[CNMO] Since smartphones became the most popular terminals, for a long time, mobile phone companies and notebook companies do not seem to have much intersection. On the one hand, in the days when the mobile phone industry is in full swing and rolling into each other, the notebook industry seems to be very Buddhist, the two sides are clear, and the well water does not violate the river water. But I don't know when to start, mobile phone companies have released notebook products.
Notebook manufacturers have been involved in many mobile phone industries, but few have succeeded (source from the Network)
Although at present, the notebook products released by mobile phone manufacturers usually focus on the selling point of business portability, and have not yet touched the core product line of notebook manufacturers, but in recent years, Huawei's notebook sales in China have shown steady growth, and have distributed the market share of some notebook manufacturers, as more and more mobile phone manufacturers begin to get involved in the notebook industry, with their own unique advantages, with the concept of terminal ecology, attracting more and more users. For this situation, the notebook industry must also be aware of it, suddenly dreaming back to ten years ago, because it was in that year that domestic non-operator custom machines or Internet brand mobile phones were also so prominent, shaking the former hegemonic brand of the mobile phone industry.
Former "China Cool Union" Lectra foreign brand (image source from the Network)
The "China Cool Union" era has created an excellent start for domestic mobile phones to seize the foreign brand market, and has also made Internet brands such as Xiaomi and Meizu have fertile soil, and also let many computer brands have the idea of expanding their mobile phone product lines. In addition to lenovo, which originally dominated the mobile phone industry, there are Shenzhou, Asus, Acer (acer) in China, and Dell, HP, and even Microsoft and Intel abroad, all of which have been involved in the mobile phone industry and have also launched products, the results are obvious, but from the reasons why they encountered obstacles, we can summarize several common characteristics.
Heavy brand light experience PC thinking transformation is difficult
Time back to 2010, when the entire PC industry has not yet shown a downward trend, including notebooks, PC products are still the main revenue of major notebook manufacturers. The smart phone business is only a mature "possibility" business, the smart phone market at that time is still controlled by Nokia, Motorola, Lenovo, ZTE and other head brands, other mobile phone manufacturers can also achieve a basic balance through the user base accumulated before, so notebook manufacturers with smart phone business can also pay more attention to the PC business.
Mobile phone systems pay more attention to the experience (image source from the network)
At that time, Android had not yet emerged, and iOS was still well known. Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Phone systems carried the early banner of smartphones. Compared with Symbian, Windows Phone is closer to people's expectations for intelligent systems, but because of this, Microsoft still uses the PC mode in the development of Windows Phone, resulting in Windows Phone in many cases like a computer system directly copied into the phone, and has not been effectively optimized for the phone, and the sense of use is crossed. This also gives other systems a chance. Perhaps to their surprise, by 2011, Apple and Samsung occupied nearly 50% of the market share, and the profit share gradually stabilized at more than 90%, and the Android system grew from 1.6% in 2011 to 80% of the market share. It was at that time that many manufacturers with mobile phone business realized that the new era of smart phones has arrived, and this small handheld device will become the most potential and the most brutal "city" in the future.
The upstream and downstream complete TOB users are sufficient
As we all know, the manufacturing industry is very dependent on the upstream and downstream industrial chain, and the notebook manufacturers in the core position of the industry and the upstream supply chain have experienced a long period of accumulation and run-in, so in the notebook components, the notebook manufacturers will have greater advantages than the mobile phone manufacturers, including raw material supply, price control on the notebook manufacturers have more say. For mobile phone manufacturers, it is still necessary to use a higher price to purchase raw materials, but the price should be lower than that of traditional notebook manufacturers, and the profit margin on the notebook itself is not high, and the net profit of mobile phone manufacturers will also be pressed again and again.
Upstream and downstream channels are the advantages of notebook manufacturers (the source of the picture comes from the network)
Also in the downstream channels, notebook manufacturers adopt the most classic 4P (product, price, promotion, channel) marketing model in the industry, through a specific customer group, stable agents and relatively fixed sales channels to form a huge sales network. Especially in toB users, the B-end customers accumulated in the whole machine era provide a stable sales outlet for traditional notebook manufacturers, and this part of the customer is difficult to intervene in the notebook for today's mobile phone manufacturers, so the notebook products produced by mobile phone manufacturers can only compete for share in the C-end user market.
