Television sets made and shipped by Chinese brand TCL could become one of the first non-Samsung models to get access to the free, ad-supported streaming service Samsung TV Plus, according to a report published last week.
TheDesk.net
In a newsletter, former Protocol reporter Janko Roettgers cited an unnamed source who reportedly told him that Samsung and TCL have held discussions about putting the free streaming service on Samsung TVs in the future.
In fact, Janko Roettgers is not with Protocol anymore. He has his own newsletter and said this, officially:
One of the companies that has had discussions about carrying TV Plus in recent months is TCL, according to a source in the know. It’s unclear how far those talks advanced, or whether they are still ongoing. Asked whether the company’s 2023 TVs would carry Samsung’s TV Plus service, a TCL spokesperson declined to comment; a Samsung spokesperson told me the company wouldn’t comment on the activity of competitors, and wasn’t immediately available to reply to follow-up questions.
Lowpass
I wrote about the dominance of streaming on TVs yesterday, and what it means to TV manufacturers. So, it might be good to kind of demarcate the basics of consumers displays: you either make displays that other people badge or brand, you make your own displays that you badge and brand, you create services and software that run on those displays, or you do a combination of all of the above. The real problem is this: you can’t differentiate on the display because of the very simple supply chain economics of making displays and the sources of the underlying technology. You certainly can’t rely on next gen product sales to juice up profits during uncertain economic times, and frankly, everything costs too much these days. So, you better position differentiation through software and services.
Don’t sell the features. Sell the experience. So far, so good. LG and Samsung do nothing but tell you life is good with them.
So, why would TCL want to get into bed with a competitors differentiation? Why would any competing vendor and they are all competing vendors. It may make sense with regional vendors who are better able to support markets in places like India or Brazil. But as a general rule, if you were going to war right now, this is your battleground: can you deliver an experience as a display manufacturer.
