Mobile phone jianghu reshuffle? Apple stands firm, glory rises, and Millet declines

China's mobile phone market pattern is being reshuffled.

On December 13, data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology showed that from January to November 2021, the overall shipment of mobile phones in the domestic market totaled 317 million units, an increase of 12.8% year-on-year, of which 5G mobile phone shipments were 239 million units, an increase of 65.3% year-on-year, accounting for 75.3% of mobile phone shipments in the same period.

At the beginning of this year, domestic brands planned to seize the high-end market to start, after all, Huawei mobile phones left a large cake because of the lack of cores. But throughout the year, OPPO and vivo are steadily advancing, the high-end market share is still small, and the rise of glory in the second half of the year has actually formed a certain blow to Xiaomi. Most of the high-end market that everyone wants was taken away by Apple, which successfully topped the summit at the end of the year.

Apple benefits the most from the high-end scramble

As the mobile phone market no longer grows, the incremental market has become a stock market, and the transformation of high-end has become an inevitable choice for various mobile phone companies. Coupled with Huawei's successful cases in the high-end mobile phone market in recent years, major local mobile phone companies OPPO, vivo, and xiaomi are all in the layout to seize the high-end market.

Before the rise of Huawei mobile phones, the domestic mobile phone brand OPPO has always been the "boss" of the Chinese market. In September this year, Liu Bo, vice president of OPPO and president of China, clearly stated at the press conference that OPPO has been prepared in technology, organization, OS and ecology, "We will definitely be able to take the top three in this high-end marathon." ”

In fact, OPPO has also made many preparations in the layout of the high-end market. Liu Bo said that in terms of technology, OPPO continues to explore technologies such as imaging and fast charging, and will land more innovative technologies in the future; in terms of architecture, OPPO and the OnePlus team are fully integrated to form a combination of dual brands and dual flagships to impact the high-end; the role of ColorOS will also be transformed into an operating system for all opPO intelligent terminals, bringing users a unified high-end experience.

In 2021, OPPO's architecture has changed the most, one plus returns, using a unified operating system, on the one hand, in order to expand the ecology of intelligent hardware, on the other hand, for the high-end mobile phone market, with OPPO and one plus dual flagships to seize the high-end.

Vivo also has many actions in the high-end layout. In August this year, Vivo launched the first self-developed image chip to strengthen the competitiveness of mobile phones in the image track.

On August 27, Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Vivo, said in an interview with the surging news reporter in Shenzhen that the soC chip is now less differentiated, but there is a strong demand for customized chips on the core track, based on the insight into future technology and consumer needs, it is determined that the self-developed chip V1 is mainly used in the image track.

Xiaomi has clearly proposed to impact the high-end market in 2020, and since this year, Xiaomi has also released a number of high-end flagship machines to continue to stand in the high-end market. Xiaomi's high-end flagship mobile phone, Xiaomi 11Ultra, known as the "Light of Android"; the folding machine Xiaomi MIX Fold, equipped with Xiaomi's first self-developed professional image chip surging C1.

Although each company is launching high-end products, no high-end phenomenon-level products have appeared, which has led to the failure of local mobile phone companies to impact the high-end market throughout the year. The iPhone 13 series easily propelled Apple to the top when it was released.

Sainuo data shows that from January to August 2021, the share of high-end smart machines with more than 5,000 yuan in the Chinese market reached 67%. Entering September, Apple released the latest iPhone 13 series, which led to a 32.5% increase in Apple's sales in the month of listing, and the only positive growth in mainstream brand sales.

In October this year, data from a number of market institutions showed that Apple's iPhone rose sharply both month-on-month and year-on-year, thriving in the weak mobile phone market and returning to the first place after many years.

Sainuo's report shows that in October, Apple's iPhone sales were 6.5 million units, an increase of 155% year-on-year; OPPO was 4.3 million units, down 2.5% year-on-year; Vivo was 4 million units, down 3% year-on-year; Honor was 3.6 million units, a slight increase of 0.6% year-on-year; Xiaomi was 2.8 million units, down 25.8%.

Ni Fei, president of ZTE Terminal Division, said in an interview with the surging news reporter that the landing of the high-end market is not achieved overnight, it requires the comprehensive improvement of products, brands, channels and other aspects, and needs to be taken step by step.

"In fact, the Android camp and the Apple camp have their own strengths, the Android camp has many brands, everyone's competition and innovation with each other is more colorful, and the openness of the Android camp brings innovation that is actually more dynamic." Ni Fei believes that in the past two years, domestic manufacturers have advantages over Apple in the ability to rapidly iterate many technologies, and there are still many opportunities for the Android camp in the future.

Honor CEO Zhao Ming also said in an interview with the surging news reporter a few days ago that the road taken by Huawei has brought a good reference to everyone, and Huawei's success lies in returning to the bottom of innovation and continuous breakthroughs in technology and consumer experience. "There is no shortcut to the construction and growth of high-end brands, there is no fluke, we need to return to the fundamentals of consumer experience, we can not take the configuration as a brand, nor can we piece together the various high-end devices as innovation, this idea is completely wrong." If it is not back to the fundamentals, and simply saying that Huawei's empty market should naturally be divided by several domestic brands, it is very naïve and naïve. The market never tolerates childishness and naivety. ”

Sainuo's analysis believes that in the total share of the high-end market, Apple has become the biggest beneficiary of the domestic high-end market, and although domestic brands such as Xiaomi OV have successively exerted their efforts, the goal is to impact the high-end to seize Huawei's market share, but unfortunately, its share change of more than 5,000 yuan is still low, and the high-end road is still a long way to go.

The rise of Glory and the decline of the Xiaomi market

A major highlight of the market in the second half of this year is the rapid recovery of the independent glory market share and return to the top three positions in the market.

Sainuo's report shows that after the adjustment of the first half of the year, Glory achieved positive growth for two consecutive months from July and August, and although there was a decline in September, it turned positive year-on-year, and the domestic smart phone sales ranked third for three consecutive months. In the third quarter, Honor achieved a quarter-on-quarter increase of 113% quarter-on-quarter with sales of about 12 million units, mainly contributing from the Honor 50 series and Magic3 series.

The rise of glory has not had a great impact on the OV two. Canalys data shows that in the third quarter of 2021, the smartphone manufacturer with the most shipments in the Chinese market was vivo, accounting for 23% of the market and 19% year-on-year. In second place is OPPO, accounting for 20%, an increase of 15% year-on-year. Honor's shipments grew rapidly in the quarter, accounting for 18%, ranking third, surpassing Xiaomi and Apple. In addition, Xiaomi and Apple ranked fourth and fifth with 14% and 11% respectively.

Whether it is admitted or not, Honor and Xiaomi have a considerable direct competitive relationship, and now the return of Glory still poses a certain impact on Xiaomi.

Xiaomi's performance in the second half of this year is sluggish. Although Xiaomi has a MIX 4 series back to the market, Xiaomi sales in September fell 12.3% month-on-month, and in terms of overall data for the third quarter, Xiaomi fell 10.2% month-on-month with about 11 million mobile phones.

A few days ago, Zhao Ming did not respond positively to the competitive relationship with Xiaomi in an interview after the Honor 60 series conference, he said that since the third quarter of this year, Glory has not particularly valued the proportion of market share, Glory basically does not mention market share data, or hopes that the entire team can return to the fundamentals of business and consolidate products and services to better meet consumer demand.

"When you get the product right, the consumer experience right, any market share is possible. Excessive attention to market share, only market share and efforts, at the behavioral level, but to the opposite of what should be done, resulting in the deformation of action, we have seen a lot of examples in the past. Zhao Ming said.