Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Wang Ting
Image source: Visual China
At the beginning of 2022, before the spring conference of Apple and Xiaomi, "e-sports" became the keyword of the mobile phone market. The OnePlus 10 Pro and realme GT2 series, which were launched in early January, are mainly e-sports experiences, and Vivo's iQOO9 series is also a flagship e-sports machine.
On the evening of February 16, Xiaomi's Redmi mobile phone released the K50 e-sports version, priced from 3299 yuan, on the 17th and 28th, the e-sports mobile phones Red Devil 7 and Black Shark 5 will be listed separately. In addition, lenovo savior Y90 is also in the warm-up stage.
Times Finance observed that in the past two years, the e-sports industry has become hotter and hotter, driving mobile phone manufacturers to develop e-sports mobile phones, or focus more on improving the e-sports game experience of mobile phones. However, compared with mainstream mobile phone styles, the sales of e-sports mobile phones and mobile phones whose main point is the e-sports experience are not ideal.
According to official data, the Redmi K40, which was launched in early 2021, currently sells more than 10 million units. The sales of the Redmi K40 game enhanced version are only more than 600,000 units in the Jingdong flagship store. And among the e-sports mobile phones listed in 2021, the sales of The Savior 2 Pro, the Black Shark 4S series, and the Red Devil 6 series in the Jingdong flagship store are all less than 100,000 units.
Ze Ying, a post-90s mobile game enthusiast, told Times Finance that he bought PS4, Nintendo, tablet computers and other equipment, playing games is much better than the mobile phone experience, there is no need to choose a mobile phone with a good e-sports experience, and there are very few e-sports mobile phones around.
The price is generally over 3,000 yuan, "bundling" professional e-sports teams
"Last year, EDG won the championship and brushed the screen of the whole network, and the manufacturer originally thought that this was just a market segment, but now it thought that it was promising, and it was in line with the trend of making high-end machines, so it began to target the e-sports crowd and focus on the game experience." Zhou Li, an employee of a major domestic mobile phone factory, told Times Finance.
According to the "2021 China Game Industry Report" released by the Game Working Committee of the China Music and Digital Association and the China Game Industry Research Institute, the scale of e-sports game users in mainland China will reach 489 million in 2021, and the actual sales revenue of the market will be 140.181 billion yuan.
Source: 2021 China Game Industry Report
The mobile phone market also wants a piece of the pie. E-sports mobile phones can also be called game phones, at present, in the domestic mobile phone manufacturers, in addition to Huawei, almost all brands have launched e-sports mobile phones or mobile phones that focus on e-sports game experience.
From the perspective of professional e-sports mobile phone brands, there are Red Devils, Saviors, ROGs, Black Sharks, etc. in the Chinese market, and the first three brands belong to ZTE, Lenovo and Asus respectively. Rescuer released the first mobile phone in 2020, which is a late entrant, and the rest of the brands first launched mobile phones in 2018.
2019 is the year that mainstream mobile phone manufacturers enter the game phone. The first product of vivo sub-brand iQOO was launched, and OPPO super player Reno Ace also debuted that year. In 2021, Xiaomi has the Redmi K40 Game Enhanced Edition, which is the company's first mobile phone that focuses on the gaming experience.
"Esports is a product experience similar to taking pictures." Zhou Li said that the e-sports experience is comprehensive, requiring flagship chips, ultra-large memory, and also has certain requirements for screen materials, refresh rates, heat dissipation, endurance, vibration motors, etc.
He also revealed that mobile phone manufacturers need special in-depth adjustment to optimize the bottom layer of the system, adjust fluency, refresh rate, stability, etc. to do a good job of e-sports experience.
Therefore, the price of mobile phones with the keyword "esports" as the keyword is not cheap. iQOO9, OnePlus 10 Pro, and Redmi K50 e-sports editions start at 3999 yuan, 4699 yuan and 3299 yuan respectively. In terms of professional e-sports mobile phones, the Rescuer 2 Pro, the Black Shark 4S series, and the Red Devil 6 series are sold from 4499 yuan, 2699 yuan and 3799 yuan respectively.
It is worth mentioning that many of the above mobile phone brands have business cooperation with professional e-sports teams. The iQOO9 series of press conferences officially announced EDG as an e-sports exploration officer, and realme mobile phones have cooperated with JDG, IG and other e-sports clubs.
