Chinese home appliances retailer Gome signed purchase orders of 8.18 million TV sets with manufacturers like Skyworth, TCL, Hisense, Changhong, Sharp, and Konka during an event held in Beijing.
The retailer announced that starting from August 1, 2014, they will launch an online and offline full channel marketing campaign.
Wang Junzhou, president of Gome, said that following current consumer trends, Gome's color TV sales increased by 4.6% year-on-year during the first half of 2014, of which the sales of smart TVs increased by 20.4%. At the same time, the ratio of smart TVs sold via Gome's channels increased from 8.8% in 2011 to 76.2% in the first half of 2014, indicating that smart TVs will become the mainstream choice of future TV consumption.
During the meeting, Gome signed large TV procurement orders with well-known manufacturers from China and abroad, totaling 8.18 million units. According to the agreements, the retailer will purchase 900,000 TV sets from Skyworth and Hisense, respectively; and it will purchase 800,000 TV sets from TCL, Changhong, Sharp, Samsung, and Sanyo, respectively.
Wang said as a major color TV sales channel in China, Gome will continue to enhance its channel, experience, product and pricing in the second half of 2014. They will explore new growth points in the TV market while lowering the price of smart TVs to promote the popularization of smart TVs in China.
Gome's senior vice president Li Juntao said that Gome will upgrade its retail stores to accomodate full coverage of Wi-Fi and digital HD signals too.