This article is reproduced from the Financial Associated Press
Samsung officially released the Galaxy S22 series products on Wednesday night, which includes the Galaxy S22 series flagship phone and the Galaxy Tab S8 series tablet. For Samsung, the three models of the first conference in 2022 are of vital significance.
In 2021, after Huawei left the high-end mobile phone market, the shipments of various mobile phone manufacturers have achieved substantial growth, while Samsung has grown slowly and is still among the "others" with a market share of less than 1%. Seeking shipment growth in the Chinese market is the most important issue for Samsung in 2022.
Snapdragon flagship chip blessing, is still "large, medium and small" three models
The Galaxy S22 series is still three models, namely the S22, S22+ and S22 Ultra. The S22 and S22+ feature 6.1-inch and 6.6-inch straight-screen designs, respectively, and the S22 Ultra features a 6.8-inch curved screen with 2K ultra-high resolution. The S22 Ultra is the first product in the S series with a built-in stylus "S Pen", following the Note series design.
Image source: Screenshot of the company's official website
At the core configuration level, the Samsung Galaxy S22 series uses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen1 flagship chip, and the European version is Samsung's self-developed Exynos 2200.
S22 and S22+ are equipped with the same rear triple camera combination, that is, 50MP main camera + 12MP ultra-wide angle + 10MP 3x optical zoom telephoto lens, as well as 10MP front camera, main camera and telephoto support OIS optical image stabilization.
The S22 Ultra is a 40MP camera on the front and a quad camera combination + laser focus sensor on the rear, with a main camera of 108 million pixels, which is also a 12MP ultra-wide angle.
The phone is equipped with two 10-megapixel telephoto lenses, 3x and 10x optical zoom respectively, and supports up to 100x digital zoom. Both the main camera and the two telephoto lenses support OIS optical image stabilization.
Finally, in terms of color matching, Samsung Galaxy S22 and S22+ have a total of four colors: Obsidian Black, Yumeng White, Fog Pine Green and Zeguang Pink, and launch 8GB+128GB and 8GB+256GB versions.
The Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra has four colors: Obsidian Black, Yumeng White, Mist Pine Green and Crimson Red, with a storage space of 256GB, a maximum of 1TB, and a running memory of 12GB.
Unlike in the past, in addition to the routine product launch, this Samsung conference also shoulders a special "mission" - to boost shipments in the Chinese market.
Slow growth, less than 1% of shipments in the Chinese market into the "key"
According to the latest data released by counterpoint Research, Samsung achieved a 32% market share in the European smartphone market in 2021, still ranking first, an increase of 6% over the same period last year.
In the back are Apple, which accounts for 26% of the market, and Xiaomi, which accounts for 20% of the market. Through the above data, it is not difficult to find that although Samsung has won nearly one-third of the share, there are not too many ups and downs in the growth of the same period.
Counterpoint Research pointed out that Samsung has lost to Apple and Xiaomi many times on the 2021 monthly list, and the first position has switched back and forth between Samsung, Apple and Xiaomi, and the competition is very fierce. In stark contrast to the European market, Samsung's smartphone shipments in the Chinese market are less than 1%, which is directly classified as Others. In fact, the decline in the market share of Samsung smartphones has long been the norm.
According to the historical data provided by the research institute IDC, since 2014, Samsung's smartphone shipments in the Chinese market have shown a downward trend and fallen all the way out of the top five positions. In the public perception, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery explosion is just the "last straw" that crushed China's shipments.
If Samsung wants to achieve significant growth in its smartphone business, it will have to re-emphasize China, the world's largest smartphone market. At present, Huawei's absence in the high-end mobile phone market has indeed brought opportunities to Samsung.
For Samsung, it has the world's strongest mobile phone industry chain, covering key areas such as screens, materials, storage, SoCs, and 5G. These are all advantages that Samsung takes full advantage of.
However, as far as the data in 2021 is concerned, Samsung does not seem to have seized this opportunity, and major domestic mobile phone manufacturers have made profits, and Samsung's "old rival" Apple in the high-end mobile phone market has made a lot of profits.
In 2021, Apple's sales in china's smartphone market ranked third, with a year-on-year increase of 29.9%. In addition to the second quarter, the other three quarters have achieved positive year-on-year sales growth, an increase of 15% -181%, in the high-end market of more than 5,000 thousand yuan, Apple's share has increased significantly from 48% in 2020 to 75%.
Therefore, in early 2022, Samsung set up a new China team. According to Korean media reports, this department was named the "China Business Innovation Team", covering mobile phones and home devices. The team has a very high voice in the Samsung system and can report directly to co-CEO Han Zongxi.
In fact, from the perspective of industrial chain and product ID design, Samsung's smart phone products are the existence of the first echelon in the industry, otherwise there would be no achievements including Apple and many domestic mobile phone manufacturers to customize AMOLED screens to Samsung, as well as the global market for a long time.
The problems facing Samsung's smartphone business in China are more at the level of market strategy and market channels. For now, it will take a long time for Samsung to boost shipments in China by improving these issues. After all, brand influence and channel building cannot be achieved overnight.
As one of the head sponsors of the Beijing Winter Olympics, this time Samsung specially prepared a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G mobile phone for each athlete, as well as a Galaxy Buds2, and some other small gifts, with a total value of about 10,000 yuan. The total number of athletes participating in the Beijing Winter Olympics is 2892, which means that Samsung has paid about 29 million yuan in sponsorship fees.
At least this time, Samsung has made sufficient efforts to return to the Chinese market.