2021 China's mobile phone changes: a collective "exploration" and "serial killing" after huawei's fall

China's mobile phone industry is too "volume", but 2022 will be more "volume".

”

Author | Li Shuaifei

Edit | Li Zongren

In 2021, under the interweaving of internal and external factors, China's smartphone industry has seen an unprecedented major change since its birth.

Ironically, the biggest variable in this change is the "outright" Huawei.

From the overall situation, Huawei has shown a "substantial absence" in China's smartphone industry in 2021, resulting in significant multi-layered changes – for example:

The first floor, high-end. Huawei, which has no mobile phones to sell, has left a large blank space in this market, which has triggered a more fierce high-end market battle, but domestic manufacturers have no results, and Apple has become the biggest winner.

The second layer, channels. The shortage of goods makes Huawei unable to maintain the original huge offline channels, at the same time, Xiaomi stormed the line, the glory made a comeback, and the offline channels regenerated.

The third layer, the chip. Kirin chips are unsustainable, stirring up the mobile phone chip market: Qualcomm is strong but once again overturned, MediaTek and Zhan Rui also took the opportunity, and OPPO, Vivo Xiaomi's self-developed chips have appeared.

On the whole, china's smartphone industry in 2021 is still a strange "volume" - players have "explored" with the opportunities brought by Huawei's "out", but they have fallen into one "serial killing" between each other.

No one can sit back and relax.

1

High-end Battle: Will There Be the Next Huawei?

High-end has always been a knot in the hearts of domestic mobile phone manufacturers.

In terms of product layout, Xiaomi has a MIX series, OPPO has a Find series, vivo has a NEX series... But unfortunately, among domestic manufacturers, only Huawei's Mate series and P series have really stood at the high end, and formed a double-peak opposition trend with Apple - IDC data shows that in the first half of 2020, Huawei accounted for 44.1% of China's smartphone market of more than $600, and Apple accounted for 44%.

In 2021, the high-end market is changing - Huawei's Mate and P series are unsustainable because of chip problems, leaving a large area of high-end market blanks, which is a huge temptation.

Especially for other players who have been coveting the high end for a long time, this seems to be a natural opportunity to explore. In fact, they have indeed made many attempts very hard, trying to seize the opportunity to "make up huawei".

But the question is, how easy is it to explore the high-end?

Judging from the results, several players who try to take advantage of the opportunity to make achievements in the high-end are all huge, but they cannot really replace Huawei's high-end status. Specifically:

OPPO's Find X3 series, although hard work, and better than the Find X2 series, but in the end "sales still did not meet expectations", the OPPO Find N folding screen mobile phone released at the end of the year responded well, and even OPPO also opened a celebration meeting for this purpose, but the problem is that it is relatively out of stock.

Xiaomi 11 at the beginning of the release of the good amount, so that the channel providers made money, but the sequel is not powerful, especially the "super cup" Xiaomi 11 Ultra's fever problem is obvious, attracting many channel providers to complain; mixed series of two products MIX Fold and MIX 4, there are highlights, but the amount is not large - in the words of the channel provider, "the price can not stand up."

After the return of Honor, it launched a high-end product Magic 3, which is quite similar to a huawei product in appearance, and the intention to take over is obvious, but it is not satisfactory from the perspective of sales.

This result can be corroborated by Apple's performance in the Chinese market. The data shows that Apple's iPhone saw a 94% shipment growth rate in Q1 2021, and a year-on-year growth rate of 44% for the full year. It can be said that in the case of Huawei's inability to protect the high-end market in the Greater China region, domestic mobile phones are basically unable to fill the vacancy.

In the words of multiple channel sources, "high-end users are basically harvested by Apple."

However, while Xiaomi OPPO glory has sprinted to the high-end but basically failed, vivo with "duty" as the cultural gene has some gains.

But it did not raise the high-end banner, but a unique way, in 2021 to vigorously increase the size of the image, through the micro-gimbal, ZEISS cooperation and V1 chip this "three axe" to help its X60 series and X70 series to achieve word-of-mouth breaking circle and sales exploration, can be said to be a classic case of steady change. Not only that, vivo did not even release the new NEX series in 2021, which is quite unusual, according to internal feedback, the product is made, "but it is not done well and would rather not be released."

So the question is, why can't domestic manufacturers other than Huawei compete with Apple at the high end?

