Image source @ Visual China
Text | Shenrancaijing, author | Wang Min, Editor | Golden Dragon
"Expected", a number of industry observers described the mobile phone market in 2021 to Shen Yan.
In 2021, the pattern change of the mobile phone market is not small. The latest news is that Apple relied on the "increase in volume and price reduction" of the iPhone 13 series, in the fourth quarter to return to the world's first, in the Chinese mainland market for two consecutive months of sales first.
Previously, in the global market, Xiaomi had ushered in a highlight moment, briefly sitting on the world's second throne in the second quarter.
In the domestic market, the glory of a strong return has occupied a place in the top five for three consecutive quarters, and in the third quarter, xiaomi has also squeezed out the top three positions.
Due to the limitation of chips, in 2021, Huawei will be officially reduced to Others in both the global market and the domestic market. Xiaomi and Glory have successively threatened to benchmark Apple and surpass Apple, and set up a specific flag: Xiaomi will take three years to win the world's first; Glory is the fastest one year, the slowest one and a half years, back to the first position in the Chinese market.
In the case of Apple firmly building two major barriers to chips and systems, domestic Android manufacturers have not only opened the road of self-developed chips, but also found increments on cameras and screens, but from the perspective of product performance, the flagship machine in 2021 is frequently overturned, and in the wave of new machine releases at the end of the year, some of the parameters of some manufacturers' flagship models are even inferior to the previous generation.
The global market share at the end of the year also shows that after Huawei, xiaomi, vivo, OPPO, and glory are not easy to catch up with Apple.
The mobile phone market has long been a mature and fully competitive stock market, the evolution of the market pattern has been a tense tug-of-war, and now, Android manufacturers have not gone well on the road to the high end, and it seems to be "another way".
The mobile phone market tug-of-war, Android manufacturers high-end counterattack failed
"The iPhone 13 won the hemp." Some practitioners commented.
The mobile phone market data of the fourth quarter of 2021 by the statistical agency continued to be released, and Apple became the king, and the iPhone 13 series that has been complained about the lack of innovation has been complained about, but the result is "real fragrance".
In the global market, Canalys data shows that Apple's smartphone shipments in the fourth quarter of 2021 accounted for 22% of the global total. Samsung, which took the top spot last quarter, now slipped to second place with a market share of 20%. Xiaomi, OPPO and Vivo ranked third, fourth and fifth.
Looking at the entire 2021, Counterpoint's data shows that Samsung ranked first with a slight advantage over Apple, and Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo each occupied one seat in the top five.
Global Smartphone Market Share Distribution in 2021 Source /Counterpoint
In the Chinese market, Counerpoint-related data shows that Apple has peaked for 2 consecutive months in the fourth quarter. In the whole year of 2021, Huawei, the first place in 2020, dropped to the sixth place, and Vivo, OPPO, Apple, and Xiaomi won the first, second, third, and fourth places respectively.
2021 China Smartphone Market Share Distribution Source / Counterpoint
A number of industry observers told Shen Yan that in the context of the gradual decline of Huawei's mobile phones, such a result is not unexpected.
Financial commentator Wang Chikun told Shen Yan that the development of the mobile phone market has long entered a highly prosperous stage, the industry dividend is gradually disappearing, and each company can only fight in the limited stock market, not to grow together, but to trade between the two.
"In general, whether it is global or China in the mobile phone market pattern in 2021, the factors of pattern evolution are inseparable from the fall of Huawei." Sun Yanbiao, president of the First Mobile Phone Industry Research Institute, said.
During the second quarter, Xiaomi ushered in a brief highlight moment, and the mobile phone market share ranked second in the world. In the domestic market, in the third quarter, Glory quickly returned, ranking among the top three, and Xiaomi could only rank fourth.
The epidemic is good for online, and Huawei is gradually giving up market share, which is a double advantage for Xiaomi, which has also been able to accelerate its expansion in overseas markets. IDC released a smartphone market briefing in January 2022, showing that in addition to China and the Asia-Pacific market, Xiaomi is mainly in Latin America and Europe to quickly fill the "gap" between Huawei and Honor in order to obtain rapid growth in share.
"Once Huawei mobile phones, the revenue of overseas markets reached a maximum of 60%, and now, Xiaomi is only more than halfway through, Xiaomi still has a large market space overseas." Sun Yanbiao pointed out.
