Text | Sunset
At 23:00 on the evening of February 9, Samsung held a new product launch conference to officially launch the 2022 new flagship Galaxy S22 mobile phone series.
Interestingly, if you don't deliberately use "Samsung mobile phone + 2022 new model" as a keyword search, you can hardly see this should be a hot news in the smartphone industry.
Compared with a month ago, the news that Apple once again won the top position in the Chinese mobile phone market after 5 years has been the first place in the hot search, and the new dynamics of Samsung mobile phones have not been able to splash a little splash in the domestic Internet and netizen groups.
Judgment from above.
For domestic Generation Z young consumers, especially the post-00s, Samsung is even an unfamiliar mobile phone brand.
Who would have thought that just a few years ago, Samsung mobile phones also occupied the position of the leading leader in the Chinese smartphone market - before 2013, Samsung continued to topped the Chinese market, and by the first quarter of 2015, Samsung also ranked first in the Chinese smartphone market with a market share of 27.8%.
Since 2017, Samsung has fallen out of the top five in the Chinese market that has grown into the world's largest smartphone market, and it is classified as the "others" reported by the relevant data of various research institutions, which means that Samsung's market share is less than 1% in the Chinese smart phone market where the Matthew effect is significant.
What's more interesting is that in the last 12 years until 2021, Samsung has always maintained the throne of the world's first mobile phone shipment, and has never left others behind.
So, how did such a paradoxical situation come about?
01 Top chaebols strike, and the smart machine empire rises
First, let's set the clock back 20 years.
In 2002, Samsung launched the A809 mobile phone into the Chinese market, when the feature phone market was in full swing - the era of the four kings of China Cool Link has not yet begun - the arrival of the era of smart phones will be 8 years later.
Motorola and Nokia, the two major Saipan giants, led the Chinese market at that time, and Waveguide, TCL, Siemens and so on formed the second echelon.
In the following years, Samsung has continuously exerted efforts in the Chinese market. For example, in 2006, the smart phone slightly took off, Samsung launched the BlackJack, at that time the flip phone is still the mainstream of the market, this model with a unique straight plate shape quickly grabbed the attention of consumers.
In 2007, Samsung innovated the launch of the double-sided mobile phone UpStage mobile phone, the same year Apple launched the first generation of iPhone at the Macworld Conference held at the Marsconi Convention Center in San Francisco, USA, laying the groundwork for the trend of full-screen mobile phones, Samsung immediately launched the card-type all-touch mobile phone Giorgio Armani Phone, which challenged Apple head-on.
2011 is a very important year for Samsung mobile phones and even the smartphone industry.
This year, the Galaxy series of mobile phones came out, and the Galaxy S II mobile phone won the "2011 World's Best Mobile Phone Award" issued by Tech Radar for its excellent design and super performance, and was also known as the best Android smartphone on the market at that time.
Samsung has created a benchmark in the field of Android machines, and the subsequent release of Galaxy S4, S5, S6, S7 have achieved huge sales in the Chinese market, Samsung has beaten Motorola and Nokia to the top of the Chinese market, and this huge success has also helped it become the world's largest mobile phone brand, opening the era of Samsung.
In 2011 ~2013, Samsung mobile phones have become a representative brand of high-end, business, elite, compared to Apple's philosophy of adhering to Jobs at that time, 3.5 inches is the most suitable screen size for smart phones, and the screen will make the phone big and stupid. Samsung has covered more than 4 inches of large-screen mobile phones, and it is these designs that Joe help owners look down on, helping Samsung form a differentiated competition with Apple and further opening up the Chinese market.
Behind all this, the most important reason is that Samsung Electronics is backed by South Korea's largest chaebol Samsung Group, as one of the world's largest multinational groups, Samsung is involved in almost all industries, finance, electronics, shipbuilding, automotive, military, machinery, medical and so on.
There are three things in the so-called Life of Koreans that cannot be avoided: taxes, death, and Samsung.
With the help of strong corporate group capital, supply chain, technology and other aspects of the capabilities, Samsung's various industries can form a virtuous circle of advantageous industrial chains, and each business has natural advantages in reducing costs, R & D and innovation.
The support of the top chaebol's family strength determines that whether it is mobile phone technology research and development, processing and manufacturing production lines, or market development and marketing, Samsung can be at the top of the food chain.
For a simple example, in the three most important components of smart phones CPU, memory and LCD panels, the production and sales of Samsung's latter two are the first in the world, and the CPU-related chip foundry is the fourth in the world.
In other words, even Apple, the biggest competitor in the high-end model market, the memory and screen of its mobile phone production line need to be completed by Samsung OEM, and it is not an exaggeration to say that Samsung controls the lifeblood of the global mobile phone industry chain.
After 10 years of such accumulation, it is a natural thing for the Samsung mobile phone brand to reach the top in any country that does not have a strong independent brand.
02 Domestic and foreign difficulties, Samsung mobile phone defeated China
Although it is said that prosperity is bound to decline, Samsung's downhill road in the Chinese market is much faster and steeper than expected.
From winning the TOP1 in Q1 2015 to falling into others in 2017, Samsung fell from peak to bottom in just one and a half years.
The "explosion door" is considered a turning point in the fate of Samsung's mobile phone.
