Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
2022 for domestic mobile phone companies, is a year full of variables and challenges, the domestic mobile phone penetration rate has increased to 116.3 per hundred people, much higher than the global average of 104.3, in the face of such a huge mobile phone stock market, low growth rate or even negative growth will become the main theme and normalization of the domestic mobile phone market in the future.
Now the strength of mobile phone companies are relatively strong, coupled with many new and returned companies, so the follow-up competition will be more intense, especially in the low-end market is more crowded, and its degree of competition can even be described as fierce.
In the post-Huawei era, the pattern of the mobile phone market is accelerating
In the context of the gradual recovery of the domestic consumer market, the overall sales of smart phones last year can be described as decent, and data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that the sales of smart phones in the domestic market last year were about 351 million units, an increase of 13.9% year-on-year.
However, the growth rate in the first and second half of the year is somewhat different from previous years, CINNO Research's monitoring data shows that the proportion of mobile phone sales in the first half of the year reached 51.5%, while the second half of the year was originally a traditional peak season but showed a downward trend in sales, and the data of the Institute of Information and Communications Technology also showed that the shipment of domestic smart phones in 2020 was a sharp decline of 20.4% year-on-year.
It can be seen that the first half of last year is to make up for the recovery of the previous year's sales decline, so in the traditional off-season out of a wave of high traffic rhythm, and the market performance in the second half of last year shows that the domestic mobile phone market is still in a state of bottoming and adjustment, with the continuous recovery of the mobile phone consumer market this year, the gradual stabilization of chip supply and the acceleration of 5G construction, this year's mobile phone market will show a steady progress, steady and rising trend.
In the post-Huawei era, Huawei's mobile phone market share has dropped from 36% in 2020 to less than 10% last year, and the big cake that Huawei has let go has been basically cut by other mobile phone manufacturers, most of which are high-end flagship markets are pocketed by Apple, and now Apple's domestic high-end market is already at a glance, and other mobile phone manufacturers are difficult to match.
The low-end market is mainly divided by OPPO, VIVO, Millet and the glory of the successful return to the head camp, especially it is worth mentioning that last year's glory of the return road is also relatively successful, step by step glory is not only the frequent emergence of new machines, but also its mobile phone sales and market share is also rising, glory's comeback directly changed the domestic mobile phone market pattern in the second half of last year.
Counterpoint data show that in the third quarter of last year, Honor's sales volume increased by as much as 96% month-on-month, and jumped to the third place with a market share of 15%, the performance was particularly dazzling, in the fourth quarter of last year, Honor ranked second with a market share of 17%, and for the first time it became the leader of the Android mobile phone camp, which also made a good start for this year's performance.
Glory's biggest advantage is to uphold the original business ideas, product styles, brand channels and other characteristics, and at the same time completed the company's transformation last year, into the new concept and style, thereby strengthening the competitive advantage of the enterprise, but glory to go further, but also need to experience a long period of R & D investment and brand accumulation.
After the rapid expansion in the second half of last year, the pace of progress of honor mobile phones this year will gradually slow down, after all, it is not easy to further seize the share from other powerful brands, but according to Counterpoint forecasts, the sales growth rate of honor mobile phones this year will still reach more than 40%.
High-end is the only way for the upward development of the product brand
In February this year, Xiaomi's high-end strategy seminar made it clear that the high-end road is the only way for Xiaomi to grow, Xiaomi will unswervingly implement the high-end strategy, on the road of brand high-end, not only Xiaomi, other domestic mobile phone brands are equally urgent.
Looking at the overall situation, the current low-end market competition is too fierce, the high-end market is very profitable but Apple is the only one, there is no domestic brand that can become a direct competitor of Apple, the high-end flagship products of domestic mobile phone brands have not yet been fully recognized by the market, and to enhance and consolidate the brand's market influence in the high-end field, it takes a lot of time and energy to patiently precipitate.
Therefore, this year's domestic brand upward road will still be full of hardships, and the strength gap between mobile phone brands in technology research and development is not large, and the same grade products launched by various companies do not have much difference in performance configuration, so taking the high-end route also needs to find another way.
From the perspective of the technology development trend in the past two years, in addition to Apple, folding screen mobile phones have become a big move in the next two years of mobile phone brands are brewing, DSCC's research report also shows that it is expected that the sales of folding screen mobile phones this year will usher in explosive growth, Huawei, OPPO, Glory, Millet and other mainstream companies are in full swing to develop or launch corresponding products.
Perhaps the folding screen mobile phone will have the hope of becoming a bridge for domestic mobile phone brands to compete for market share and enter the high-end market, such as huawei and OPPO at the end of last year have released the folding flagship mobile phone P50 pocket and OPPO Find N, after the listing is in a state of short supply, followed by Glory in January this year also launched the Glory Magic V.