He also mentioned that in China, the return of Honor is menacing, undertaking Huawei's users and channels. Moreover, under the incentive policy of channel merchant shareholding, Honor's dealers are "learning hegemonic".
Senior product manager judges also mentioned to Shen Yan that Honor will release some "channel models", not the type of spelling parameters, but can target a certain group of people offline.
Yuan Bo, a senior engineer of communications, told Deep Burn that after Huawei is restricted, most of the original high-end users flow to Apple, and low-end users flow to Xiaomi and OV, in the short term, Apple and Xiaomi will have relatively large growth, when the glory returns, because its brand still exists, the share of the main competitor Xiaomi will inevitably decline, so Xiaomi will show a phenomenon of first rising and then falling.
As early as the end of April 2021, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business, said on social media, "Huawei's high-end mobile phone was ceded to Apple, and the low-end was given to OV Xiaomi."
According to a report released by the well-known blogger @AnhuDu Protector, who has long released retail data in China's mobile phone market, during the period from September to November 2021, only Apple has stood tall in the ultra-high-end market of more than 8,000 yuan.
Source / Zhihu
Taking November as an example, Apple's share of more than 8,000 yuan reached 94%, an increase of 10.4% year-on-year, and 82.4% of the 5,000-8,000 yuan stalls. Among Android manufacturers, in the more than 8,000 yuan gear, Xiaomi's share is only 0.6%, OPPO, vivo, and glory have not been able to occupy a place; 5000-8000 yuan, xiaomi accounts for only 2.7%, and the other three market share is not as good as xiaomi; only in the 4000-5000 yuan file, xiaomi OV's share is close to 20%, and glory is close to 10%.
"Since Huawei passively withdrew from the high-end competition battlefield with Apple, the monthly analysis of the mobile phone industry has only left the low-end inner volume." Some users sighed, and why Huawei's high-end market is mainly occupied by Apple, or because in addition to Huawei, Android manufacturers have not yet fully grown into a high-end mobile phone brand recognized by consumers in China.
The flagship machine of the reduced price of "13 incense", "fever"
Apple's victory is inseparable from the cost-effective strategy of "increasing the amount and reducing the price".
According to Counterpoint statistics, in 2021, among the full series of iPhone 13 models, the standard version of the iPhone 13 (from 5999 yuan) accounted for 51% of the sales of the full range of models, the top flagship iPhone 13 Pro Max (from 8999 yuan) accounted for 23% of the sales of the full series of models, the iPhone 13 Pro (from 7999 yuan) accounted for 21%, and the iPhone 13 mini (from 5199 yuan) was the least. Only 5%.
Canalys analyst Sanyam Chaurasia said that driven by the iPhone 13, Apple is back at the top of the smartphone market. "The iPhone's performance in Chinese mainland is unprecedented, and the aggressive pricing of its flagship product has kept it strong."
Contrary to Apple's price cuts, Android mobile phone manufacturers have impacted the high-end market, which is constantly breaking through the price range upwards, but the product experience has not fully kept up.
Many digital bloggers have mentioned that in 2021, some Android manufacturers' flagship machines will perform some crotch, and the most typical is the fever problem.
On social platforms and multiple mobile phone communities, flagship mobile phone users of OV, Meizu and OnePlus said that there are mobile phone fevers. Among them, it is frequently mentioned that Xiaomi 11, in addition to the heat, there have also been large-scale burning motherboards, Unstable WiFi connections, etc. According to reports, the number of Xiaomi 11 mobile phone rights protection groups spontaneously formed by users exceeded 1800 people. Xiaomi responded that there are many reasons for fever, and followed up with specific after-sales solutions.
The mobile phones mentioned, the chips used are basically Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. According to the analysis, one of the reasons for the heating of many machines is that these mobile phones have not formed a better heat dissipation scheme in the problem of limiting the heat of Snapdragon chips.
Source / Weibo
When it was first launched, it sold at a high price and staged a price dive within half a year, which also made many users dissatisfied.
Vivo released vivo X60t Pro+ in June, the highest direct drop of 1100 yuan during the double 11 promotion. "Who can accept that the new machine was bought for less than half a year, and the price hit the 'fracture'?" Some users complained.