But this also makes it easy for notebook manufacturers to ignore the potential crisis, the long-term "market maker" role, so that notebook manufacturers in the face of industry challengers will be somewhat taken lightly, especially the head of the notebook brand in the face of the mobile phone manufacturers gradually invaded the edge of the market response is slower, may take a period of observation, traditional notebook manufacturers will have some action
Technical weakness Core technology control
Intel and AMD still control the X86 architecture (source from the network)
In fact, from this point of view, the notebook manufacturer's today may be the tomorrow of the mobile phone manufacturer. Because the operating system of personal computers to today, most of them are still using Microsoft's Windows system, the system is based on the X86 architecture, and the company that can manufacture X86 architecture chips is currently only Intel, AMD, via three companies, not a technical problem, but in the patent. So this also leads to notebook manufacturers must use Intel and AMD chips to meet the needs of consumers for daily use. Therefore, the main research and development of notebook manufacturers that we can see is still in the heat dissipation technology, power efficiency and other appearance functions, and the core technology is really very little contact.
ARM open architecture brings more possibilities for mobile phone chips (image source from the network)
In contrast, the restrictions of mobile phone manufacturers are much less, although the common mobile phone chip manufacturers on the market are only Qualcomm Snapdragon, MediaTek, Samsung chip Exynos and Huawei Kirin, which also shows the feasibility of self-research of mobile phone manufacturers' chips. Although the architecture of the mobile phone chip is also controlled by ARM, because in order to compete with X86, ARM has long opened up the use of the architecture, so that the compatibility of different chips for different manufacturers to customize Android can also be achieved, which also leaves more room for mobile phone manufacturers to customize their own products. In recent years, mobile phone manufacturers have also promoted the development of the entire technology industry for the "inner volume" of network connection, photography, fast charging, biometrics and other technologies.
Enterprises that do not have technology to lead the industry
Notebook manufacturers will mostly take the comprehensive coverage of users as the main purpose when formulating product strategies, which will not only expand the audience of products, but also reduce the research and development costs faced by multiple product lines. But this also makes it difficult for notebook products of different brands to have a fixed cognition in the minds of users. At present, the most important notebook products on the market are portable business books and game books, as well as comprehensive notebooks, in addition to a single consumer, a large amount of revenue also comes from group procurement, so it can still maintain a high growth momentum in a short period of time. The same reason, so that many notebook manufacturers in the research and development of inertia, are the supply chain "to eat", the configuration of similar products, as long as the marketing in place, selling is not a problem. In terms of marketing, mobile phone manufacturers are still much younger than notebook manufacturers, after all, they are also "old rivers and lakes" that have experienced hundreds of battles.
And mobile phone manufacturers since birth has been in the process of continuous progress, Apple's iPhone has been the target of all Android mobile phone manufacturers to catch up, from insufficient performance to performance beyond, domestic mobile phone manufacturers in this process continue to chase, but also promote the progress of iPhone function, full competition in the market under the enterprise can have stronger competitiveness, the law of survival in the mobile phone market embodied vividly. In order to survive, each manufacturer must have some strengths, Apple, Huawei's comprehensive self-development capabilities, Xiaomi's control of costs and the recent advent of surging control chips, as well as the new technology research and development of batteries and cameras by many manufacturers, so that the mobile phone industry blooms, but also allows consumers to have more choices, thus promoting brand loyalty.
Ecological construction is an important way for mobile phone manufacturers to maintain core customers (image source from the network)
Not only in terms of hardware technology, but also in software technology. In order to better retain these clustered owners, mobile phone manufacturers began to promote the construction of the ecology from a single terminal to multiple terminals, Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, especially prominent in the construction of the ecology, from mobile phones to tablets, from IoT smart homes to in-vehicle systems, and finally came to the notebook market, which is not inevitable. A good ecology is not only the smooth interaction and sharing between multiple screens, but also the user's pursuit of a seamless experience during use.
This is beyond the reach of traditional notebook manufacturers, perhaps it is not obvious now, when mobile phone manufacturers have the same channels, supply chain resources, will traditional notebook manufacturers really repeat the same mistakes?
Therefore, notebook manufacturers in the mobile phone in addition to retaining their own advantages in all aspects, but also pay attention to the changes in the market and user habits, cohesion can be targeted. In addition, in the research and development of notebook manufacturers' technology also has a pivotal role in the entire field of science and technology, for example, as of March 31, 2021, Lenovo Group has registered a total of 21658 authorized patents, and its product design for notebook heat dissipation in recent years is definitely called the "top stream" in the industry, so if the notebook brand also plays its own design gene when making mobile phones, or try to cooperate with mobile phone brands may also be a good choice. Of course, if you can quickly activate your original users, it is better to build an ecosystem.
Fortunately, there are still many traditional notebook manufacturers sticking to the mobile phone product line, including the above-mentioned Apple, Samsung, and the current overlord of the notebook industry, Lenovo, the new noble ROG (player country) and so on. They are either unique in the mobile phone notebook industry, or focus on technology and product research and development, or on the one hand, they insist on their absolute status while catching up, which is admirable. After all, for consumers, we don't want to see a dominant phenomenon, only competition can promote greater progress.