eg. start last running app) is ignored.
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Actually TCL is one of the few brands that doesn't do this. The Roku interface has an unobtrusive 'suggestion' which basically recommends a random channel.
Samsung is the worst followed closely by LG, they go to an ad-channel every time you turn them on and you can't turn it off or remove it and every setting (eg. start last running app) is ignored.
That sounds like a faulty product.
Even Better - Larger Computer Monitors (Score:3)
It would be pleasant if manufacturers would create 2k and 4k screens that were 40" and larger. Then we wouldn't have to buy "Smart TVs" to watch content. It's getting tough to find TVs that don't have "smart" functionality built into them. And given LG and Samsung's history of ignoring your requests not to connect to a network (and going ahead and doing it anyway to upload your viewing habits), I will trust "Smart TVs" about as far as I can float on them down the river.
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Don't connect your Smart TV to a network and don't use its apps, then it's basically just a Dumb TV correct?
Re:Even Better - Larger Computer Monitors (Score:5, Interesting)
You would think that. But Samsung and LG have been caught (in the past) connecting to any open, unsecured Wifi nearby so they can call home. Even after being explicitly told not to connect to the network by the TV's owner (via the menus). Smart TVs are just another Internet of Shit device now. With a microphone.
One report of phoning home here:
http://doctorbeet.blogspot.com... [blogspot.com]
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One solution (which I do) is to put them on their own vlan with no internet access (or really, no access of any kind). Wired instead of wifi. It won't try looking for a wifi network since it has a wired connection, and that connection can't be used for anything.
I was allowing DNS lookups to a pihole, just out of curiosity, but had to stop since a Vizio TV was hitting the pihole so hard that logs were growing by 1 GB every couple days. Hundreds and hundreds of repeat lookups per second. That that point (piho
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Just link the log to /dev/null and never run out of space.
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The "smart" bit is a Kodi box running LibreElec.
Not that there is much 4K media to watch. HD looks pretty good to me.
What I want (Score:2)
A small 4k monitor, maybe 24 inches maximum.
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Any smart TV can be made un-smart by not connecting it to the internet. You do realize that right?
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I don't know if they still make them, but my JVC 65" 4k is a dumb tv, I bought it about 3 years ago.
It's plugged into a 4k receiver that allows the Xbox One S (4K bluray player), Win10 HTPC and Fetch TV unit (free to air tv recorder) to use it as a monitor.
Games, internet, YouTube, Netflix - all there at the touch of a button, no microphones or cameras, no email or social media. That's what this gaming PC & mobile phone is for.
Your mileage may vary.
I'm also not sure how a smart tv can connect to a netwo
huawei sales increased... (Score:1)
the moment people heard that huawei was banned from using google play, i heard dozens of stories of people going "GREAT! a company i can buy a phone from that doesn't force me to use google pre-installed! i shall buy one eminently, forthwith!". and yet others, mostly europeans, bought one just to be able to shove two fingers up in Trump's face.
i suspect the same thing will happen here: if TCL prices their smartphones aggressively enough, or even just makes them available for sale online, people will buy
Bye bye Roku (Score:2, Troll)
I did not know that they were backed by a Chinese company. Luckily my Roku is only a bedroom device that can easily be replaced.
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Roku was started by the same guy that started ReplayTV, so now he's finally getting his revenge on TiVo.
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Oh wait I see. I read the parent article wrong. I read it as TCL was a major backer of Roku the company. But it seems like just a partnership for Roku to be installed into cheap TVs.
Quit using old terms (Score:3)
Re:Quit using old terms (Score:5, Informative)
They're not called TVs anymore. They're called in-home tracking devices. Call them for what they are
Too wordy. There's a name already: Telescreen. After all, today's "smart" TVs check the same boxes the Telescreen did.. it watches *you* as you watch it.
And I bet you have one in your pocket, too. (I have one in my pocket, but I don't have a full-size telescreen, what I use is a projector with an appletv and a beat up old win 7 laptop. And an old-fashioned blu-ray player.)
I refuse to buy anyone's "smart" tv.
I just bought my first smart tv (Score:2)
I replaced an old 32" tv / roku in the kids room with a Vizio 32" smart tv. I really didn't want to get one, but they only watch Netflix and Youtube on it anyway. It's handy to have the TV timer shut the thing off. With the TV/Roku the TV would shut off, but the Roku might keep playing things all night.
It's a decent 720hd tv for $99. With discounts we had, it was cheaper than the TCL.
It did weird things like volume wouldn't work, or would freeze up occasionally. We exchanged it, hopefully it was just t
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You don't have to connect it to your wifi, you know.
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You don't have to connect it, it connects by itself.
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You have open WiFi?
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It hacks your wifi password by itself?
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They're not called TVs anymore. They're called in-home tracking devices. Call them for what they are
We used to call them telescreens.
"Capture the US TV Market"? (Score:2)
That phrase is being used here to mean something which pretty much no one else would assume it means.
You're doing it wrong (Score:2)
You're supposed to use the "You keep using that word" quote of Inigo Montoya.
So your comment should have been:
Title: "Capture the US TV Market"?
Comment: "You keep using that sentence. I do not think it means what you think it means."
Oh, that's too bad (Score:5, Funny)
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Same confusion here, but I was thinking "Why are they trying to enter the tomato/cucumber/lettuce salad market?"
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Is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps they could start by putting back the popular features that Apple and Samsung removed, and adding useful ones
Today, I went to buy a new phone. None of them have:
Waterproof would be useful too.
No, I don't want a metal or glass back. Plastic is by far the most suitable material for a portable object.
So I am still using my two 3-year old ones, and the money is still in the bank (until Valentine's day, anyway).
