For mobile phone manufacturers, 2021 is a year of survival in adversity.
This year, on the basis of the 11% year-on-year decrease in Shipments of China's mobile phone market in 2020 (Canalys statistics), most people expected that the recovery market did not appear, and shipments were still declining further, with a year-on-year decrease of 5% in the third quarter.
Superimposed chip shortages and other factors, the mobile phone industry is also accelerating involution, caught in this and other, zero-sum competition, manufacturers have to fight for the stock market and rack their brains.
However, there are still manufacturers who have killed the "headwind disk". OnePlus mobile phone shipments in the Chinese market in the first half of 2021 increased by 124% year-on-year, more than doubled, for it, this is a year of overall growth.
Last week, OnePlus founder Liu Zuohu announced an important personnel appointment: Li Ming, as president of Plus China, fully operated the domestic business, while Liu Zuohu himself returned to his favorite product polishing. Li Jie, who has just taken up his new position, also quickly adjusted the development ideas of OnePlus mobile phones, including entering the market with performance flagships, upgrading user operations, and reforming the marketing system.
"The mobile phone industry is now in the middle and back end of the industry life cycle, and there are several characteristics, one is the pursuit of efficiency, to provide more efficient products. The second is that experience is king. Third, in addition to doing a good job of efficiency and experience, we also need to seek market segmentation and differentiation. Li Jie said when talking about his observations on the market.
The competitive logic of stock
I am afraid that no mobile phone consumer market is as fiercely competitive as China, and the world's TOP-level power factions are all gathered here, but the market has changed from incremental competition to stock competition. "Since 2017, the traffic of each platform has bottomed out, and the incremental change has become stock", as a veteran of the mobile phone industry who has been responsible for OPPO Find 7, R series, Reno5 and many other explosive models, Li Jie clearly sees the changes in the market.
Although it has entered the stock stage, but the mobile phone market is not without growth, but the growth distribution is uneven, the reason why domestic mobile phone manufacturers have recently made efforts in the middle and high-end is to see the shrinkage of the low-end market and the prospects of the high-end.
"Mobile phones will eventually go to high-end", in Li Jie's view, Chinese consumers who have undergone full market cultivation can already distinguish between good products and bad products, and after experiencing good products, they will dilute the impact of prices on their next purchase; as the replacement cycle is extended to more than 24 months, high-end machine users are not affected by economic factors and will still pay for good products.
For the one-plus mobile phone that has always been "only doing fine products", there are a number of "refueling" (one plus fan name) fans, which is a breakthrough opportunity.
In 2021, in the case of sluggish markets at home and abroad, OnePlus's counter-trend growth proves this: in the first half of 2021, its global shipments soared by 257%, and in the United States and Europe, it was the first to grow; China's shipments increased by 124%, far exceeding the average growth rate of 6.5%.
From "blossoming inside the wall and incense outside the wall" to "fragrant inside and outside the wall", how to continue the growth rate and breakthrough of the domestic market has become Li Jie's task.
As for OnePlus, as a mobile phone manufacturer with the mission of "extreme user experience", the labels on it are "boutique" and "leading". In 2019, the 90Hz high refresh rate screen that was first equipped with the OnePlus 7 Pro has now become the standard for mid-to-high-end models. Technologies such as adaptive refresh rate adjustment, AG glass process and ultra-high touch sampling rate have also become representatives of its impact on the industry, and even raised the level of high-quality screens and the bottom line of detail polishing in the entire industry.
Therefore, in the OnePlus Chinese market under the operation of Li Jie, the next step will not change its "boutique" route at the same time, the product is more clear about the target group and the main direction, mining market segments, deeply cultivating user operations, reconstructing marketing methods and systems, and reserve enough explosive energy for the stock dispute.
The performance flagship is not biased
The performance flagship is the answer given by Li Jie after a series of adjustments.
Mobile phones have now penetrated into all aspects of people's lives, and every life scene is inseparable from it. Among them, the game covers a large number of people and uses a long time. Aurora data shows that in the third quarter of 2021, the top four APP types that China's mobile phone users use the longest daily time are short videos, instant messaging, online videos, and mobile games.
Compared with long and short videos, instant messaging, etc., the game scene has higher requirements for mobile phone performance, and from the current market point of view, the use experience and daily needs of the heavy game population have not been comprehensively met, so OnePlus focuses on this and plans to make a flagship mobile phone with good performance for game experience.
