In the past 2021, the mobile phone industry has undergone many changes: 5G technology has entered the popularization stage, and now the thousand-yuan machine has become the standard; fast charging has become the standard of high-end machines, 100W has become a new high-speed threshold; Snapdragon 888 has strong performance, but it is generally considered that its temperature control performance is average; Huawei's well-known reasons have fallen out of the list from the head of the market; and Glory has experienced a trough and rebounded rapidly, returning to Top5 in the second half of the year; OnePlus returned to OPPO and invited Liu Zuohu back.
At the end of the year and the beginning of the year, the application of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 and folding screen technology has directly entered the fast lane of the mobile phone market in 2022. What trends and highlights will the smartphone market look like in the new year? Let's take stock.
High-end points win and lose, folded into the focus
In the past 2021, manufacturers from all over the world are working on the high-end market, hoping to take over Huawei and become the one that competes with Apple in the field of high-end machines.
At present, the main flagship machine of major brands is basically directly configured to pull full: Qualcomm flagship SoC, high-brush 2K screen, fast charging, plus some exclusive technologies, such as glory of computing photography, vivo's micro-gimbal, etc., overall belongs to a highly mature program, each family is also familiar with it.
But from another point of view, high maturity also means that the lack of innovation space is easy for consumers to be "face blind".
It should be said that in the form of straight mobile phones, each family has not had too many tracks that can achieve differentiation, and it is naturally difficult to achieve a breakthrough.
Therefore, entering the field of folding screen has become the choice of major manufacturers.
Honor Magic V's first folding screen phone equipped with Snapdragon 8 Gen1
For domestic mobile phone manufacturers, folding screen mobile phones can achieve differentiation, but also can increase the price of products, in line with their own needs and the requirements of the external situation.
Entering 2022, in the upstream of the folding screen industry, the panels of Samsung, BOE, Huaxing Optoelectronics and Visionox have mature folding screen R&D and production capabilities. Core technologies such as hinges, UTG glass, and screen driver chips are also gradually taking shape in China.
According to the report of the panel supply chain research and research agency DSCC, in the third quarter of 2021, the shipment of folding screen mobile phones was 2.6 million units, and for reference, the total shipment of folding screen mobile phones in 2020 was 2.8 million units. According to industry analyst Agency Counterpoint, global folding screen shipments are expected to reach 9 million units in 2021, and global folding screen shipments are expected to reach 18 million units in 2022.
If the folding screen mobile phone 1.0 era is mainly exploration, then the next high-speed growth of the folding screen 2.0 era, we can expect more.
This includes better detail handling, such as more insensible crease treatment, blood-filled images and fast charging; ecologically, we expect more scenes similar to "parallel horizons" to be further developed; more importantly, the current folding screen also needs some subversive and innovative gameplay, giving innovative tracks different from mobile phones and tablets.
Apple is strong, Android needs to speed up
The iPhone 13 series products do not seem to meet the expectations of the outside world's "thirteen spices"
In September 2021, Apple released the iPhone 13 series of products, the whole series of A15 chips, narrowing the bangs, increasing the battery, improving the image performance, the Pro version added 120Hz high-brush screen.
According to Canalys' latest market research data, with the launch of the iPhone 13 series, Apple regained the market share (22%) from Samsung in Q4 2021, and broke through the $3 trillion mark in early 2022. This is bound to pose a greater threat to Android manufacturers.
If Apple chooses to enter the field of folding screen mobile phones in 2022, high-end mobile phones are bound to reshuffle. In turn, if Apple pushes the current entry-level iPhone SE of 3299 yuan to the 2000 yuan price range, the pattern of the entry-level mobile phone market will also usher in changes. Whether Apple chooses to go up or down, Android manufacturers need to seize the time to prepare for the response.
Self-developed chip, image first
Mobile phone manufacturers want to develop their own moat, self-developed image chips may be the best way.
Self-developed image chips can achieve continuous research and development without people, and can also match different platforms and are not subject to upstream enterprises.
OPPO develops its own Mariana chip
In 2021, vivo and OPPO successively released the self-developed ISP chip V1 and the self-developed imaging NPU chip Mariana MariSilicon X. From the perspective of positioning, MariSilicon X is higher and more difficult to develop. Earlier, xiaomi released the surging C1 is also an image chip.
It is foreseeable that 2022 will be the year when the self-developed image chip of domestic mobile phones becomes the protagonist, and it is widely speculated that OPPO Find X5 will be equipped with Mariana MariSilicon X.
In a short period of time, domestic manufacturers want to exert efforts in SoC, and the time is probably not yet mature. Xiaomi released its self-developed SoC surging S1 as early as July 2017, but there is still no next-generation product to this day.
New and old players gather, and the princes fight each other
Car companies entering the mobile phone industry may be in 2022
Recently, the news of Geely's acquisition of Meizu was reported on the Internet, and the titanium media App verified the matter, Geely said that it would not comment, and Meizu has not yet received a reply.
Previously, Geely announced on September 28, 2021 that Hubei Xingji Times Technology Co., Ltd., founded by Li Shufu, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone to officially enter the field of mobile phones. According to the information of Tianyancha, Xingji Times was registered on September 26, 2021, and the major shareholder is Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holdings, with a registered capital of 80 million yuan.
Speaking of the reasons for choosing to make mobile phones, Li Shufu once said that mobile phones are rapid iterations of portable mobile terminals, but also the application carrier of electronic product market verification and software innovation, and the future is to achieve close interaction between car machines and mobile phone software technology. "In the future, cross-border to build a user ecological chain, according to the law to build a corporate moat has become a major trend, mobile phones can link the Internet of Vehicles, satellite Internet, to create a rich consumption scenario, strengthen the ecosystem, to provide users with a more convenient, more intelligent, Internet of Everything multi-screen interactive life experience."
Previously, Tesla also had the news of the upcoming launch of mobile phones, and the rumored Model π support solar charging, mining, and even connect to Musk's "StarLink Plan", supporting free calls and free Internet access.
For Geely and Tesla, mobile phones are still the first entrance to the intelligent ecology, and if smart cars can connect with them, they are expected to open up the ecological closed loop. This is also the reason why mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple and Xiaomi have entered the automotive field before.
With these new force friends, coupled with the return of Charm Blue, LeTV, and Coolpad announced in 2021, after Huawei gave up the market, the competition in the mobile phone field seems to have returned to the former Warring States era.
In 2022, the narrow road meets
In the face of the strong Apple and the big guys in the automotive field, the head Android manufacturers have enough pressure and motivation to promote the rapid development and even change of the entire industry. If the self-developed chip is a moat, then the folding screen will undoubtedly be the sword of the Android camp.
Previously, Honor CEO Zhao Ming said in an interview with titanium media App: "There is no doubt that the folding screen mobile phone gives Glory a corner to overtake, proving that Glory can do better than Apple's bar machine, or better than Apple's mobile phone." ”
The success or failure of folding screen mobile phones in 2022 will determine the success or failure of the Android camp to impact the high-end market.
At this time, Apple and Android have reached the moment when the narrow road meets. (This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author/Wu Honglei)