The illustrations are from Canva Paintable
Nowadays, although electronic products have become an indispensable part of people's daily lives, it is undeniable that as a "digital three-piece set" of tablet computers, it has also been sung down because it has not found its own positioning, and in recent years, tablet computers have returned to the consumer's vision with their own unique advantages, and the domestic tablet market has ushered in a new wave.
In this context, traditional hardware companies, Internet companies and mobile phone manufacturers all want to share a piece of the pie, and among the many participating players, the advantages of mobile phone manufacturers are particularly obvious, of which the "king" of mobile phone brands, Apple, occupies the first position in the industry for many years. In order to have a certain right to speak in the tablet market, domestic mobile phone manufacturers represented by "Huami OV" have also begun to attack Apple's iPad market by virtue of their hardware manufacturing capabilities and cost-effective advantages.
Apple is not flawless
In the treacherous tablet market, Apple has always maintained a leading position, and no matter how many participants there are, Apple has always stuck to the front line. Years of deep cultivation in the tablet market have allowed Apple to form its own unique style, and also let it ride on the track of tablets.
On the one hand, excellent product power, smooth experience, and complete ecosystem are the only ways for it to continue to lead. Apple's independent iOS system can connect all its intelligent terminals, forming an efficient and collaborative software and hardware ecosystem between its various devices. The excellent R & D and publicity capabilities have also made Apple highly affirmed in terms of performance, fluency, security, ecosystem and brand effect, and then gained market recognition.
On the other hand, more and more consumers favor it, but also let Apple iPad occupy half of the tablet market. According to the data, in 2021, a total of 169 million tablet PCs were shipped worldwide, of which Apple's iPad revenue reached 31.862 billion US dollars, and shipments were 57.8 million units, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year, and the market share reached 34.2%, ranking first. Although other brands have developed well, there is still a certain gap compared with Apple.
While the Apple iPad is brilliant, it's not flawless. For example, the growth rate of Apple's iPad is gradually slowing. Apple's iPad has no doubt about its strong competitiveness in the high-end market, but most users have limited consumption levels, so they will prefer Android products that are not much different from Apple's iPad features and are more cost-effective.
According to a Canalys survey, apple iPad shipments in 2021Q2 were 12.9 million units, an increase of 3.5% year-on-year, and the market share was 31.9%,while Lenovo achieved a 64.5% year-on-year increase in the cost-effective small new Pad series, and the market share also rose to 11.6%.
This means that the status of Apple's iPad may be shaken by Android tablets at any time. According to the survey, consumers prefer iOS or Android operating system accounted for more than 80%, of which nearly 70% of Android system preference users, but also Android mobile phone holders, which indicates that Android system user loyalty is higher. Obviously, if there is no major breakthrough in the function and price of Apple iPad in the later period, it will lose its competitive advantage, and its market share and shipments will also decline.
Huawei and Xiaomi take advantage of the "gap" to attack
Although the entire tablet market is still Apple's monopoly, as one of the few domestic tablet brands that can compete with it, the performance of Huawei and Xiaomi after their return is also remarkable. For example, Huawei has raised the latency and intelligent practicality of the stylus to a new dimension, and Xiaomi also plans to launch a new product after many years to make up for the lack of a large-screen tablet.
The reason why Huawei and Xiaomi have returned to the tablet market is first of all related to the rise in demand for tablets. In the past two years, the epidemic has made remote office and online education more and more popular, and tablet computers have gradually become the main terminals of paperless office and learning by virtue of their innate advantages in mobile scenarios, which are larger and easier to operate than mobile phone screens, lighter and smaller than traditional laptops. According to the data, the global shipment of tablet PCs reached 164 million units in 2020, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%.
Although the explosive growth caused by the epidemic has passed, the use scenarios of office, education, entertainment and other large-screen terminals have not decreased, and the tablet market has still maintained good growth. According to data released by IDC, the total global shipments of tablet PCs reached 168.8 million units in 2021, an increase of 3.2% year-on-year. It is the reopening of the growth space of tablets that allows Huawei and Xiaomi to see new opportunities for development.
Secondly, Huawei and Xiaomi have innate advantages in launching tablets. Since the development of smart phones, it seems that it is difficult to have a large new breakthrough in innovation, so Huawei and Xiaomi are actively developing new services other than mobile phones. Compared with other new businesses, tablets and mobile phones have many similarities, and Huawei and Xiaomi, which have been working in the mobile phone industry for many years, can also be regarded as having a certain foundation for the development and production of tablet computers, and it is easier to develop.