An industry insider who has many intersections with channel providers told Leifeng that high-end mobile phones are essentially not defined by price, but by the user groups that accept it. For example, he said, part of the reason why Huawei mobile phones can be achieved is because most of the leaders of state-owned enterprises or private enterprises that are not bad money use Huawei mobile phones, which will form a demonstration effect in its circle layer, Huawei mobile phones are not in stock, they would rather not change, wait; other brands may be difficult to reach this position and circle layer.

Another industry source who once worked for a mobile phone giant told Leifeng Network that in fact, after Huawei was sanctioned by the United States, other domestic manufacturers are asking who can become the next Huawei, but the key to the problem is not "who", but whether there is, that is, whether China's technology industry can still appear the next Huawei.

He said that in fact, it is very simple, the biggest support point for Huawei mobile phones to stand at the high end is that it has created its own powerful Kirin SoC chip, with its own SoC, Huawei mobile phones can form a truly differentiated product selling point, and can effectively control their own product rhythm. But behind it is its more than ten years of research and development investment in the field of HiSilicon chips and communications, which is a condition that latecomers such as Xiaomi OPPO vivo that start from channel innovation simply cannot have.

In another dimension, he believes that the three giants in the smartphone industry, Apple, Samsung and Huawei, which can occupy a high-end position, have a successful background in the different innovation models of the United States, South Korea and China, Apple is an American-style native innovation from 0 to 1, Samsung relies on South Korea's whole industry chain and core device advantages from 1 to 10, and Huawei is from 10 to infinity, relying on China's huge industrial scale and cost advantages - of course, Huawei's own system capability construction and technical capability accumulation are the core.

In a sense, Huawei's success in high-end mobile phones is actually its system innovation under specific industrial opportunities, which is a lonely book in China and can be said to be unrepeatable.

It is worth emphasizing that even in 2021, when there is an extreme shortage of cores, Huawei is struggling to maintain its mobile phone shipments. A senior industry source close to the management of Huawei consumer BG told Leifeng That in 2021, under the limited inventory of Kirin chips, Huawei has adopted a "drip irrigation" policy internally, that is, a small number of mobile phones that continue to ship slowly. Huawei also launched the P50 and P50 Pocket products in the follow-up, and the shipment volume is not high, but the purpose is to maintain its presence in the industry.

It is worth mentioning that under the sanctions of the United States, the 5G function of the P50 and P50 Pocket has been ruthlessly castrated - when it comes to this, a chip company boss sighed: It is indeed tragic.

At the same time, Huawei's strong product definition capabilities on the P50 and P50 Pocket are still awe-inspiring. In particular, the P50 Pocket product, according to a senior sales channel person to Leifeng network evaluation, "it has been created and defined as a work of art", in terms of sales is basically "in short supply", but the shipment is really not large.

Not only that, Huawei is also preparing for its return to the mobile phone market.

According to Huawei consumer BG to its internal employees, Huawei's mobile phone business will be at the latest in 2023 "the return of the king". However, in this regard, many mobile phone practitioners are not optimistic about Leifeng Network, because Sino-US relations are not optimistic in the short term, and even if Huawei returns after three or five years using the development of domestic semiconductor processes, there is little opportunity.

2

Channel battle: OV to the left, Xiaomi Glory to the right

In 2021, China's mobile phone market has experienced a fierce battle for offline channels.

The starting point of this scramble is the serious shortage of goods caused by Huawei's sanctions, resulting in a large number of its channel partners being out of stock. W, a veteran of the mobile phone retail channel industry for a long time, told Leifeng that Huawei has experienced a large-scale channel loss in 2021, a large number of small stores directly closed stores, and some are using their own resource advantages to switch to other brands, "changing the door and starting to sell other brands's products", of which glory is the big head.

But at the same time, Huawei has also been trying to maintain its core channel providers, such as Top364 customers, or even Top1000 customers, and its main way is to sell cars. W said that it is not easy for Huawei channel merchants to sell a car, but the advantage is that the profit is high, and the dealer selling a car is almost equivalent to the profit of selling dozens of mobile phones; in addition, these dealers are very loyal to Huawei, Huawei has issued a new smart watch, they will also forward in a large area of the circle of friends, "instantly brush the screen."

It is worth mentioning that even when the loss of Huawei's channels is more serious and "you can't sell mobile phones but only sell cars", there are also quite a few people who go against the trend and join Huawei's dealer camp with some strong connections - behind this is actually the belief that Huawei strives to pass on to channel providers: it will eventually "return the king".

