Entering 2022, the mobile phone market is particularly cold, the number of new machine releases has decreased significantly, and the amount of discussion about each popular model has also dropped sharply, even if there is a conference, there are not many people discussing. The market began to enter a rhythm of buying apples with a budget and watching them casually without a budget. In this case, it is generally necessary to brew a change, and this can not help but remind people of the charm blue that stopped in 2018.
What's wrong with Charm Blue?
Charm Blue began in 2014, the positioning is very clear, that is, similar to the Redmi mobile phone, serving young users of the sub-brand. Its products are low in price, simple in design, commonly used in MediaTek SOCs, and have a large number of models, commonly known as machine sea tactics.
Charm Blue's last product is Charm Blue 6T, which is a mobile phone released by Meizu Technology on May 29, 2018 in the giant curtain hall of Sanlitun Meijia Happy Cinema. The price of this venue is actually not very high, but it is not low, it is within the acceptable range, but it also depends on what model is released.
The price of the charm blue 6T at that time was 799 yuan, the 3GB RAM + 32G ROM version was priced at 799 yuan, the 4GB RAM + 32G ROM version was priced at 999 yuan, and the 4GB RAM + 64G ROM version was priced at 1099 yuan.
Now look at it, there are some problems with the release of this phone. First of all, such a low-priced mobile phone, such a grand conference, the expenditure is still a bit large. Secondly, it is basically not released at a conference only one entry model, generally a flagship model, and then some low-priced products, centralized release, improve efficiency, and share costs.
What's more, we see that Xiaomi's conferences are generally held in the company park, which is cheaper and more controllable. While the company has deep pockets, the cost of expenses is another matter.
It can only be said that at that time, Charm Blue's playing style was still too rough, and it did not take into account the difficulties encountered by the company because of the failure of Meizu PRO7 market performance.
Now looking back at Huang Zhang's words at that time, it still makes sense, Charm Blue has indeed brought tens of millions of sales, a lot of attention, such as a month or two can meet with kerosene once, but also consumes a lot of Meizu's strength, and its strength is originally limited.
Therefore, Meizu is also helpless, originally wanted to let the sales of charm blue bring more income, so as to support the research and development investment of high-end Meizu mobile phones, but the result of charm blue is only to earn. This situation is difficult to continue when Meizu flagship mobile phone encounters major setbacks.
Although it can be said that the failure of Meizu PRO7 is the direct cause of the involvement of Charm Blue, the decline in Meizu's comprehensive competitiveness in the development of Charm Blue in a few years is a deeper reason. In the face of the dilemma, Meizu can not always shrink the Meizu brand, after all, this brand is called Meizu, then it can only shrink the charm blue that does not make money.
It is not that the low-end machine is not good, if it is like transsion, the low-end machine has sales and can make money, the low-end machine can still do it, but unfortunately the charm blue is not. Therefore, the disappearance of Charm Blue can also be seen as the helpless move of Meizu to lose the car at that time.
Will there be a new Charm Blue rout?
So the question is, will there be a new charm blue rout? Judging from the current situation, it is possible.
First of all, the domestic mobile phone sales continued to adjust, and the overall sales of mobile phones declined, but the unit price increased.
According to the January 2022 domestic mobile phone market operation analysis report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology today, the domestic market mobile phone shipments in January were 33.022 million units, down 17.7% year-on-year. This figure shows that the era of mobile phone brands winning by volume has completely passed.
The iPhone's return to the first place in domestic sales also illustrates the same problem, and the Chinese people pay more attention to the quality of the mobile phone than they are cheap. In the fourth quarter, for every 5 mobile phones sold, one was an iPhone with a high price, which was already very telling.
Another picture is also very illustrative, that is, in 2021, Honor, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo have released a lot of models, but still can not beat the four iPhones, in contrast, it is still very thought-provoking.
However, although some brands release more mobile phones, they are generally selectively released, such as vivo's Y series, which is simply on the shelves and does not have any release ceremony. At that time, the practice of charm blue seemed to be vivo's Y series, real my Q series, V series, all of which became a conference, and now it is obviously inappropriate.
On the other hand, Charm Blue is a sub-brand, so we can pay attention to the performance of each sub-brand. Needless to say, Redmi has just partnered with the Mercedes AMG F1 team, and the heat is not low.
Vivo's iQOO has always been a very strong existence, so that the Redmi conference should be compared with iQOO, and now it is also a supply and marketing boom.
In contrast, realme, as a brand under OPPO, is obviously not as hot as Redmi and iQOO at present, and may have to work hard, because the general rhythm is one or two competitions, and the third place suffers losses.
In fact, the consumption habits of young people are changing rapidly, which has troubled many domestic manufacturers. To increase the price, but afraid of sales cold, but do not increase the price, and found that young people are buying more expensive mobile phones, and even directly into the iPhone, the overall user base of the consumption strength, but also need to continue to test.
But one thing is for sure, when you can offer a better, more competitive product, the market is receptive to price increases.
Or back to the charm blue, its grasp of the product there are some problems, to its description of the fashion young people, in fact, basically equal to the young people with a certain consumption ability, after all, a dress, a pair of lady's shoes, a delicate hairstyle, want to buy down is not cheap, such a user will use 799 yuan mobile phone? Obviously not. Therefore, the 799 yuan mobile phone seems to be more suitable for low-key listing, and only a high-end mobile phone is more suitable for fashion and good products.
At present, young people may indeed have limited spending power, but the pursuit of exquisite life is not without a bottom line, especially in the era of mobile Internet, they will try their best to match themselves with a handy, eye-catching mobile phone.
Back in 2022, under this consumption rhythm, Glory, Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO and their sub-brands will carry out a fierce battle, and some people may be left behind. Because the reality is obvious, that is, in the case of the growth of the mobile phone disk, each family can survive and develop, but when the mobile phone disk no longer grows or even begins to shrink, there will inevitably be survival of the fittest. Just like in the race, there is always someone who is fourth and can't get on the podium.
This adjustment may not be far away.