Vizio凭什么征服电视机行业

    上个月，知名高清电视厂商Vizio公司开始发售宽屏幕电视（Cinemawide TV）。它拥有一块58英寸的超宽屏幕，设计宗旨正是为了在电视上按照电影应有的观赏方式来观影——屏幕顶部和底部不再有那种常见的黑色边框。这台电视的分辨率高达2560×1080，宽高比为21：9，能让用户获得更接近影院效果的体验。

    长期以来，电子设备制造商、尤其是电视厂商，习惯于用一大堆日益冗长、听起来日益玄乎的技术名词对消费者狂轰滥炸。但在电子设备行业这种虚张声势的潮流中，Vizio的宽银幕电视绝非跟风之作。这款产品宣告，Vizio在不到十年的时间里，已经从一家专门生产廉价杂牌产品的厂商成长为业内响当当的主导创新型企业。

    早在2002年，Vizio就通过推出低价平板电视杀入了美国市场。实质上，这正是它打入市场的独门秘技。对于这家位于加州尔湾市的公司来说，这一招很快就大获成功。据IT调查公司IHS iSuppli称，2012年第一财季，Vizio公司LCD电视机的出货量约为121万台。尽管与去年同期的156万台相比有所下降，但仍让公司重新坐上了美国LCD平板电视销售榜单的头把交椅。更为可贵的是，Vizio自成立以来业绩几乎一直在持续增长。据估计，去年其营收超过29亿美元（Vizio是私有公司，没有公布实际利润）。

    市场研究公司NPD集团的显示器研究部门北美地区电视研究总监保罗•盖格农表示：“Vizio已经是一个极具竞争力和创新性的品牌了。”传统的平板电视生产流程是垂直整合的，也就是一家公司主导一系列产品的设计、生产和营销。而Vizio特立独行，打破了这一传统，搅活了这个市场。盖格农解释道，Vizio反其道而行之，它负责设计产品，随后再找外部生产厂家，打破了所谓的“现状”。

    众多竞争厂商可能已经察觉Vizio来者不善。毕竟，Vizio平板电脑的部分技术是从一些昔日的电子厂商巨头抄袭而来的。正如日本公司索尼（Sony）和松下（Panasonic）曾一度将RCA和Magnavox这样的成熟品牌挤出市场后，却发现来自韩国的后起之秀LG公司和三星公司（Samsung）夺走了自己的市场份额一样，现在Vizio正与三星展开鏖战，为了销售冠军的宝座一决高下。Vizio的首席技术官马特•麦克雷称：“如果回顾过去这些年来电视制造业的发展史，就会发现Vizio是通过颠覆式的创新进军市场的。当时，绝大多数电视厂商巨头还在生产CRT电视或背投式电视，而用户能买到的平板电视价格则普遍高高在上。”

    令人惊讶的是，Vizio的创立地并不是什么地处偏远、成本低廉的制造业城市。它诞生于加州。2002年，王蔚（William Wang）仅用了60万美元，就在雷尼•纽桑姆和肯•劳氏这两位好友的帮助下创办了这家公司。他们三人曾在王所创立的美格公司（MAG Innovision）共事。这家公司成立于1990年代，专门生产CRT显示器。在用物美价廉的等离子电视帮助Gateway公司（Gateway Computers，美国第三大PC厂商——译注）迅速打入——随后又快速退出——电视机市场后，王蔚就自立门户了。他的远大愿景是：在传统CRT电视逐渐被新技术取代之际，推广能大幅削弱其他厂商竞争优势的平板电视。盖格农称：“这个市场的进入门槛不高。但同样是低价竞争策略，比起其他那些努力挤进这个市场的厂商来说，Vizio要用得更得心应手些。”

    Vizio之所以能做到这一点，很大程度上是因为，与其大多数竞争对手不同，它自己并不真正生产电视。Vizio从来就不是一个生产厂商品牌，从来就没有自己的工厂。IHS iSuppli公司的资深分析师、电视技术部门总监汤姆•莫若德称：“Vizio的战略和苹果公司（Apple）类似。它没有自己的生产线，也不拥有自己的供应商。对苹果来说，这一战略一直就非常成功，对Vizio而言也会如此。”

    位于台湾的瑞轩科技公司（AmTran Technology）现在是Vizio的四家代工公司之一。它还拥有Vizio的股份。麦克雷称：“我们合作的每家厂商都有各自擅长的领域，有些厂家还特别擅长生产特定的产品，如某个尺寸的电视。要制造特定规格的电视时，我们就会挑选最好的零配件，寻找能生产它的最佳厂商搭档。”他的言外之意是：Vizio的经营机制灵活快捷，远非竞争对手所能及。

    迄今为止，这一战略已让Vizio在最受欢迎的32英寸和40到42英寸这一市场夺得了18.5%的份额。公司还向其他设备进军，如条状音箱——置于电视下的扬声器。Vizio在这个市场以27.5%的市场份额高居第一。Vizio可能还会继续扩展产品线。在今年一月举行的消费电子展（Consumer Electronics Show）上，Vizio推出了一系列电脑，包括两款一体机和三款笔记本电脑。

    当然，电视是Vizio成功开拓的领域，它很可能会继续致力于这个市场。它之所以大获成功，很大程度上在于能为更在意价格而非其他特性的用户提供价值，包括出色的性能。 莫若德对《财富》杂志（Fortune）称：“它的产品并没有任何属于自己的创新技术。但它的价格对大多数人来说都极具吸引力，并让它成为销量领先的品牌。”

