With the rapid development of the mobile Internet, smart phones have been rapidly popularized, update iteration speed is accelerated, product performance is getting stronger and stronger, in the past can only do things on the PC, now smart phones can also meet most of the needs, chat, watch videos, play games and so on the smart phone have a good experience. The functional requirements of PCs have become more and more single, especially notebooks, and neither product form nor interaction mode have undergone fundamental changes in the past decade. From the perspective of insiders, the notebook industry has long entered the "post-Red Sea" era of the stock market.
In such a situation, mobile phone manufacturers are still entering the notebook industry, the purpose of which is to disrupt the situation or break the situation? Mobile phone manufacturers involved in the notebook industry is not a new thing, Huawei, Glory, Xiaomi in the market share has been close to 20%. Since the notebook industry has been considered a sunset industry, why are so many mobile phone manufacturers so persistent? Can the notebook industry succeed at this time?
Mature supply chain system, the achievement of mobile phone manufacturers "made" notebooks
Nowadays, the supply chain system of notebooks is very mature, and it is even possible to obtain a complete set of notebook customization solutions without investing in research and development. For example, ODM foundries such as Guangda, Renbao, Wistron, etc., they can not only OEM for large brands such as Lenovo, but also for small brands, and give corresponding design schemes and complete manufacturing according to customer needs. To put it bluntly, as long as the money is in place, the rest is not called a problem. This custom packaging scheme is commonly known as "OEM". It is precisely because of this that it has given mobile phone manufacturers the basic guarantee for bold entry.
However, if you want to do a good job in notebooks by selling OEM products, it is definitely not OK. In the face of the notebook industry in the Red Sea era, traditional manufacturers such as Lenovo, HP, and Dell have been deeply cultivated for many years. In such a competitive market environment, especially in the high-end flagship notebook market, it is not easy for mobile phone manufacturers to "eat" the market share of the head, and they need to come up with some "hard" strength.
Subverting the traditional way of playing, ecological thinking is coming strongly
Different from the traditional PC manufacturers' ideas for products, mobile phone manufacturers pay more attention to the interaction between different devices and pay more attention to software services when making notebooks. For example, Huawei's multi-screen collaboration, Xiaomi's MIUI+, and realme's cross-level interconnection function have become one of the important selling points of the product.
In this regard, notebook products represented by Huawei have brought new "vitality" to the industry. Breaking through the traditional PC manufacturers' product ideas based on stacked hardware configuration, with the software interaction of "one touch transmission" and "multi-screen collaboration", PCs and mobile phones can not only simply connect and transfer files, but also call the software and hardware of mobile phones on the computer, open up the gap between Windows computers and mobile devices from the bottom of the system, and greatly improve the efficiency of content transmission. Not only has the user experience been greatly improved, but more importantly, an ecosystem has been established.
Huawei takes the "1+8+N" all-scenario intelligent hardware ecosystem strategy as the entrance to create a full-scenario intelligent ecosystem. The "1" in "1+8+N" refers to mobile phones; "8" refers to 8 basic hardware products such as glasses, tablets, PCs, smart screens, watches, speakers, car machines, and headphones; "N" refers to intelligent networking devices such as projectors, printers, and electric bicycles. However, after the implementation of a series of "bans" in the United States, the chip research and development of Huawei mobile phones was blocked, which also directly affected the development of mobile phone business, and had to make Huawei pay more attention to the "8 + N" strategy in the future ecological layout. It can be clearly seen that Huawei's notebook business takes the intelligent hardware ecology as the entry point and takes the notebook as a link in the all-scenario intelligent ecology.
With the "ecological thinking", mobile phone manufacturers and traditional PC manufacturers have shown great advantages in grabbing the "cake". In the domestic notebook market, huawei + glory + millet attack, played a set of strong combination punches. In 2020, for example, the three companies took away nearly 20% of the market share, and the momentum is strong. At the same time, in 2021, realme has also begun to enter the game, focusing on the young people's market and is expected to become a dark horse in the notebook market in 2022.
Affected by the epidemic, the demand for remote work, learning and entertainment has surged, and the personal computer market has ushered in the strongest contrarian growth in recent years. However, with the effective control of the epidemic in the world, especially in China, the society has gradually restored the original production and living order, and people's demand for new computers is no longer there. However, mobile phone manufacturers have opened up interconnection on notebooks, bringing new desire to change books, which is likely to make the stock market grow again.
Traditional PC manufacturers are gradually replaced by the "ecological thinking" of mobile phone manufacturers in the mode of "hardware thinking", and the market share is also being eroded step by step. In the new era of "Internet of Everything" intelligence, manufacturers need to extend their own product industry chain and expand product ecology, which is not available to traditional PC manufacturers. Are PC manufacturers okay in the post-pandemic era?
The moat of traditional PC manufacturers, the defense and attack of the post-epidemic era
"Although mobile phone manufacturers have no small advantage in entering the PC industry to do notebooks, but the PC industry has certain particularities, traditional brands have been working for a long time, whether it is from the brand influence or market segmentation has a clear leadership position, mobile phone brands into the PC industry is difficult to subvert the entire industry." In a publicly reported interview, Xu Qi, vice president of Realme and president of China, said so.
Source: Canalys
Judging from the market data, whether it is Xiaomi, or Huawei and other brands, the market share of their notebooks is still in the Other in the global market, and there is a large room for growth.
Mechanic F117-Si3 laptop
In the face of these new cross-border competitors, what do the "old players" in the industry think? We also interviewed mechanics and heads of Thor who have made great achievements in the field of professional esports notebooks.
Thor Zero laptop
For the challenge launched by mobile phone manufacturers, they all said that they attach great importance to the participation of their opponents, and while expressing respect, they are also very confident in the brand's product strength. Through differentiated track competition, we can give full play to the unique advantages and product strength of the brand.
And global PC leading companies like Lenovo have no fear of new entrants. Lenovo continues to expand its leading advantages with its brand advantages, technical advantages and business synergy advantages.
In terms of supply chain system, Lenovo has 33 factories around the world, using the "global resources + local delivery" operating model, even in the event of a crisis in the supply chain, it can flexibly allocate local production capacity and effectively hedge supply chain risks. In addition, in terms of R&D capabilities, Lenovo has 17 R&D bases around the world, with more than 10,000 engineers, researchers and scientists. In the list of the top 250 patents released by IFI Claims (as of January 2021), Lenovo ranked 82nd and China ranked third. Such anti-risk ability and research and development strength are difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to do.
Because of this, Lenovo has maintained a leading position in the global market share for many years. According to IDC statistics, global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2020 increased by 26.1% year-on-year to 91.6 million units. Among the top three manufacturers, Lenovo's shipments increased by 29% year-on-year, ranking first in the world, and its Q4 market share rose to 25.2%. In addition, Lenovo's market share rose from 7% in 2006 to 24.9% in 2020, the fastest rise, and in the past 3 years the share advantage showed an expanding trend, its market share gap with the second place HP rose from 0.8% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2020, and the leading advantage continued to expand.
Write at the end
With the advent of 5G, the Internet of Everything is ushering in a golden age, multi-device interconnection is about to become the norm, the boundary between devices and devices will continue to expand, and multi-device integration will become a major trend. Under the background of artificial intelligence and big data, the traditional PC industry will usher in major changes, which is bound to bring earth-shaking changes to notebook computers. In the face of such changes, only by grasping the trend of the development of the times can we win the future.