In addition to Huawei, the offline channels of players such as Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo are also changing in size.

Relatively speaking, the channel changes of OPPO and vivo are more driven by internal factors. W told Leifeng that the channel providers lost from Huawei are actually not too easy to enter the OV channel system, because the latter is a unique system with a close and complex network; but OV's 200,000 stores are actually evolving, and many small street stores are closed, and they are moving to Shopmall or a higher-grade image store.

At the same time, from the feedback of many channel people, oppo and vivo's channel layout in first-tier cities is not successful, a typical case is that OPPO Shanghai flagship store has publicly announced the closure. Another data from OV agents is that most of the OV stores in Shenzhen do not make money and can only rely on brand subsidies to maintain, but subsidies are obviously not a long-term solution.

Relatively speaking, Xiaomi's channel strategy in 2021 is the most radical.

Judging from the results, Xiaomi first achieved the milestone of 5,000 millet homes in April 2021, and the number exceeded 10,000 in October, which can be called "wild progress". Behind this, on the one hand, is the new model of "low risk and stable return" adopted by Xiaomi's offline channels, and on the other hand, the "digital" and "efficient" thinking that Xiaomi adheres to on offline channels.

But in addition, Xiaomi has actually lowered the access standards for some newly opened stores. A channel person gave Leifeng Network an example that in the past, when a channel merchant opened a store, if Xiaomi initially asked for customer flow may be 10,000, but during the expansion period, in order to quickly open stores, this number can be relaxed to 3,000.

There is also another effective trick: subsidies.

A dealer owner X who opened more than ten Xiaomi home stores in a certain first-tier city told Leifeng That in order to encourage him to open more stores, Xiaomi will give him a certain number of point subsidies (after all, the gross profit of Xiaomi mobile phones is relatively low), initially made up 0.5 percentage points, and then in the second half of the year, two consecutive months have given 1 point, he is a better situation, because the store is more than ten; many sellers with lower levels (such as the number of stores opened below ten) may not be able to make up much.

He also said that in fact, after a year, his own millet retail business will definitely be a loss, fortunately, there are other business income to balance, so it can barely support, but he is already a dealer in the middle of the higher level; but many low-level millet dealers will inevitably lose money, if the situation can not be improved, it can only close the store.

In fact, although Xiaomi's offline stores have expanded rapidly, they have suffered large losses in 2021, and even some Xiaomi stores have closed due to losses - which is accompanied by two personnel changes related to Xiaomi's offline business in China: Gao Ziguang and Shangjin have left one after another, and they have all served as the heads of Xiaomi's offline channel business in China.

In addition to the problem of low gross profit, Xiaomi's offline channels also face an important opponent in the second half of 2021, that is, glory.

In fact, after the return of Glory in 2021, due to its interest binding relationship with many channel providers, it has been vigorously laying out offline channels, corresponding to the fact that after the return of Glory, it has changed the previous model of relying mainly on online volume, 70% of its mobile phone shipments, taking offline channels; therefore, Glory's store opening speed is also very rapid, and Xiaomi has also formed a direct competitive relationship with the expansion offline - the two sides have also ushered in the "second war".

A dealer who plans to open a new Glory mobile phone store told Leifeng Network that the reason why he is ready to do Glory is because Glory rises quickly, especially the Honor 50 model; and Glory takes advantage of Huawei, after all, it is Huawei, in the promotion and sales of words can blatantly take Huawei, many Huawei users do consider Glory when changing machines.

However, while Honor is also expanding offline, there are also dealers who complain about Glory. For example, W told Leifeng Network that a number of dealers said that perhaps because of huawei, honor people have a "very strong attitude" when negotiating cooperation with some offline channels, which makes the channel provider unhappy - and even some channel providers evaluate glory as: "There is no Huawei's life, but it has Huawei's disease." ”

3

Chip dilemma: Qualcomm is strong, MTK attacks

Throughout 2021, "lack of core" has become the key word in major industries, but the pain of the mobile phone industry is more profound.

In addition to Huawei, the first to feel this pain may be glory. After its independence, quickly resumed cooperation with core suppliers such as Qualcomm, the first choice should actually be the flagship Snapdragon 888, but at that time, the production capacity of this chip has actually been robbed by several others, helplessly, Glory can only retreat to the second, choose Snapdragon 778, and work overtime to shorten the promotion cycle of this chip. Judging from the results, the Honor 50 equipped with the Snapdragon 778 has indeed played a role in helping the Glory return to blood.