Finally, tablets are an indispensable part of Huawei and Xiaomi's IOT ecosystem. Compared with mobile phones, tablets have larger screen sizes, higher information display efficiency, and higher usage and popularity. And with the further development of 5G networks, building a complete IOT ecology has become the main development direction of mainstream mobile phone manufacturers, tablet computers will likely become one of the important entrances to the IOT Internet of Everything ecology in the future, so Huawei and Xiaomi's addition of tablet product lines is a step that must be taken in its layout and improve the IOT ecosystem.
OPPO and Vivo attack instead of defending
As more and more players began to work on tablets, OPPO and vivo also put plans to develop tablets on the agenda. It is reported that Vivo applied for a number of trademarks such as vivo Pad and iQOO Mad as early as last year; OPPO's first tablet was also unveiled on the Geekbench website not long ago, and the intention of OPPO and Vivo to do tablets is naturally self-evident.
On the one hand, OPPO and vivo develop tablet business, which can bring new profit points to them. Compared with the diversified layout of Huawei and Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo are heavily dependent on the mobile phone business. Although the domestic smartphone market is still very hot, but the shipment of mobile phones has long been much worse than before, according to IDC statistics data, in 2020, the domestic mobile phone market shipments fell by 11.2% year-on-year, while the annual shipment of tablet computers is nearly 200 million units, and is still growing year by year. Therefore, in the case of limited profitability of only mobile phones, the development of tablets will make them have more profit space.
On the other hand, OPPO and vivo enter the tablet pc market, and there are also "defense" considerations. As major terminal manufacturers begin to lay out the Ecology of the Internet of Everything, more and more brands have begun to launch tablets and other related products. Looking at the entire mobile phone market, Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi's tablet products have already had a certain shipment, which has brought huge pressure to the "OV" that has not yet kept pace, so OPPO and vivo enter the tablet market at the same time, which has become a defensive measure that it has to take after feeling the crisis.
All in all, in the face of the high growth of the demand for tablet computers on the commercial end and the huge development space of the Internet of Things market, OPPO and vivo have become imperative to enter tablet computers. What's more, as a domestic head mobile phone manufacturer, OPPO and vivo also have excellent manufacturing strength and a solid mass foundation. With the entry of OPPO and vivo, it is foreseeable that the domestic tablet pc market will usher in a new round of offensive and defensive battles.
The domestic tablet launched an offensive and defensive war
Whether it is the return of Huawei and Xiaomi, or the entry of OPPO and vivo, it indicates that the clarion call of the tablet market competition has been blown. With the entry of domestic mobile phone giants to disrupt, the big war in the tablet computer market has slowly begun.
Specifically, Apple and Android phone makers are both infiltrating each other's core areas. Some of Apple's flagship iPads have also pressed the price below 3,000 yuan under the premise of ensuring an excellent experience, taking a cheap route and greatly reducing the purchase threshold of iPads. It is reported that not long ago Apple announced that it is equipped with a 10.8-inch iPad upgraded to A13 CPU, and the price is very cost-effective.
Huawei has also developed a cross-screen collaboration function, which opens up the internal ecology of mobile phones, tablets, and computer terminals. In addition, its newly launched Matepad 11 fluency is not inferior to Apple's iPad, Matepad11 positioning is low-end, but the hardware configuration is Snapdragon 865 and 120Hz high refresh rate screen, the overall experience can even be compared with Apple's high-end tablet.
However, in terms of product strength, Android tablets are slightly inferior to Apple, and Apple loses a few points compared to Android in terms of cost performance. As a leader in the industry, Apple iPad is undoubtedly the richest product line among all manufacturers, and the only player who continues to iterate. Apple's iPad is clearly positioned and diverse, with a lightweight iPad mini, a high-performance iPad Pro, an iPad Air with a balanced price configuration, etc. Only by relying on the tablet product line to complement other products, it has opened up multiple scenes.
Because Android tablets and mobile phones use the same system, these software failed to make some optimizations according to the positioning of the product, and the sense of experience will undoubtedly be greatly reduced, so Android tablets want to enter the high-end market and encroach on the market share of Apple's iPad. In addition, limited by positioning and cost, it is not easy for the more high-end Apple iPad to break into the low-end market dominated by Android.
At present, the product advantages of Apple's iPad are still difficult for other mobile phone manufacturers to shake in the short term, and Android tablets need to increase efforts to compete with one. However, as the product power of Android's multi-brand tablets gradually unfolds, it seems that it will become more and more difficult for Apple to unify the tablet world. All in all, the mobile phone giant's competition for the trillion tablet market is a long-term battle, and Apple's iPad and the domestic "Huami OV" tablet will also be glued for a long time.
Text/Liu Kuang public number, ID: liukuang110