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Because no one except you wants a 4:3 screen. All the content is 16:9, all the sat nav apps are designed for 16:9 now. Even if you buy a stand alone TomTom it's 16:9. Why wouldn't you want the extra width, now you can have the directions next to the map.
Other than that you are spot on.
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You can buy a waterproof enclosure to a Raspberry Pi.
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I'd agree - there are so many niches that aren't served by Apple/Samsung.
As you say, smaller screens are all but impossible to buy - most modern phones are too big for the average Levis pocket, but weirdly neither Levis nor the phone manufacturers seem to be solving this problem. My first Samsung had a 4.5" screen - properly pocket sized, and you can get around the whole thing one handed and don't need a stupid shrink mode to do it!
I just bought a Motorola phone for £100. It's not awesome, but it's pl
TCL did NOT come out of nowhere - Alcatel and Palm (Score:5, Informative)
TCL is one of those manufacturers no one knows, because they are masters in revitalizing old brands.
Every Alcatel cellphone you see worldwide is made by them, as they licensed the brand from alcatel (proper) in 2005... And those phones are pretty sucessful, not samsung or apple successful, but get black ink and avoid red ink successfull.
In 2011 they acquired the palm brand too. Granted, their first foray was a gimmick, but the brand is there for them to use.
they also had a long relationship with blackberry to manufacture blackberry branded phones (in the beginning of this month, the companies announced that the deal would not be renewed).
So, these guys have been bussy at it in phone land since the latter 00's. Is not like they "comme out of nowere". Oh, and before phones, they did things like DVD and blue-ray players, so, they DO NOT come out of nowhere for TVs either...
The only difference is that, instead of acequiring the rights of an iconic western brand and reviving it, they are going solo with their own brand.... That's the real news...
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They also licensed the RCA brand for televisions before they started to sell them under their own brand. I have a rather small one that is nice in that it has tons of inputs, and I use it for both a TV and a computer display, so that has proven helpful.
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Like many companies they started off manufacturing for others, and now that China is producing top rate engineers they can make their own stuff. Before then Taiwan did the same thing.
The Only real prenium phone for 500$ (Score:2)
Is the Purism Librem 5 https://puri.sm/products/libre... [puri.sm]
$749 (Score:2)
The link you supplied says $749, rather than $500.
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"Isn't $500 basically the same thing as $750? They're both under $1000, so who cares?" - Tim Cook
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Well, the first preorder was like 399$, the raise it to 499$ then look like they rise it again...
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I have one with HDR10, that's just a function of a 4K HDMI input. You won't find many TV's with adaptive sync, those are monitors, not TV's.
Great. Another search conumdrum. (Score:2)
Tcl (pronounced "tickle" or tee cee ell /ti si l/[6]) is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. It was designed with the goal of being very simple but powerful.[7] Tcl casts everything into the mold of a command, even programming constructs like variable assignment and procedure definition.[8] Tcl supports multiple programming paradigms, including object-oriented, imperative and functional programming or procedural styles.
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Just so long as they don't name their new phone the Tk. Now that would be a search disaster.
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TCL the language was released in '88, TCL the corporation was started in '85.
Pile of dead tech- (Score:2)
I have a store room full of dead TCL monitors. The ones still in service require an arcane reset procedure every couple of weeks that works maybe 75% of the time, and its different for each model. The backlights go out, inputs stop working, and the buttons stick.
Hardy pass on TCL gear. YMMV.
Why are TVs still a thing? (Score:2)
Why aren't they just dumb wireless MP4 displays for your phone or anything else on the network that can stream MP4.
Just put a QR code sticker on the thing for anyone who needs an app to do that. (The server can detect the OS and language.)
(Phones would essentially MP4-hardware-encode their screen contents if they can't foward an MP4 source directly.)
Want market share? Have an open bootloader... (Score:2)
If a company wanted to get a decent share in the US market, they might be well off having their stock ROM, but also "blessing" LineageOS or something similar, as well as having an open bootloader. Establishing trust, perhaps even focusing on privacy would definitely get part of the market share, and a die-hard following, especially if the company offered as much open source as possible.
Bonus points if there is a tool like XPrivacy on the device where an app can demand all permissions it wants, but would be
Your want list. (Score:2)
I like your want list, but would it really work.
TCL make good enough quality, no thrills TV's that is their selling point. That is their market.
They don't have to do anything else.
It can't be that hard (Score:5, Interesting)
In the budget end, it's generally a race to the bottom. I was excited to finally see a phone that actually had what I wanted in the form of the HMD Nokia 2.2: 3.5mm jack, removable battery, stock Android, reasonable update schedule, and a specific timeline for how long we'd get updates. And then the 2.3 released recently and took away the removable battery, because of course it did; why would we ever have nice things?
All they have to do is bring back most of the old features people liked and price it effectively and people will buy it. Maybe market it a bit as well, since the only person I've heard talk about the 2.2 is myself.
Came out of nowhere? (Score:2)
I bought a couple of 39in TCL TVs in 2013 (from Amazon)
they're still going fine
"Alcatel branded devices from TCL Communication" (Score:2)
Theatre too! (Score:2)
I didn't know about TCL until I saw they took over Chinese theatre in Hollyweird. :O
Function over form (Score:2)
I wouldn't say "came out of nowhere" in the slightest. TCL's smart TV interface is vastly superior to most brands of TVs I have had experience with. It seems simple enough, but when you press a button on the remote you get an immediate and actual response on the TV, not some stupid slow-ass animation that makes the input feel sluggish like on LG or Samsung. They were smart to partner with Roku, who knows a thing or two about responsive UIs on minimal hardware.
Captured? (Score:2)
After capturing the U.S. television market with aggressively priced Roku TVs
Captured?
I've never seen one.