In addition to the SoC, the glory without Huawei's support is actually facing another challenge - fierce competition from other players.

A supply chain person told Leifeng Network that in fact, in early 2021, when Xiaomi OPPO and other players set forecasts for suppliers, they consciously enlarged the target number, in fact, in order to squeeze the living space of glory in the supply chain, "friends are also more afraid of glory back", so to say, "sometimes the lack of core is actually artificial."

The cruelty of the internal volume of the mobile phone industry can be seen in the lack of cores.

But the intensification of inner coil is only one aspect of the impact of the lack of cores, and another more critical change is the change in the relationship between chip manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers, especially in the Field of SoCs.

A chip company practitioner M who is familiar with mobile phone supply chain cooperation told Leifeng Network that in the supply system of Qualcomm Snapdragon, there is a priority ranking problem for Xiaomi OPPO vivo three, because vivo also chose Samsung Exynos processors in the 5G era, Qualcomm is not happy, on the supply priority of vivo downgraded, ranked after Xiaomi and OPPO, but Qualcomm will also worry about losing too much share, so it will also (nest fire) to find vivo to pull this thing back.

As a result, after the lack of core in the whole industry, Qualcomm's position has become more powerful, and vivo has become "even a little half-torn face", and vivo has become passive a lot, and has not launched new mobile phones based on Samsung Exynos SoC for a period of time - not only that, the latest news received by Leifeng Network is that due to the Samsung SoC in terms of ability, Vivo has even planned to give up cooperation with Samsung Exynos.

In addition to the lack of cores in the entire industry, the exit of Huawei's Kirin chips has also had a certain impact on the relationship between the two sides.

Y, an engineering supervisor who is engaged in research and development at a large mobile phone manufacturer, told Leifeng that Qualcomm has always been strong, but "huawei will be better when it is still there." After all, when Huawei's Kirin SoC was normally produced and shipped, Qualcomm still had opponents in China; but after Kirin was gone, Qualcomm was the only one, and each family competed to compete for the high-end, so it had to rely on Qualcomm, coupled with the lack of core problems, Qualcomm's status rose.

In fact, from the perspective of the actual product experience, snapdragon 888 is overturned in design, fever problems occur frequently, "but you just can't do it", after all, the consumer recognition of Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 series has been very stable - there are also industry insiders who feedback on Leifeng network that the performance of Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is not very good, but it should be used or used.

However, although Qualcomm is extremely strong in the flagship and high-end markets, the situation has also changed in the mid-to-high-end and low-end SoC markets with a wider audience.

One of the biggest beneficiaries is MediaTek. In the first three quarters of 2021, MediaTek shipments grew strongly and continued to rank first in the global mobile phone processor market share. The reason is that semiconductor analysts told Leifeng network that Qualcomm strategically focused on the 5G market, while MediaTek seized the huge shipment space of the 4G market - of course, Huawei was suppressed by the United States, which also added room for MediaTek to increase its market share.

It is worth mentioning that MediaTek is also seizing the opportunity of Kirin Unsustainable and Qualcomm Snapdragon pulling crotch to vigorously impact the high-end market. At present, there are already a number of models positioned in the high-end or even flagship have officially announced the use of MediaTek's Tianji 9000 processor, and the Tianji 8000 series is also ready to go, which is not good news for Qualcomm.

In addition to MediaTek, another player who has made a breakthrough is Chinese mainland SoC manufacturer Zhan Rui.

In the context of the overall lack of cores and the absence of Kirin, Zhan Rui successfully entered mainstream mobile phone brands such as Honor and realme in 2021, and won the fourth place in the global smartphone application processor (AP) market in Q2 2021, second only to MediaTek, Qualcomm and Apple - this can also be said to be a gratifying change.

Of course, there is also a point worth noting that the self-developed chips of mobile phone manufacturers have made some progress in 2021. For example, Xiaomi's surging C1 image chip and P1 charging chip, Vivo's V1 image chip, and OPPO's image-specific NPU MariSilicon X.

Overall, Xiaomi vivo OPPO The self-developed chips of the three major manufacturers are focused on imaging, but at present OPPO has sent out the news of self-developed SoCs, and Vivo has clearly stated in response to the media that it will not develop its own SoC - as for Xiaomi, it has previously launched the surging S1 processor experience, but whether it will develop its own SoC in the future is not yet known.

