Text / a lamp
Producer / Node Finance
"If you can roll down the apple, that's the skill."
On January 11, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, pointed out in an interview with the Beijing News Shell Finance and other media that it is difficult to break through the high-end of domestic mobile phones, mainly due to product strength.
At this time, it is only one day after the launch of The Magic V, Honor's first folding screen phone. For this high-end flagship masterpiece, there is no praise inside and outside the field, "multi-curved nano-microcrystalline outer screen + ultra-low reflective high-quality inner screen; self-developed ultra-thin suspended water droplet hinge, fit seamlessly; a new generation of Snapdragon 8 mobile platform; new independent security memory chip..."
And just a year ago, this pair of glory may still be something that can't be imagined. After all, even the chip didn't land at that time.
Let's turn the timeline back to early 2021.
On January 1, 2021, Honor officially spun off from Huawei. At that time, it had been nearly half a year since the glory new machine was absent from the market.
In the Chinese mobile phone market, where dozens of new mobile phones are released every day and daily shipments of 700,000-1 million units, this time is equivalent to giving friends the initiative to make room, and a large number of consumers have since lost glory in the replacement options, and with the forgetting curve, its brand mark will only become weaker and weaker.
At the most difficult time, the glory market share is only 3%, and the outside world is about "will glory be finished?" Doubts abounded.
However, after the new team was pulled out, the darkness before the dawn was slowly dissolved in multiple synergies such as products, channels, and research and development.
According to the data, by the end of May 2021, the market share of Glory has reached 9.5%. At the end of July, Honor's weekly market share rebounded to 14.6%. By the end of September, Honor's market share reached 16.2%, approaching the historical high of 16.7% in Huawei's system.
According to the statistics of Counterpoint, a third-party research institute, in the third quarter of 2021, Honor surpassed Apple and Xiaomi and ranked among the top three in the Chinese mobile phone market.
Combing through the story of glory always reminds people of what General Patton said: The measure of a man's success is not his height to the top, but his rebound when he falls to a low point.
The same is true for the brand, the difficulty is to find light in the dark tunnel and quickly return to the poker game.
/ 01 /
Back in the consumer's sights
A battle for speed
If we look back at the development process of the mobile phone industry, we will find a phenomenon: there is only one Samsung, spanning the era of functional machines and the era of smart machines, and in these two different eras, we have achieved the king, the top three in the era of functional machines, and the world's first in the era of smart machines.
Why hasn't Samsung become the "outcast" of the times like Nokia, Motorola, Gionee, etc.?
There are many reasons, one of which is high-density pushing. Other manufacturers push 3 or 5 new models a year, Samsung can reach 30 models, 50 models, in fact, the configuration is not bad, but change a model, change the appearance, and let consumers feel bright.
Therefore, "speed wins" is still effective, especially in the case of undecided market pattern, it is necessary to seize the minds of consumers, but also to expand brand influence and seize sales channels, relying on new aircraft bombing is a good way.
After the re-emergence of Glory, the first difficulty faced is the decline of market memory traces after the long-term absence of the brand. How to quickly wake up consumers? Naturally, let the product appear more.
At the beginning of independence, Honor released the V40. However, this work with a bit of tentative meaning, slightly hasty, criticized, and soon completed its mission and disappeared into the product line.
It can be seen that at this time, the market is still on the sidelines for glory, coupled with the fact that it is more difficult to "fight bayonets" with online mobile phones such as Xiaomi, iQOO, and OnePlus, and everyone has doubts.
Next, Honor accelerated the fast attack, the low-end X series of pricing 20, 30 generations, the main online Play 5 series, and the flagship digital series of honor 50, the top ultra-high-end Magic series, have been unveiled.
