Huawei fell, the factories are full?
From the end of 2020, after Huawei sold the Glory business, the market share of Huawei's mobile phones fell sharply. This has been followed by a significant increase in the market share of smartphone brands such as Xiaomi, OV, and Apple.
However, if we dig deep into the market segment, we will find that domestic mobile phone brands are mostly in the low-end smartphone market, and in the high-end market of more than 5,000 yuan, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been beaten by Apple without a battle.
In this regard, some netizens imitated a sentence of Liu Huaqiang, the protagonist of the TV series "Conquest", mocking domestic manufacturers and saying: "Gave you the opportunity, you are not useful." ”
The market share has become larger, the income has increased, and there is money, why are domestic brands still "high-end"?
First, the low-end market is divided equally, and foreign companies in the high-end market are swallowed exclusively?
Before 2021, Huawei maintained a strong market influence in the high, medium and low end of mobile phones. In terms of high-end, with the blessing of self-developed chips - Kirin chips, as well as domestic technologies such as BOE LCD screens, Huawei has successfully broken the monopoly of Apple and Samsung on the domestic high-end mobile phone market. In the second quarter of 2020, Huawei's high-end models of more than 5,000 yuan once accounted for 47% of the domestic market.
Looking at the overall mobile phone business, since 2017, Huawei mobile phones have been the champion of domestic market share, and in 2020, Huawei's mobile phone market share reached 31%. In the first quarter of the same year, in the global scale, Huawei's mobile phone shipments once surpassed Samsung, ranking first in brand shipments.
In the immediate year of 2021, Huawei passively ushered in its "year of folding". The continuous chip supply cut has caused Huawei's domestic market share of mobile phones to fall rapidly from 31% to 10%, and the market share of high-end models has plummeted from 47% in the second quarter of 2020 to 7% at the end of 2021.
However, after Huawei's "end", it is not domestic mobile phone brands such as Xiaomi and OV that replace Huawei's market share. In terms of total share, Huawei lost share, which was very evenly divided by Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, and Apple, as if it was discussed, each of which increased by 5%. But in the high-end market, domestic mobile phones have been beaten by Apple to lose their armor.
According to statistics, in the high-end market, Apple's mobile phone market share rose from 60.6% in 2020 to 85.6% in 2021, and then compared with Huawei's 31.1% to 7.9% change, it can be seen that Huawei's domestic high-end market, domestic mobile phone peers almost did not get a point, all swallowed by Apple, therefore, there are netizens to borrow Sun Honglei starring Liu Huaqiang to complain.
Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo, which are "pressed" by Apple in the high-end market, why are they still unable to replace Huawei, which is mostly localized in the core components, holding Qualcomm's chips, Samsung's screen, and Google's system? Before discussing this problem, we must first find out, what is the reason for domestic mobile phone manufacturers to rush to the high-end in the past two years?
Second, the fundamental reason for sprinting to the high end: the pursuit of profits?
No company will reject the name of "high-end", it can also be said that from the birth of a company, the motivation and end point of its hard work is to one day obtain the title of "high-end brand". The "benefit" behind the high-end is that the super high brand premium.
For example, the South Korean Eland down jacket that was on the hot search some time ago, the "processing cost" of 75 yuan down jacket, can be sold to 1500 yuan. Before the media exposure, the market was fully accepting the price, only because of the slogan - "the dream of 900 million girls". Just by relying on marketing to establish a reputation, you can sit on a 20 times premium income, and the high-end charm can be seen.
And Apple has also established a super giant with a market value of $3 trillion on the high-end market alone, and the reason for its success lies in the brand's high premium. However, the reason why domestic manufacturers sprint to the high-end is for another reason.
In May 2018, vivo officially adjusted the vivo brand attribute from "fashion + technology" to "technology + fashion" at its own supplier conference, redefining the importance of science and technology. In November of the same year, OPPO founder and CEO Chen Mingyong also said that OPPO's R&D budget will be increased from 4 billion yuan to 10 billion yuan. Why did the two mobile phone giants turn their focus to technology in 2018 at the same time? Mobile phone shipment data says it all.
According to the statistics of the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, since 2016, China's mobile phone market has ended a 10-year growth period and entered a decline stage. In 2017, domestic mobile phone shipments fell by 12.3% year-on-year, and in 2018, it fell by another 15.6%. After three consecutive years of overall industry contraction, many small players are on the verge of bankruptcy. At the end of 2018, Meizu, Hammer, and 360 were sharply laid off, and Coolpad, Jin Li, etc. were dying.
As a large manufacturer, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, etc. also have to make plans early, in the case of no increment in the low-end market, full "inner volume", increase R & D investment, impact the high-end market, is the only choice to survive.
Third, domestic mobile phones hit the high-end, what is missing?
So why after Huawei's "fall", none of the domestic mobile phones represented by Xiaomi and OV can withstand the impact of Apple? This reason, OPPO founder Chen Mingyong saw very clearly. In December 2021, at the OPPO Future Technology Conference, Chen Mingyong said: "Without the underlying core technology, there can be no future."
Apple can achieve the debut of the first iPhone that amazes everyone, the key is that it is not lost to the smooth operation of Microsoft's Windows system, and behind this excellent user experience, is Apple's unique IOS ecosystem. In addition to the global Apple unique operating system, Apple's core hardware is also its own. For example, the processor that occupies the largest cost of mobile phones, Apple achieved full autonomy as early as 2010. Since the iPhone 3gs, Apple has begun to apply the independently developed A4 processor, which has long ended the history of being "wooled" by Qualcomm.
In contrast, domestic manufacturers such as OV have been immersed in the low-end gameplay of assembling parts, stacking parameters, and fighting marketing for many years, and their contribution to core technologies, especially self-developed chips, is nearly zero in terms of market contribution. In the short term, sales seem to be tepid, but in the long run, the "power of life and death" is in the hands of upstream suppliers of core components. In layman's terms, in the smartphone industry, it's not how much market share you want to grab, but how much share someone else is allowed to give you.
IV. Conclusion
In another TV series starring Sun Honglei, "Latent", Yu Zecheng, played by Sun Honglei, is in the battlefield behind enemy lines, and the core competitiveness that can survive and gain trust must have at least a jade golden Buddha and a Stipunk brand car in addition to being cautious and cautious.
In the field of mobile phones, the "Jade Golden Buddha" and the "Stipunk brand car" are operating systems and high-end chips. Huawei has developed a "Jade Golden Buddha" called Hongmeng, so can Xiaomi and OV relay Huawei and make a "Stipunk brand car"?