    问题在于，Vizio未来将往什么方向发展。通过独特的定价战略，它战胜了那些行动迟缓、惯于享受丰厚利润的竞争对手，获得了成长。但是，据分析师称，在当前这种经济环境下，许多消费者还在寻觅最低价格。因此，Vizio打算提供多种高端电子产品的雄心壮志可能与这种大气候并不合拍。而麦克雷称：“在目前市场上，我们绝不是最廉价的品牌。我们看到过很多更廉价的品牌昙花一现，往往6到9个月后就销声匿迹了。”

    译者：清远

    Last month TV maker Vizio began selling its Cinemawide TV, which features an ultra-wide 58-inch screen that is designed for viewing movies as they were meant to be seen -- without the common black bars on the top and bottom. The super-wide set offers a resolution of 2,560 by 1,080 pixels and a 21:9 aspect ratio to give viewers a more theater-like viewing experience.

    Gadget manufacturers, TV makers in particular, have long plied consumers with ever-longer, more complex-sounding technical specifications. But Vizio's Cinemawide isn't a typical exercise in electronics bravado. It heralds a bold shift for a company that has gone from a purveyor of chintzy, off-brand sets to being a major industry disruptor in less than a decade.

    Vizio entered the U.S. market by, in essence, disrupting it with low-priced TVs back in 2002. That quickly paid off for the Irvine, California-based company. According IHS iSuppli, Vizio shipped about 1.21 million LCD TVs in the first quarter of 2012. And while this is a drop from the 1.56 million sold in the same quarter a year earlier, the company reclaimed the top spot for sales of the flat panel LCD sets in the United States. What's more, Vizio has seen nearly continuous growth since its founding. It is estimated to have had revenues that exceeded $2.9 billion last year. (The company is private and does not disclose earnings.)

    "They have been a very competitive and disruptive brand," says Paul Gagnon, director of North America TV research at NPD Group's Displaysearch. Vizio has disrupted the market by not following the traditional, vertically integrated flat panel TV manufacturing process, which typically has a single company designing, manufacturing and marketing a line of products. Instead, Gagnon explained, Vizio designs the sets but then looks to outside manufacturers, disrupting what he called the "status quo."

    Competitors might have seen it coming. After all, Vizio cribbed parts of its playbook from electronics juggernauts past. Just as Japanese firms including Sony (SNE) and Panasonic (PC) edged out established brands such as RCA and Magnavox, only to see Korean upstarts LG and Samsung take away market share, now Vizio is battling with Samsung for the top spot. "If you look at the history in the TV space in the last years, you will see that Vizio did enter through disruption," says Matt McRae, Vizio's chief technology officer. "At the time most of big TV makers were still producing CRTs or rear projection sets, and the flat panel sets that were offered to consumers came with a high-price."

    Surprisingly, Vizio was founded not in some far-flung, low-cost manufacturing city, but in California. It was started in 2002 by William Wang with just $600,000 and help from friends Laynie Newsome and Ken Lowe. The three had worked together at Wang's former company MAG Innovision, a maker of CRT displays in the 1990s. After helping Gateway Computers briefly enter -- only to quickly exit -- the TV market with affordable plasma sets, Wang struck out alone. His vision: sell flat panel sets that severely undercut the competition just as traditional CRT sets were being replaced by newer technology. "The market has had a low barrier to entry," says Gagnon, "but this strategy played out for Vizio a little better than it has for others who have tried to enter."

    The company was able to accomplish this in no small part because, unlike most of its rivals, it doesn't actually manufacture its own sets. Vizio has never been a manufacturing brand, and never owned a factory of its own. "The company instead has a similar strategy to Apple (AAPL)," says Tom Morrod, senior analyst and head of TV technology at IHS iSuppli. "They don't own their own manufacturing, they don't own the suppliers. This has been a very successful strategy for Apple and it could be very successful with Vizio."

    Taiwan-based AmTran Technology currently is one of four firms that manufacture products for Vizio, while it also owns a stake in the company. "Each of the manufacturers we work with does something well, and we do have manufacturers that do specific products like sets in one screen size very well," argues McRae. "When we are building a specific TV we try to pick the best components and look for who would be the best match to manufacture the product." His point: Vizio is nimble and flexible in ways competitors can't be.

    So far, this has allowed Vizio to nab 18.5% market share in the popular 32-inch and 40-to-42-inch screen sizes. The company has also branched out to other gear such as sound bars -- speakers that sit underneath a television -- where it has the top spot with 27.5% of the market. The company is likely to continue expanding. At the annual Consumer Electronics Show in January Vizio introduced a line of computers, including two all-in-one desktops and three notebooks.

    TVs of course are where the company has made its mark, and where it will likely continue to focus. It has largely been successful by providing value when consumers consider price over just about everything else, including advanced features. "There is nothing innovative in it by its own right," Morrod told Fortune. "But the price especially has appealed to a large portion of the population and allowed Vizio to become a leading brand by sales."

    The question is where Vizio can go from here. It has managed to grow by outflanking slow-moving competitors used to fat margins. Its ambitions to provide all manner of high-end electronics may not jibe with an economic climate where many consumers, according to analysts, still look for the lowest sticker price. "We're far from the cheapest brand on the market at present," counters McRae. "We're seeing many cheaper brands pop up but they're gone in six to nine months."