Metz held a bigger press event this year, with its parent company, Skyworth. The company, Metz is 80 years old this year and Skyworth celebrates its 30th birthday.
Johnny Wang is from Skyworth where he is GM of Overseas Sales & Marketing. Image:Meko
Metz has been strong in the German-speaking market with very conservative and high-priced and reliable products, but this means that the company has not been able to sell high volumes. (Later, in questions, it was confirmed that the ASP for Metz is around €1,300, while for the market as a whole, it’s around half that at €620 and the target for Metz Blue is €620.).
The Metz ‘Classic’ brand will stay as the high end brand in Germany with German production (at Zirndorf, Bavaria) The motto for Metz is “Always first class” with the best sound, image, ease of use, durability and service. The historic Metz red logo will be retained for the classic range and distribution will mainly be through the traditional small independent retailers with premium pricing. The company hopes that the Blue range will also go through higher volume channels.
Dr. Norbert Kotzbauer is CEO of Metz Consumer Electronics in Germany. Image:Meko
Metz Blue is a new brand to be made in Poland by a partner (confirmed in discussions as TP Vision so the sets will be “Assembled in EU”) to be sold globally for the mid-range to high end market. The aim is to combine “German quality with Skyworth’s technology and supply chain.
The tagline for Metz Blue is “Always your choice”. The first sets will be based on Android (8.0) with features such as voice and chromecast and optimised for streaming. The chassis will be developed in China, by Skyworth.
Metz Blue will be delivered initially in Germany, but will be moved to other parts of Europe, India and Hong Kong. Later, even wider distribution is being discussed and the company plans to develop region-specific products.
Metz will continue to develop the Metz Classic brand in Europe and OLED TVs for Metz Blue will be developed in Europe, even though they will be sold also under the Metz Blue brand. That’s because China doesn’t have experience with OLEDs at the moment, while Europe adopted the OLED technology very early and has had a long and close relationship with LG Display.
Metz will take over all Skyworth TV sales and R&D in Europe.
Thomas Billing is Product Trainer for Metz. Image:Meko
Thomas Billing is Product Manager for Metz and he said that the company is upgrading its smart products to Software 2.0, and will be a major upgrade that can be applied to all devices with Chassis 616 over the ‘last two years’.
The company has upgraded its 55″ & 65″ OLEDs and has new ‘real hi-fi’ sound with active sub-woofers. It has also added a new mid-range 55″ Fineo OLED TV while the 43″ Fineo and 49″ are, of course, based on LCD.
Under the Blue brand, there will be a new E2 range of 32″ (HD) and 40″ (FullHD) and an E6 pair of the same sizes that adds Netflix. There will also be a U2 series with 43″, 50″, 55″ and 65″ LCDs and aimed at Netflix users. In DACH, there will be a G2A series with UltraHD and Android with 50″, 55″ and 58″ LCDs. The Q36 LCD range has 43″, 49″, 55″ and 65″ with DTS and 10 bit colour on the UltraHD panels and DTS sound. The OLEDs will be the S9A Series.
One of the reasons that Metz is going with Android is that the company believes that TV is merging with IT and IT is really not possible, these days, without Google. Android dominance in smartphones and browsers and it has typically taken four years after introduction to get to top place and is now dominant in both of those categories.
Looking at data from IHS Markit for Android’s position in SmartTV (inc STBs and media sticks), Android now has 40% of the market and Metz expects Android to be dominant in the future.
This is Metz’s view of the development of Android’s share of Smart TV, based on some (but not all!) data from IHS. Image:Meko
Android 8 makes TV set up very easy from the user’s smartphone and Android TV is built around voice control. Google Assistant is becoming context-aware and is central to the TV experience.
There are now 3600 apps for Android sets – most optimised for TV displays. However most users just want to just watch video quickly and simply. Apps not so dominant in the latest version of the TV version of Android and it is built around channels such as Netflix or YouTube. Video previews are available in the programme guide which is an attractive feature.
In answer to questions, in the future, Metz could extend Blue to other products, even white goods.
Metz told us that DACH models will be different from those in the rest of Europe. In DACH there will only be UltraHD units, while some would be FullHD outside.
HDR10 and HLG are the main HDR formats and Metz plans to wait and see which wins in the format war between HDR10+ and Dolby Vision.
Booth Tour
We met with Metz’s CTO and he confirmed to us that one way that the company ensures that it has no problems with phosphor burn in partly because it runs every new set for 72 hours before shipment and rejects panels that do not perform (and there are numbers of them!).
Metz showed this 77″ OLED prototype. Image:Meko
Metz has adopted the ‘wallpaper’ concept for its Wallpaper! OLED TV. The unit separates the control system from the OLED panel and that leaves a display that is just 3.65 mm thick and reinforced with toughened glass. The company also highlighted that OLEDs do not produce as much blue light as LED back-lit LCDs.
The Novum OLED TV range has a 1TB DVT and a rotatable metal base.
Metz made the most of the presence of Miss IFA. Image:Meko