From the perspective of high-end mobile phone market sales strategy, in addition to focusing on the domestic market, entering the overseas market, especially the European market is also a shortcut for domestic brands to go up, just like Huawei at that time, the huge, open and inclusive European market can provide a diversified display stage for domestic brands, in March this year, the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC) will be held in Barcelona, Spain, which is naturally a good opportunity for various domestic brands to display technical strength and enhance brand image.
"Yu see column" believes that in general, the most fundamental path to the brand upwards is to be led by technology, and gradually establish a high-end advanced technology and brand image in the minds of consumers, at present, it seems that starting from self-developed chips seems to be a good way to compete for the high-end market, which is like when Huawei launched HiSilicon chips, so last year all mobile phone head companies joined the ranks of independent research and development chips.
However, this road is both difficult and there is no shortcut to go, and it also requires companies to spend a lot of time to complete the gradual precipitation and accumulation of technology and products, because this is not to say that the launch of one or two chips can have an immediate effect and immediately let the market recognize, but it requires enterprises to innovate from generation to generation, and develop more technologically advanced chips to improve the consumer experience, not only chips, but also the configuration performance of mobile phones from other components to the whole machine.
Only by grasping every detail of the mobile phone, enterprises can truly establish the differentiated competitive advantage of the product and continuously strengthen the brand stickiness, the current mobile phone head enterprise and Huawei's technical advantages in chips at that time, the gap is still relatively large, still in its infancy, but from the perspective of establishing a long-term competitive advantage, self-developed components are the road that enterprises must take in the process of moving towards high-end.
New brands enter the game, old brands return, and this year's mobile phone market is bound to be more exciting
5G mobile phone will become the main driving force of this year's mobile phone market, the current construction of domestic 5G base stations continue to advance steadily, as of the end of last year, the mainland's 5G communication network has covered all prefecture-level cities in the country, more than 98% of counties and more than 80% of the central area of townships, the number of domestic built and opened 5G base stations reached more than 1.4 million, accounting for more than 70% of the total number of global 5G base stations.
It can be said that around the commercial operation of 5G, the mainland has woven a world's largest and most technologically advanced 5G communication network, which has laid a solid foundation for the accelerated popularization of 5G technology this year and the further iterative upgrading of 5G mobile phones, as of the end of last year, the scale of domestic mobile phone users was 1.643 billion households, of which 4G and 5G users reached 1.069 billion and 355 million respectively, which shows that the ownership of domestic 4G mobile phones is still very huge.
Therefore, in the next few years, with the gradual elimination of old models in the hands of users, coupled with the accelerated popularity of 5G mobile phones, the domestic mobile phone market still has a relatively stable sales dividend period, such as last year's shipments of 5G mobile phones were 266 million units, a substantial increase of 63.5% year-on-year, accounting for about three-quarters of last year's total mobile phone shipments.
In addition to the huge volume and vast market, the domestic mobile phone market is still a very high-quality industry in general, because the consumption potential and consumption capacity of the domestic market are in the forefront of the world.
For example, in recent years, the highest price range of domestic mobile phone sales is in the range of 1000-3000 yuan, and the sales volume accounts for more than 50% to 60%, which has been able to ensure that manufacturers can obtain sufficient revenue and stable profits, coupled with the high-end mobile phone market with more lucrative prospects, it is enough to make many enterprises outside the circle eager to try.
Because of this, there are still many variables in the domestic mobile phone market that has already entered the Red Sea, in addition to glory, the entry of mobile phone veteran Coolpad, LeTV, auto brand Geely and other enterprises will undoubtedly bring more surprises to consumers.
In particular, the future mobile phone is no longer just a communication tool, but based on the digital new economy and intelligent interconnection technology traffic entrance, the future who can grasp a sufficient scale of mobile phone market share, who can occupy the mobile ecological industry chain of the first hand and initiative, which is why the domestic mobile phone market competition is extremely fierce, but it is still the reason why the cloud.
epilogue
"Yu see column" believes that this year's domestic mobile phone market compared with last year, the total amount will not change much, the only variable is the ranking of each head brand, the primary task of each mobile phone company this year should be stable, stabilize their own basic disk, because everyone's strength and scale are very strong, unless the company has obvious strategic mistakes, otherwise it is impossible to be eaten too much market share.
Only under the premise of stabilizing the basic card, enterprises can consider how to tap more market share, and in the jianghu of mobile phones, if you want to become a top master, you can only unremittingly take the road of high-end, which must be a painful and need to continue to accumulate and invest in the process, but the opportunity will always exist, as long as you climb the top of the mountain, it will bring great changes to yourself and the industry.