At present, there are 700 million game users in China, although mobile phone manufacturers have launched some game phones, attracting users with strong configuration, cool appearance and small functions that are convenient for games, but there are still deficiencies in terms of thickness and feel, image effects and so on. Moreover, people who specifically buy a game phone just for playing games are a minority after all, and the prospects of "partial" game phones are limited.
OnePlus' performance flagship is to balance between strong performance and flagship quality, and the essence is to do a very good performance experience, rather than to do niche game phones.
For it, the performance flagship is a kind of regression, has always been a deep accumulation in technology and performance, after being incorporated into the OPPO system last year, OnePlus has better support in technology, supply chain and games.
On the one hand, OnePlus has obtained OPPO's supply chain and technical support, such as OPPO Research Institute and more than 10,000 engineers of OGA Group can be used as its technical backing, and new technologies such as Mariana image chips released by OPPO may also be used in OnePlus products.
Just released the OnePlus 10 Pro, which has the golden combination of "the new generation of Snapdragon 8 mobile platform + LPDDR5 + UFS3.1 + USB3.1", as well as chip-level game technology HyperBoost full-link game frame stabilization technology and O-Haptics vibration system, as well as the largest area of space cooling system in history. The combination of hardware and software to consolidate the performance foundation, strong performance, game optimization and flagship quality are both, which fully interprets the meaning of "performance flagship" of OnePlus.
Powerful performance and comprehensive experience make the OnePlus 10 Pro the designated machine for the two major events of the 2022 League of Legends Mobile Game Pro League and the 2022 PEL Peace Elite Professional League.
Between the incremental market and the strong demand for high-end, it is not enough to do a comprehensive flagship, and it is not enough to only do a mobile phone that covers a single scene, to achieve the perfect balance between the two, to do segmentation in the public, and to seek the public in the segmentation, which is difficult, but it is inevitable.
Embrace users and face a larger market
For Li Jie, his positioning for himself is "the connector between users and oneplus brands" and is also the spokesperson for oneplus users. "My mission is to challenge the company on behalf of the user. Companies do products and programs that really take into account users. ”
As for the specific path, that is, based on the target user to do deep ploughing, and gradually expand the user base of one plus mobile phones, sales are a matter of course. "If the decision is done right, it will continue to iterate, the decision is wrong, and listening to the user's voice can be changed." By continuing to get closer to our users, we will be able to achieve our sales targets. In this regard, Li Jie is very confident.
He put all the starting points for the future development of OnePlus on users, especially old users. "The original refueling grew up with OnePlus, and everyone has a sense of identity and belonging to OnePlus. In the future, we will gradually establish the preferential rights and interests of old users and a unique operating system. Their opinions will be dealt with in a timely manner accordingly. ”
As he said, OnePlus users call each other "refueling", is the harmonic sound of "plus friends", they have a common preference for science and technology, in a harmonious and friendly community atmosphere with OnePlus to grow together, for the new start of OnePlus, "refueling" is its biggest asset, but also the foundation of survival.
In terms of channels, as with supply chain, technology research and development, etc., OnePlus will fully use oppo's advantages for its own use and selectively adopt them. "OnePlus will not completely copy OPPO's channels 1:1, but will selectively reuse some things, such as IT systems, information tools, customer management tools and systems required for control channels." Li Jie introduced.
At present, OPPO's 1,000 after-sales outlets covering 90% of prefecture-level cities have been opened to OnePlus users, providing comprehensive after-sales service for OnePlus users, and in the future, offline stores that have helped OPPO rise rapidly may also appear in the figure of OnePlus. In the context of increasing market concentration, difficulty in new brands, and increased importance of offline channels, this will undoubtedly be a big boost.
Excellent products with comprehensively upgraded user services can maximize the user experience and are also a key measure to enhance brand influence. To embrace a larger market, "user is king" is the most essential insight into this.
epilogue
Taking user needs as the starting point is the working principle of Li Jie and his team. "To pay attention to users, operate users, refueling is the biggest asset of OnePlus, is the foundation of OnePlus's survival." I need to get to know my users, think about how to make a good product for them, whether they can communicate and interact well with customers, and then sales are a natural thing. Li Jie said very confidently.
At present, the mobile phone industry is now in the middle and back end of the industry life cycle, in the future, who first occupies the subdivision track, deep ploughing user groups, to achieve a strong link with consumers, who can get a larger market, in this way, OnePlus, is ready.
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