Text/Di Lin Audit/Zi Yang Correction/Zhi Qiu
In the second half of 2020, Huawei has been blocked by layers of bans, and the global mobile phone market pattern has been changing. Although the head brands are still those few, there is an undercurrent between them, and the rankings are constantly updated.
The European mobile phone market sales reshuffle
On February 8, the well-known market research agency Counterpoint announced the 2021 European smartphone market share ranking.
Looking at the top six mobile phone brands in the list, it is not surprising that Huawei can no longer be seen.
In fact, not only in the European market, but also in the global market, China has also become a "others" rank, in the Chinese market, Huawei has given up the first position in sales, directly falling to the last place.
All in all, the multiple rounds of bans in 2020 have dealt a major blow to Huawei's smartphone business. Although Huawei once had the ability to surpass Samsung Electronics, the leader of the domestic mobile phone has now been firmly suppressed.
After Huawei's fall, a number of competitors in the market enjoyed the "Huawei dividend", and almost all of them achieved an increase in market share.
Xiaomi, for example, has surpassed Apple, ranking second in the world after Samsung Electronics; and Apple, in the fourth quarter of 2021, pressed Samsung to regain the world's first position.
However, from the perspective of the annual list, after Huawei's fall, no brand can replace Huawei and compete with Samsung. The South Korean electronics giant, which has dominated the charts for many years, has once again led the European market.
Samsung took the lead again after Huawei fell
According to the detailed data in the list, Samsung Electronics won the first throne in 2021 with a market share of 32%, beating up competitors such as Apple and Xiaomi.
It can be seen that Huawei's fall on the list has also brought a positive impact to Samsung Electronics to a certain extent. Of course, the reason why Samsung Electronics can continue to lead the market is not simply to rely on the "Huawei dividend".
Before Huawei emerged, Samsung Electronics was the king of the global smartphone market and the new leader who drove Nokia off the altar.
Although it has been losing to Apple in the high-end market, with the help of the machine sea tactics and the solid foundation laid over the years, Samsung Electronics firmly occupies the first place in the world.
For years, the only ones who can really shake the status of Samsung Electronics are Apple and Huawei. Now that Huawei has fallen, in the author's opinion, in addition to Apple, no domestic mobile phone brand can fight with it.
Chinese brands occupy 4 seats
Among the top six mobile phone brands in Europe, Chinese brands occupy 4 seats, from the overall point of view, the strength of domestic brands is strong, but a single point of view, the gap between domestic brands and US and Korean giants is not small.
Take Xiaomi, the top of the list, as an example, the domestic brand that surpassed Apple to become the second largest in the world, with a market share of 20% in the European smartphone market.
Compared with 2020, it has achieved 50% growth, but there is still a 6% gap with Apple, and the gap with Samsung Electronics is as high as 12%.
Even Xiaomi is like this, not to mention oppo, realme and vivo, which rank lower, especially the bottom vivo, which has a market share of only 1% in the European market.
Even the combined market share of the four domestic mobile phone brands is lower than Samsung Electronics' share of the European smartphone market.
It can be seen how big the gap between domestic mobile phone brands and international manufacturers in the Western market is. The reason why there is such a big gap, the author believes that it is mainly because of two reasons.
On the one hand, because the rise of domestic mobile phone brands is late, before entering the European market, Apple and Samsung Electronics have been deeply favored by European consumers.
Not only in Europe, but also in the global market, thanks to the first-mover advantage, Apple and Samsung Electronics have a fairly solid foundation.
Moreover, because of the well-known influence, overseas consumers have some prejudices against Chinese brands, so domestic mobile phone manufacturers have encountered many twists and turns in the process of moving from domestic to global.
On the other hand, it is because, compared with the products of Samsung Electronics and Apple, the flagship machine of domestic mobile phone brands does have a lot of room for improvement.
Leaving aside the system, hardware and sense of quality, just in terms of stand-alone profits, Samsung flagships and iPhones are far better than domestic high-end machines.
The iPhone, in particular, accounts for almost half of the global smartphone market's profits. In the case of low profits per unit, it is difficult for domestic mobile phone brands to improve.
What's more, domestic mobile phone manufacturers do not have an advantage in brand value and influence, and can get market share by relying on high cost performance and functional diversity.
Of course, this does not mean that domestic mobile phone brands can not play at all, after all, the core competitiveness is different, moreover, the author believes that compared with Apple and Samsung, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have better marketing methods.
Write at the end
Perhaps it is too early to talk about surpassing Apple and Samsung, but the author believes that domestic mobile phones will continue to try to march to a higher echelon until the goal is reached.