On August 19, 2016, Samsung Galaxy Note7 was officially released, 5 days later, a South Korean consumer got this mobile phone in the night when charging suddenly exploded, after which the Note7 explosion began to occur around the world, more than 30 Galaxy Note7 self-detonation in half a month, this phone once appeared on the "blacklist" of airlines in more than ten countries.
In September of the same year, Samsung began to recall the Galaxy Note7, and at the same time issued a notice saying that the phones sold in China did not need to be recalled for repair due to different battery suppliers, and this seemingly simple statement triggered unlimited discussions.
Whether this is a matter of differentiation or not is a matter of opinion, but it is an indisputable matter that the explosion of mobile phones will endanger the personal safety of users.
Weakness and ignorance are not obstacles to survival, arrogance is.
As a result, Samsung has aroused strong resentment among domestic consumer groups, and some people have even sued Samsung in court.
Although a few days later, after an interview with the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, Samsung China announced the recall of some of the national bank Note7, and also made a so-called "ill-conceived" explanation and apology for the above statement, but it was too late, first there was a high-end model self-explosion - important products were missing, and then there was a brand attitude - which seriously frustrated user trust and goodwill, and Samsung's market share in China was rapidly eroded by competitors such as Huawei and Apple.
According to Counterpoint, in the first quarter of 2017, Samsung's smartphone shipments in the Chinese market fell by as much as 60% year-on-year, with shipments of only 3.5 million.
This is probably self-inflicted sins and cannot live.
But this one thing alone is not enough to explain Samsung's rapid slippage.
Or that the "explosion gate" and the subsequent series of events only accelerated Samsung's defeat in the Chinese market.
According to Gartner data, in 2013 and 2014, Samsung's sales in China were about 58.94 million units and 52.8 million units, respectively, and in 2015 and 2016, there was a sharp decline, with sales of about 29.02 million units and 22.43 million units, respectively.
This actually means that Samsung has shown a weak decline since 2014. Behind this, on the one hand, the high-end market competition has intensified, such as Apple innovated the product design concept this year, launched the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, and Samsung's Galaxy series large-screen advantage was wiped out.
On the other hand, in the field of Android machines, with the maturity and perfection of the smart phone industry chain, the huge downward exploration space of the price of smart phones has been excavated, and the rapid rise of a new generation of domestic smart phone brands Xiaomi, oppo and vivo will divide the domestic low-end market.
Taking Xiaomi as an example, with the triathlon model of "hardware + software + Internet" and the Internet + hunger marketing game, Xiaomi has reduced the "hardware profit margin" of simply selling mobile phones to an unprecedented level - the first generation of Millet mobile phones is selling a loss - it took just over three years to reach the top of the Chinese smartphone market in 2014.
IDC's data report commented that Xiaomi focused on selling high-configuration, low-priced mobile phones and made gimmicks through time-limited rushes, which helped Xiaomi to reach the top of sales in the fourth quarter of 2014 and the whole year of 2014.
For example, OPPO, which reached the top in 2016, has captured the hearts of a new generation of young consumers, especially female consumers, with the most popular celebrity endorsements and advertising implants of entertainment programs, coupled with the offline retail layout of the sinking market throughout third- and fourth-tier cities, counties and even townships, creating a unique brand recognition.
On the other hand, Samsung, at that time, could not keep up with the new generation of gameplay, and was beaten in the overwhelming market changes. Taking only one aspect of the channel layout as an example, even now it is almost impossible to see the figure of Samsung's offline stores, and some Samsung Chinese agents have complained:
"Samsung dealers are god-like legends that none of us have ever seen. Samsung only has one authorized store in our place, or the channel is not sinking enough. ”
The Samsung S9 flagship listed in 2017 shipped only 80,000 units in the first month of sale in China, which cannot catch up with the one-day sales of OPPO's new machines that were launched in the same period, and it is not difficult to understand.
It is worth mentioning that the external problems encountered by Samsung do not only stem from the smart phone industry itself, just one month after the "explosion gate", the THAAD incident broke out, triggering an escalation of domestic civil discontent, and Korean brands encountered large-scale boycotts, and Samsung naturally could not be spared.
So the glory of early 2015 is only the last vestiges of the empire. Internal and external difficulties are intertwined, and heavy blows are coming, and the decline of Samsung mobile phones in the Chinese market has never occurred abruptly.
03 Write at the end
Of course, looking at the global market, the hard power of the Samsung brand is still the same.
This still depends on Samsung is at the top of the smart phone industry chain, from screen materials to fast charging technology, from waterproof and dustproof to photography and video, in a series of functions of innovation and promotion of its role as a pioneer, coupled with the accumulation of brand value in overseas markets for many years and the laying of high-end and low-end products, at this stage can compete with Samsung in all aspects of the opponent does not exist.
It is worth mentioning that the Chinese market is not unimportant in the eyes of Samsung. In January this year, Samsung announced that it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with JD.com for 2022, in which the two sides will cooperate around marketing and channels, and set an expected target of 5 billion yuan, and the desire to return to the Chinese market is clear.
Considering the blood sea situation that has lasted for many years in China and the share of the top five leading lineup approaching the ceiling, Samsung has made a lot of efforts in terms of team change and channel deep cultivation, but whether it can regain its former glory in the Chinese market is probably still marked with a big question mark.