4

The Shura Field of Mobile Phones: Run or Die

In fact, in addition to huawei' biggest variable, there are still many noteworthy changes in the Chinese smartphone market in 2021.

For example, OnePlus merged into OPPO at the public level and became an OPPO sub-brand. This matter was publicly announced in June 2021, but informed sources told Leifeng Network that in fact, Liu Zuohu was suspended at OPPO as early as 2019, and at that time he put more energy on OnePlus; in 2020, Liu Zuohu returned to OPPO to take charge of products, and only in 2021 did he completely take back OnePlus.

Behind this, Liu Zuohu's return is the key, and it is Chen Mingyong who is promoted by one hand.

The return of OnePlus, the first problem to face is the further integration with the OPPO organizational culture, after all, during the integration period, there have been many original OnePlus employees left; but the return of OnePlus, in essence, is how to help OPPO's products high-end - Find X3 series is an attempt, the end of the Find N folding screen mobile phone is a good node, but the highlight is undoubtedly OPPO's upcoming Find X5 series released this week.

The issue of high-end will also be a major focus of Xiaomi in 2022, after all, it has established a high-end strategy working group on February 8, 2022.

However, Xiaomi's official announcement of car building in March 2021 has actually become another major business focus in the next few years in addition to smartphones. A person close to xiaomi's core management told Leifeng network that after Xiaomi officially announced the car, Lei Jun put two-thirds of his energy into building cars, and then Xiaomi's mobile phone business had some problems in 2021, and Lei Jun put two-thirds of his energy back on mobile phones.

But in any case, in the matter of building cars, Xiaomi has no turning back.

It needs to be clear that in addition to the mobile phone business, OPPO vivo glory actually has enough sense of crisis to consider other business sectors that can bring increments, such as the IoT plate.

From the situation in 2021, OPPO IoT business is not small, but the performance is not good, in 2021 layoffs a lot, and finally this business has to stand on its own portal, but also need to bear its own profits and losses; vivo's domestic smartphone business is stable, but it is relatively slow in the IoT business; the glory return is not long, and the rollout of this piece takes time.

Overall, Xiaomi IoT is doing relatively well. A typical detail is that in the interview process of Leifeng Network, the performance of Xiaomi's IoT ecology was even praised by a glorious employee.

However, a senior practitioner told Leifeng Network that from the perspective of players in various smart phone industries, after the rapid growth of 2019 and 2020, the IoT business has actually entered a stagnant state, and IoT products have not seen growth points in 2021, even including Xiaomi's IoT business and ecological chain business, which are trapped in a growth trap and are in an embarrassing state - so the competitive focus of mobile phone manufacturers has returned to the mobile phone business body, which is also a more "volume" of the mobile phone industry in 2021 " reason.

Another player that must not be ignored is Huawei.

After all, Huawei is not really out. In fact, after being forced to let go of glory, it used all feasible survival strategies; not only that, but it also continued to cultivate in technology, and spared no effort in maintaining some core channels, always ready for a comeback.

Of course, all the past is the prologue.

——The above many variables that occurred in China's smartphone industry in 2021 are the foreshadowing of another round of China's smartphone industry war in 2022, which has already started.

In this big war, the former king Huawei has been "out" on the shipment list, but it is actually everywhere in some way; Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo three princes stand on their feet, each with its own strengths, and constantly trek on the road of impacting the high-end; born from Huawei's glory, after the self-reliance portal, has gained a firm foothold, but crisis and opportunity still coexist; in addition, there is the low-key return of Coolpad, Meizu's selling rumors...

Of course, mobile phone manufacturers are not only facing the life and death worries from the fierce competition in the mobile phone business, but also facing the problem of how to make breakthroughs in the new growth dimension - one is the present, the other is the future, and the challenges of both are very large and cannot be lost.

All of this is woven into a cruel and wonderful commercial cultivation field.

In the meantime, the players who are still present are actually trembling, such as walking on thin ice, even if they are as powerful as Huawei, they cannot avoid being suppressed by the United States when the mobile phone business is in the sky. All participants have to be like The Father of The Boast, day by day, can only always continue to run, in the multi-dimensional competition of technology, products, channels, brands, recognize themselves, grasp the situation, in order to have a chance to win a place of survival.

It can be said that it is sailing against the current, and if you do not advance, you will retreat.

END