After six years of silence, the iPhone 13 once again led Apple back to the throne of the first sales in China.
According to the data, in October and November 2021, the iPhone 13 has maintained the first place in sales and revenue in China for six consecutive weeks. Since its release in mid-September of the same year, the 13 series has not only driven Apple's sales to increase by 43.6% year-on-year in the month of listing, but also ushered in the first outbreak in October, reaching the top of domestic single-machine sales in October with 2.67 million units; in November, its continuous volume, with sales of about 2.72 million units, won the first place again, and with a market share of 26.5%, higher than the second vivo 10% market share.
Judging from the disclosed Jingdong self-operated mobile phone sales ranking in December, Apple occupies four seats in the top five models, of which the first place is still the iPhone 13, that is to say, the iPhone 13 is more likely to be the first place in China for three consecutive months.
On January 3, 2022, Apple's market value once exceeded $3 trillion, becoming the world's first listed company with a market value of this level. All of the above breakthroughs and achievements depend on the contribution of the iPhone 13 series.
The iPhone sold first for 6 consecutive weeks, and the prospects for the Mini series are uncertain
According to the latest data from Counterpoint Research, after the release of the iPhone 13, Apple has maintained the position of the number one smartphone sales and revenue in China for six consecutive weeks. Among them, in November, Apple's basic model sales accounted for the highest proportion of 51%; followed by the iPhone 13 Pro Max and iPhone 13 Pro, accounting for 23% and 21% of sales, respectively; and the iPhone 13 Mini's performance was as the market expected, accounting for only 5% of overall sales, almost negligible.
At the same time, compared with the sales data released by CINNO Research, domestic manufacturers OPPO, vivo and glory in November all showed a slight decline compared with the previous month, but Xiaomi washed away the dilemma of the previous last place, and in November, it increased sharply year-on-year and jumped to the second place, mainly due to the listing of new machines and the promotion of the Double Eleven Shopping Festival.
For Apple, whose sales have been at the top of the list for six consecutive weeks, in addition to the "price reduction strategy", new imaging technology and 5G functions have also boosted sales, not to mention, its largest competitor in the high-end market, Huawei, has been "sanctioned", follow-up production is facing problems, and the domestic vacated high-end market dividends seem to be all eaten away by Apple.
According to the financial report, in fiscal 2021, Apple achieved revenue of $365.817 billion, of which the iPhone earned $191.973 billion in revenue, an increase of 39% year-on-year, an increase of $54.2 billion over the previous fiscal year, and revenue from Greater China was as high as $68.366 billion, a year-on-year increase of 70%.
In other words, the iPhone alone contributes more than half of Apple's revenue, and the iPhone 13 series model is the "main force" among them. In addition, Apple's revenue from China reached nearly 20%, and showed a significant growth trend.
The above data also shows that in the iPhone 13 series, the basic model iPhone 13 has the best sales performance, and the Mini version has the worst sales. Compared with the previous iPhone 12 Mini when it was first launched, although the market topic was quite high, the sales volume was also slightly bleak, far less than the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro in the same period, and the price also fell step by step. However, even though the iPhone 12 Mini suffered "Waterloo", Apple still insisted on launching a second-generation mini model. In the case of weak sales, whether to continue to launch mini models in the future has become the focus of widespread discussion in the industry.
Domestic brands are high-end and long
Looking at the industry, whether it is appearance, function or configuration, the homogenization of smart phones is very serious. With the maturity of technology, mobile phone manufacturers are no longer limited to crazy "stacking" or fighting price wars, and how to differentiate competition through hardware innovation has become the top priority of mobile phone manufacturers.
Domestic mobile phone manufacturers that are constantly moving upstream can also reflect the serious homogenization of the current smartphone supply chain.
Not long ago, OPPO officially announced the first self-developed NPU chip Mariana MariSilicon X, and Vivo also released the first professional imaging chip vivo V1 earlier. In addition, Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin chip and Xiaomi's self-developed surging chip have poured into the determination of mobile phone manufacturers to further build technical competitiveness through self-developed chips, so as to seize the market, especially the high-end market share.
Despite Apple's sales, domestic mobile phone brands still occupy a place in the market share. Counterpoint data shows that in the third quarter of 2021, the market share of Vivo mobile phones reached 23%, ranking first; OPPO ranked second with a share of 20%. Honor entered the top three in China for the first time after independence, with a share of 15%, surpassing Xiaomi's 14% share. Apple's share is 13%, ranking fifth.
At the same time, while Apple continues to increase its volume and its sales volume has been at the top of the list for six consecutive weeks, the market share of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is also constantly competing in fluctuations, but the data shows that in mid-to-late November 2021, the sales gap between OPPO, vivo and Apple is getting bigger and bigger, while the gap between the former two is narrowing and showing a downward trend. This also reflects from the side that domestic mobile phone manufacturers are still obstructed and long in the process of impacting the high-end market.
It is undeniable that in terms of sales prices, the product positioning of domestic mobile phone manufacturers mostly follows the high-end route, and the price of products continues to rise, and some prices are close to Apple. On the other hand, in the continuous improvement of consumers' requirements for hardware configuration, the production costs of manufacturers naturally rise accordingly. However, even if the price and hardware reach the "high-end" level, in the high-end market to present the performance of sales data, domestic brand manufacturers and Apple still have a distance, which also caused Apple's "one big" status quo.
Industry chain news pointed out that next year, the new generation of iPhones will no longer rely on Qualcomm's 5G chips, but will use its self-developed chips. At present, Apple's self-developed new generation A16 application processor has completed the design, will use TSMC 4nm process projection, is expected to start mass production in the second half of 2022 in TSMC Fab 18 factory. The news also pointed out that in order to ensure production capacity, Apple has accepted TSMC's foundry price increase and has taken over 4nm production capacity of 120,000 to 150,000 pieces.
Combined with the previous news, TSMC will begin to raise the wafer foundry quotation from the first quarter of 2022, and the average price of each process will increase by about 8%-10% compared with 2021. Therefore, the pressure on the rising cost of products caused by apple chip foundry prices may be transferred to the consumer side, so the industry rumors will be equipped with A16 iPhone 14 price, is expected to only rise and not fall, a change in the iPhone 13 low-price strategy. So, for Apple's new machine, which has full technical performance but narrowed price advantage, can its subsequent Chinese market performance maintain a far leading position? When will the sales of domestic manufacturers catch up with Apple? (Proofreading/New)