Source of this article: Times Weekly Author: Zheng Xutong Qi Xin
The iPad is becoming a "scarce product."
On February 24, the Times Weekly reporter saw in Apple's Jingdong self-operated flagship store that two iPads below 4,000 yuan were not in stock. In the official flagship store of Apple Tmall, some consumers need to wait for nearly two months to receive the goods after placing an order for an iPad, "waiting for more than 50 days, waiting until they forgot to buy an iPad."
The iPad is out of stock, which is related to Apple's capacity adjustment. According to media reports, Apple has drastically cut iPad production and distributed more chips and components to the iPhone 13 series.
Insufficient supply of iPads has left opportunities for domestic mobile phone manufacturers. This year, a number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers launched their own tablet products to find new growth points outside of mobile phones.
On the evening of February 24, OPPO released the first tablet, OPPO Pad; Hu Baishan, executive vice president of Vivo, also revealed that Vivo's first tablet will be launched in the first half of this year; Honor's new tablet is also expected to be listed this year. Coupled with old players such as Xiaomi and Huawei, this year's mainstream domestic mobile phone manufacturers will enter the tablet market.
On February 24, Guo Tianxiang, senior analyst at IDC China, told the Times Weekly reporter that the epidemic in 2020 will promote the recovery of the domestic tablet pc market, and as the impact of the epidemic weakens, the market demand has not declined, and the domestic tablet market shipments will continue to grow in 2022. At present, the most important products of domestic manufacturers are still concentrated in the 2000~3000 yuan file, and it is difficult to compete with Apple's iPad Pro in the high-end market in the short term.
The iPad is out of stock
In the past two years, the demand for tablets has continued to increase. IDC data shows that the year-on-year growth rate of global tablet market shipments turned negative to positive in 2020, reaching 13%, and the growth rate in 2021 was 3%. The domestic market for tablet PCs is also in a state of rapid rise, with shipments in 2020 and 2021 increasing by 4% and 22% year-on-year, respectively.
Demand has climbed, but under the influence of the epidemic, Apple, the world's largest tablet shipment, has been allocating iPad production capacity to iPhones many times since last year due to supply chain restrictions.
The Times Weekly reporter found that apple in the mainstream e-commerce platform official flagship store recently has no iPad in stock, Apple Tmall official flagship store shows that the new iPad, iPad mini delivery time is "within 36 days" and "29 days".
The same stock-out situation also appeared offline. On February 22, a clerk of an Apple flagship store near Nanjing East Road in Shanghai's Huangpu District told the Times Weekly reporter that a variety of iPads need to be booked, and the iPad Air, iPad Pro and iPad mini are booked on the same day, and they will arrive on March 2, March 9 and March 23 respectively.
iPad is out of stock, many consumers have switched to domestic tablets, and some domestic brand tablet products have ushered in a wave of sales boom.
"Recently, many people have bought tablets, because the notebook is too heavy, and many people choose to use the tablet instead of the notebook office. Young people buy the MatePad 11, which focuses on learning office, etc., and the elderly prefer the cheap and compact MatePad 10.4. A Huawei salesman told the Times Weekly reporter.
"The domestic market ended its multi-year downward trend before the outbreak of the epidemic, and user demand recovered. In 2021, the supply problems of domestic tablet PC manufacturers improved, and after the release of the "double reduction" policy, the anxiety of some parents once again pushed up market demand. As the market improves, each company re-tablets the market. Guo Tianxiang said.
From the intensive pace of new product release in the past year, it can be seen that domestic mobile phone manufacturers have the confidence to enter the tablet market. In August 2021, Xiaomi released the new tablet Xiaomi Tablet 5 again after 3 years; Huawei released the new MateBook E for notebook and tablet two-in-one last year; honor also released the new tablet V7. In 2022, OPPO and vivo will also enter the tablet market.
On February 22, a Huawei clerk told the Times Weekly reporter that according to the rhythm of product updates, the MatePad Pro 10.8 is expected to be new in June this year.
Domestic tablets are chasing
In addition to the growth of market demand, domestic mobile phone manufacturers value tablets and also consider expanding product categories. On February 24, Navers analyst Li Huaibin told the Times Weekly reporter that at present, it is difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to seek growth in the mobile phone market, and expanding tablets, headphones, notebooks, watches and other products has become a major direction to break the situation. The difference between mobile phones and tablets is small, and manufacturers are also easy to copy the experience of making mobile phones to making tablets.
Guo Tianxiang told the Times Weekly reporter that before the outbreak of the epidemic, the positioning of the tablet was "between the mobile phone and the PC", and the non-rigid scenes such as partial video and audio entertainment were affected by the large screen of smart phones, and the demand for tablets has not been high. Apple and Huawei have previously begun to guide tablets to the direction of "light productivity tools" in order to increase the demand for rigid use of tablets. Under the influence of the epidemic, tablets have been given new use functions such as online education.
At present, mobile phone manufacturers are still trying to give tablets more use scenarios. Apple, Huawei, Xiaomi and other main tablet products are equipped with stylus that is easy to work and learn. OPPO released the OPPO Pad at the same time, but also with the launch of a stylus and intelligent magnetic keyboard.
The multi-screen collaboration function that is convenient for office has become the standard for almost all mobile phone manufacturers to newly launch tablets. For example, OPPO Pad can realize split screen, parallel windows, and cross-screen interconnection with mobile phones; Honor V7 can realize file transfer, cross-screen interconnection, etc.; Huawei MatePad Pro can open up cross-screen collaboration between tablets and hongmeng system products such as mobile phones, computers, and smart screens.
For domestic mobile phone manufacturers, it is not difficult to cut into the tablet market, but it is very difficult to snatch considerable market share from Apple.
At present, Apple's tablet product line includes iPad, iPad mini, iPad Pro, iPad Air, and the price covers 2400~17700 yuan.
Huawei, the mobile phone manufacturer with the most complete product line in China, owns MatePad, MatePad 11, MatePad Pro, and MateBook E, and the price limit is 9,000 yuan.
The product line of the rest of the mobile phone manufacturers is still in the initial stage, such as the Xiaomi Tablet 5, the Honor Tablet V7 series, the price is in 2000 ~ 3700 yuan.
Guo Tianxiang pointed out that the tablet is the market where Apple has an absolute advantage, the product coverage is comprehensive, and the most important products of domestic manufacturers can only be concentrated in the 2000 to 3000 yuan file, competing for apples that do not cover the low-end market. Due to the similarity of hardware solutions of domestic manufacturers and the heavy dependence on the supply chain, it is difficult for domestic tablet products to compete with the iPad Pro in the short term.
However, in cultivating consumers, domestic mobile phone manufacturers also have unique advantages. Li Huaibin told the Times Weekly reporter that the advantage of domestic mobile phone manufacturers lies in opening up the same software ecology, and users who are accustomed to using a certain brand of mobile phones are easier to migrate to the same brand of tablet products.
At present, Apple's iPad production capacity is insufficient and continues to be out of stock, which is a good time for domestic manufacturers to grab consumers.