Sales of professional esports mobile phones are sluggish
Mobile phone manufacturers spend manpower and material resources to do e-sports experience, how is the market response? According to CINNO Research research data, in 2021, the sales of smartphones in the Chinese market will be about 314 million units, the market shares of Xiaomi and iQOO will be 15.2% and 4% respectively, and the Red Devils, Saviors, ROGs, and Black Sharks are not in the top 10.
According to Jingdong data, as of the evening of February 16, 613,000 people had bought the Redmi K40 game enhanced version, and nearly 6,000 pieces were sold in 24 hours, and the OnePlus 10 Pro had dominated the top three 10 days in the 5,000-5,999 yuan mobile phone list.
In contrast, sales of professional esports phones are lower, as of February 16, The Rescuer 2 Pro has sold about 80,000 units in the JD.com flagship store, the Black Shark 4S series has sold less than 60,000 units, the Red Devils' hottest mobile phone has sold less than 10,000 units, and the ROG 5sPro data is even lower.
Overall, in the field of e-sports, the product market of mobile phone manufacturers performs better, perhaps because it is more suitable for daily use. Zhou Li said that the most obvious difference between large factory e-sports mobile phones and professional e-sports mobile phones is the appearance. The former is more concise and lightweight, while professional e-sports phones often have exaggerated appearances, with patterned text on the back, and the Rescuer 2 Pro even designed the phone to be "three-stage" for heat dissipation, and the back is somewhat like a gamepad.
Rescuer 2Pro Image Source: Network
On the other hand, the mobile phone of the big factory emphasizes the performance and game experience, and has not given up the experience on the imaging system. For example, the positioning of the OnePlus 10 Pro is the flagship of the super stable performance of the game, equipped with the Hasselblad mobile phone imaging system. The rear camera of professional e-sports mobile phones has been ridiculed by many people and can only be used to scan codes.
However, professional esports phones also have their advantages. Take the Black Shark 4S Pro as an example, which is equipped with LPDDR, magnetic power lift shoulder button, Samsung 144Hz e-sports screen, Redmi K50 e-sports version and iQOO9 series display refresh rate are 120Hz. In addition, the Black Shark 4S Pro has a "sandwich" liquid cooling system with 11 temperature sensors in between.
Player: The same money is used to recharge, isn't it fragrant?
Even if the market situation of mobile phone manufacturers is better than that of professional e-sports mobile phones, overall, in the huge Chinese market, the annual sales of smart phones are hundreds of millions, and the share of mobile phones that focus on e-sports experience is negligible, and the style is much less than that of image mobile phones.
"I buy a phone, I don't just use it to play games." Zeying, who calls herself a "game addict", likes to play mobile games such as "Glory of kings", "PUBG", "Tribal Alliance" and so on, but she never thought of buying a game phone, because the cost is too high, and these money are used to buy PS4, switch can also play games that mobile phones can't play.
She told Times Finance that she has been using an iPhone, spending a lot of money playing games on the iOS system, and the game phones are Android systems and do not want to transfer areas. If Apple has a mobile phone that focuses on the gaming experience, she will not buy it, because it is not as large as the iPad, and the gaming experience will be worse.
However, she will also have trouble playing games with the iPhone, the phone heat dissipation performance is not strong, "playing a game of "Glory of the King" in the summer will put the phone on the ice cream to cool down", but this is not enough for her to give up the iPhone.
"There are only a few mobile games, and the real configuration requirements of the game are placed on the host and PC platforms." Nanjing office worker Li Hao is also an e-sports enthusiast, accustomed to playing games with the host, and is not interested in mobile phones under the banner of e-sports, "Is the same money used to recharge?" ”。
Zhou Li also admitted that subject to the volume of the mobile phone, the main e-sports experience of the mobile phone heat dissipation, battery life, screen display area is difficult to compare with the computer, the future will continue to develop and improve.
Xiang Ligang, a communications observer, said in an interview with Times Finance that mobile phones that focus on e-sports experience have their own market space, but they are still a niche market.
He believes that mobile phones that focus on e-sports experience have no technical barriers, and the biggest difference with other mobile phones is publicity, not function. The former emphasizes storage space, computing power, and heat dissipation performance, and the general mobile phone also has these functions, and ordinary players do not have such high requirements for mobile phone performance.
At the same time, he also said that xiaomi, OPPO, vivo and other brands have high-end flagship mobile phones, but the overall mobile phone market positioning is not high-end, and the promotion of e-sports experience can raise the brand grade. And Huawei, Apple does not need to pull the high grade, if you do an e-sports mobile phone, sales of only 1 million, it is a failed product, not worth doing.
(At the request of the interviewees, Ze Ying, Zhou Li and Li Hao are pseudonyms)