The Xiaomi Mi MIX 4 was officially released in August, and the price had been reduced by 1,000 yuan by the double 11 period. Also during the double 11 period, the Xiaomi MIX FOLD to the hand price of only 6899 yuan (12GB + 256GB), 3100 yuan cheaper than the first price.
On the one hand, the android manufacturers' flagship machines continue to have problems and the price plunges, on the other hand, Apple's "increase and price reduction" has also increased the difficulty of Android manufacturers to impact the high-end. The new wave of the end of 2021, the product strategy of the android flagship new machine is no longer radical.
The Xiaomi Mi 12 series has become more cautious, the main camera pixel is cut in half, from 100 million pixels to 50 million; the screen resolution is no longer 2K, but 1080P; the Xiaomi Mi 12 Pro also no longer uses the Xiaomi Mi 11 Pro's periscope telephoto lens.
The configuration of the OnePlus 10 Pro is no longer aggressive at some levels, from the rear quad camera of the OnePlus 9Pro to the rear triple camera.
Sun Yanbiao pointed out that in the fully competitive market of mobile phones, all aspects of hardware configuration are getting closer and closer to the ceiling, Android mobile phone manufacturers can get chips, screens and other core raw materials are comparable, and the quality and experience of mobile phones are closely related to the product design of mobile phone manufacturers. "Just like the iPhone is not technically difficult to achieve at some levels, just to keep the product stable, a robust strategy has been chosen. Some Android mobile phone manufacturers have overturned because of the previous sudden advances, and now the choice has become stable and not difficult to understand. ”
And Apple's cost-effective strategy will not stop until the iPhone 13. According to reports, the new products of the iPhone SE series will appear at Apple's spring 2022 conference, and Apple will continue to advance into the mid-range mobile phone market. In the tug-of-war of mutual penetration, whether Android manufacturers can successfully counterattack has become the biggest focus.
With a folding screen to fight back, does the Android camp have a chance to win?
The fourth quarter of the release of a new generation of iPhones is the peak season of Apple's mobile phone sales, and it is not surprising that Apple has stood on the podium, and whether the next quarter can continue to be brilliant is the key.
But the days of Android manufacturers will certainly not be easy. Families are always looking for new opportunities in order to overtake in the corners.
For a long time, the internal competition of Android manufacturers has been fierce, and the chips and systems have been highly homogeneous, so each company must innovate in the subdivision field. Wang Chikun mentioned that Android manufacturers have developed a variety of subdivisions, such as game phones, camera phones, and even women's phones.
At the end of 2021, folding screen mobile phones have been given high hopes. Honor and OPPO have released folding screen mobile phones Honor Magic V, OPPO Find N, and Vivo's folding screen mobile phones are already on the road.
Sun Yanbiao believes that in the folding screen mobile phone market, domestic Android mobile phone manufacturers are not only competitors, but also united partners.
He pointed out that first of all, Apple still has no power on folding screen mobile phones, and secondly, domestic Android manufacturers have been able to rise in the past few years, one of the most important reasons is that the upstream and downstream supply of China's mobile phone industry is relatively complete.
According to him, the first batch of folding screen mobile phones from many manufacturers is 100,000 units, and the overall stocking is more than one million units. "The folding screen itself has a lower yield and higher cost, and the supply chain advantage can help manufacturers beat the price down."
However, some people think that the space of the folding screen mobile phone market is not optimistic. The judge said: "This is still only a segmented, niche market, aimed at only a part of the population", and the folding screen mobile phone is currently heavy, the hand experience is not good, will dissuade some users.
Yuan Bo believes that the cost of folding screens will continue to decline in 2022, and the maturity of technology will allow more smart phone companies to launch a variety of folding screens, but the overall smart phone market will have little impact, after all, there is no new application drive.
In the mobile phone market in 2022, the first few chairs have been very clear, and the evolution of the pattern is only the pursuit of these players. After reviewing the mobile phone market in 2021, the judge sighed that there are almost no eye-catching products, and it can even be said to be "dull", so there is not much hope for a breakthrough in the mobile phone market in 2022.
Yuan Bo said that in 2022, it is expected that Glory will continue to impact the mobile phone market share of Xiaomi and OV, but the overall market will still be calm and calm.