In particular, the Honor 50 was updated less than half a year after the release of the Honor 60, which has no precedent in the history of the Honor flagship machine. Even CEO Zhao Ming admitted frankly, "2021 for Glory, in fact, is in an abnormal rhythm, the first half of the year is not sold, after the glory 50 in the second half of the year to issue the glory 60." ”
In fact, before independence, each product of Honor roughly follows the rhythm of the release of new products once a year, and now it is to create a feeling of "glory" on the screen, and the consideration behind it is very helpless and realistic.
On the one hand, it is too long to be silent, and it is urgent to have several weighty returns to link the market and listen to the voice of the market; on the other hand, without huawei's glory, how much glory is left, no one can guarantee, in the face of the opponents of the past and the consumers who are "like the new and tired of the old", the uncertainty of the future can only be carefully hidden in each product.
As we all know, due to the separation of family events, Honor only got the qualcomm 778G chip data 45 days later than the industry, and missed the window to lock the chip production capacity in 2021, coupled with many unfavorable factors, Honor is indeed difficult.
However, through the extreme march of product research and development, Honor is leading the industry for 30 days and completing the global debut of 778G on the Honor 50.
Insert an example of a partner. Once, he went to the bathroom late at night, glanced at an email from Glory on his watch, and looked at the time again: 3 a.m. Before Huawei, the latest was only 12 o'clock to receive the mail.
The subsequent release of the Magic3 series, Honor will be 12-18 months of flagship research and development cycle, compressed to just 8 months.
While running at full strength, Honor insists on polishing products and comprehensively upgrading chips, images, designs, etc.
It is with this kind of investment, after the listing of the Honor 50 series and the Honor Magic 3 series, the response was strong, pushing the glory to the third position in the domestic mobile phone industry in one fell swoop, and the brand returned to the initial battle.
/ 02 /
Make efforts offline, and channel win-win
When there is a Huawei matrix "cover", Glory gives the public the impression of an Internet mobile phone brand, and the business model is to drive offline sales with online sales.
After being forced to fly alone, the development offline has become the key strategic direction of Glory.
This is well understood. According to the latest research report released by research firm Strategy Analytics, smartphone offline retail channels and online retail channel sales accounted for 72% and 28% of global smartphone sales in 2020, respectively. In other words, expanding the offline market can strengthen the position of the industry with greater efforts.
From the story of OPPO and VIVO's sales counterattack, offline is still to cultivate user stickiness, such as in-depth experience, information communication, and the establishment of brand image, service extension, digital transformation, and even a good choice for laying out "high-end routes".
Of course, the new glory itself also contains several "golden keys". The acquisition of Glory Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co., Ltd. by the Shenzhen Smart City Group and more than 30 glory agents, dealers jointly invested and established, glory shareholders, there are many putian Taili, Songlian Technology, China Post and Telecommunications Equipment Group, Tianyin Communication and other powerful national, provincial channels. All sides stand firmly in line with glory.
"There was no retreat." Zhao Boxiang, chairman of the Phone World Communications Group, once told the media that in the "darkest period" after glory independence, he accelerated the speed of opening glory stores.
In addition, Honor began to exert its offline efforts from 2015, and by the end of 2019, there were more than 2,300 offline stores.
Therefore, although it has dried up for a while, the channel strength of Glory has always existed, and the difficulty is how to quickly introduce living water into the channel.
In addition to launching high-quality products, it is a continuous offline attack. Counting the actions of Glory during this time, even in the shortage stage, more than 2500 Glory experience stores and special areas have been built. During the "May Day" period in 2021, Glory even launched the "thousand stores open together", and 1,000 new stores were opened offline across the country.
As of November 2021, the number of honor's advanced experience stores in the core business districts of first- and second-tier cities has increased by more than 80%; by December 2021, Honor's offline retail system, including special areas, counters and authorized experience stores, has exceeded 30,000, accounting for more than 70% of offline sales.
For a brand that started on the Internet, this is a huge change from the original business model, and it has also played an important role in the recovery of market share.
The reason why Glory can get the support of a large number of channel providers in a short period of time and quickly recover its vitality, in the final analysis, it still falls on the four words of "willing to make profits".
Zhao Ming calls it win-win thinking: glory's pricing model is to keep the overall profit level very low, to make the lowest amount of money he earns, and to give retail partners a stable income.
Relevant industry insiders revealed that the profit point of Glory is generally around 17-18%, plus rebates, which is considered rich.
Standing on the starting line of 2022, the channel sinking is still in full swing, "glory's original sales system is not enough coverage of the county and township level, and the county and township market accounts for 40% to 50% of the domestic market, and the share of this part of the market glory is still relatively low."
This means that Honor may hope to win more market share next.
/ 03 /
High-end battlefield
Rolling down the apples is the skill
In the past 2021, it is regarded as the biggest change in the domestic mobile phone industry.
Huawei is imprisoned by the supply chain, "Who can make up for it?" "Become a topic that constantly haunts the empty market. All major manufacturers have done their best, some crazy stacking parameters, some staggering arrangement configuration, some desperately dead images, and some inviting stars to stand.
However, after a fierce operation, everyone has to admit a fact: Huawei fell, and apple was fed.
In the report on China's high-end mobile phone market share released by IDC, in the first quarter of 2021, Apple's high-end mobile phone market share increased to 56.9%, while Huawei fell to 23.6%. By July 2021, the former continued to rise to 63%, while the latter fell further to 14%, completely ending the high-end market pattern in which the two were evenly matched in the first half of 2020.
It should be noted that Apple achieved this result in a relatively depressed environment. Global smartphone shipments have declined year by year since they reached a record peak of 1.47 billion units in 2016. In the past two years, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic and economic weakness, the frequency of people changing machines has weakened, and the overall global smartphone sales scale has not yet recovered to the level before the epidemic (2019).
On the one hand, the macro consumption slump, on the other hand, the apple "sesame blossoms are growing high".
The cruel interior of the data mapping is just like Zhao Ming said, "The high-end of domestic mobile phones is difficult to break through, and the competition is increasingly "inner volume", in fact, it is because the products made by manufacturers do not meet the needs of consumers, or they are repeated at a relatively low level. The main thing that restricts the impact of domestic manufacturers on the high-end is the product force. ”
But just like the two sides of the coin, turning it over, this has pointed out the direction for domestic mobile phone brands to be more effective: rolling down Apple is the skill. It is also a mission of honor and steadfastness.
Honor believes that high-end should eventually be implemented into the use value and experience value of mobile phones through technological innovation and iterative capabilities. This is the basis for determining the price.
For example, imaging technology, the most competitive subdivision track in the mobile phone industry in recent years.
In order to strengthen the camera function of mobile phones, various manufacturers have equipped mobile phones with multiple cameras, and each camera maintains independent operation between them.
But on the body of the smartphone, blindly stacking more cameras and sensors, will it make the phone bigger and heavier? Even if it is very awkward to hold.
The method that Honor thought of is to use algorithms and AI technology to make the full lens participate and the full focal length fusion, and each camera learns from each other in real time and promotes each other, that is, multi-main camera fusion computational photography.
In the end, the above efforts were rewarded on the Honor Magic3 series, and the Magic3 Ultimate Edition was once sold out of stock, and also blew a "whistle" for its breakthrough in the high-end market.
Although the most critical step has been taken, from the experience of successful people in all walks of life, anchoring high-end value has never been an easy task, let alone a one-time sprint.
At present, Apple's "luxury" is undefeated, brand power, innovation, sense of technology, resource matching are far ahead, glory and other manufacturers are still parallel space "Others", upward climbing is destined to be a dangerous and long trek.
However, we still believe in "going far and doing". Just like the first new product launch of the aftermath of the glory, it showed its new slogan to the outside world - "The new glory will be reborn from the cocoon, and it will always adhere to the continuous investment in technological innovation." ”
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