Many people may have heard of a major event in the industry in recent times: VIVO's high-end sub-brand NEX ushered in major changes. In a recent internal restructuring, Vivo abolished the NEX business unit and its subordinate organizations. The official said in a brief statement that many of the experiences and missions of the original NEX series will be carried by the current X series.
This means that vivo NEX, a product series that once carried many "black technology" and "futuristic" labels, has officially pressed the pause button.
Ill-fated vivo NEX
It is not an exaggeration to describe the NEX series as ill-fated. During its four-year life cycle, the first two years were pinned on high hopes, and the last two years faced a halt. Just as its product name originated from "NEXT", the initial vivo integrated many industry-cutting solutions and technologies into the NEX series of products, which also made it have some "concept machine" flavor.
Take the first generation of vivo NEX, when it took the lead in the industry to implement a "true full screen" solution. In the context of the industry that widely used bangs or waterdrop screens at that time, NEX achieved a screen ratio of more than 91% by introducing a lifting front camera and screen fingerprints. Later, vivo brought new screen solutions such as dual screen and waterfall screen to the NEX series.
NeX undoubtedly has a lot of "technical verification" considerations. Vivo once admitted that NEX's mission is to continuously deduce the future form of mobile phone products and gradually realize the interaction mode from intelligence to wisdom. From this definition, it is not an exaggeration to call it a "concept machine".
In the same period, products with similar missions are not only vivo NEX, but also domestic mainstream mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi, OPPO, Honor, etc. have launched the same type of products. For example, the well-known Xiaomi MIX, OPPO Find X and Honor Magic products have made some highly exploratory attempts around the design form of mobile phones, especially the screen. From the perspective of time nodes, these concept machines were launched in 2016-2018.
Looking at these products now, we can see that their product mission and attributes have quietly changed. In addition to NEX, Xiaomi MIX, OPPO Find X, and Honor Magic have now been "corrected" and have become the main flagship series in their respective product camps. They are not only more stable in the rhythm of product updates, but also derive some side products, such as three folding screen products - Xiaomi MIX FOLD, OPPO Find N and Honor Magic V.
Although the subsequent launches of the same series of products inherit the mantle of the original concept machine from the naming, it can be clearly seen that the successors are more inclined to the mainstream in product and positioning, and have less "concept" and "exploration" meaning.
From this point of view, vivo has a certain inevitability to make adjustments to the NEX product line. As far as the actions of each company on the corresponding products are concerned, this is obviously not an isolated case. Each concept machine not only has a certain convergence at the product and positioning level, but also has a bit of a different meaning in the final outcome.
We can't help but ask: Why is this happening?
A microcosm of high-end
Before answering "why", you first need to understand "what"?
In the final analysis, whether it is vivo NEX or Xiaomi MIX, OPPO Find X, Honor Magic, the most important factor for their emergence is the high-end market strategy implemented by these mobile phone brands in the past few years.
The P9 series launched by Huawei in 2016 is regarded as a landmark model of the high-end and globalization of domestic mobile phone brands. At that time, Huawei reorganized its flagship products and established a strategy of dual flagships of the P series and Mate series. In the P9 series products released that year, through the video cooperation with Leica, Gal Gadot, Scarlett Johansson endorsement and other initiatives, Huawei quickly established the status of the P series high-end Android flagship and gained market recognition.
This time point in 2016 coincides with the release time of Xiaomi MIX, Honor Magic and other products. In the long run, OPPO Find X and vivo NEX were also born within the time period of mainstream domestic brands to fully open high-end and lay out the globalization strategy.
That is to say, the emergence of the concept machine is actually a microcosm of the high-end strategy of mobile phone manufacturers.
The core of the so-called high-end strategy is actually the differentiation of product experience. At that time, after many rounds of competition, the mobile phone industry faced the homogenization characteristics of product experience and upstream supply level. In this context, to make an experience difference, mobile phone manufacturers need to find another way, seeking some new paths and product thinking.
The decentralization of some cutting-edge software and hardware solutions in advance, while making relatively aggressive innovations around some core configurations and key functions, has become the first choice for companies in defining high-end product lines. At that time, the entire mobile phone market was chasing the "screen ratio", so "how to achieve a real full screen" became the common choice of this batch of early concept machines.
Judging from the final result, they can be said to have fulfilled their mission very well.
Vivo NEX sold more than 2 million units half a year after its release, helping vivo firmly stand in the 4000+ flagship price range; Xiaomi MIX became a milestone product in Xiaomi's history; oppo Find X released at the Louvre in Paris started at 4999 yuan; even the most "concept" of Glory Magic, many technologies and solutions were inherited by the later Glory high-end flagship.
In the process of domestic mobile phones impacting the high-end, the concept machine is indispensable.
The root cause of the gradual exit
Since seeking a breakthrough in the high-end flagship market through these concept machines has proved to be a fruitful way, why should we gradually cut them now, or dilute their existence?
The reason is actually high-end.
As mentioned earlier, the differentiated product experience is the core of the domestic mobile phone brand's pursuit of high-end strategy, and the root of the differentiated experience competition is actually the technological innovation ability of mobile phone manufacturers.
To say that the technology and hardware and software solutions of these early concept machines are "supply chain technology" and "innovation for the sake of innovation" is obviously biased. However, it must be admitted that these "dot-like distribution" software and hardware innovation solutions available in the early concept machines are not enough to constitute a moat for the core experience or support its long-term brand strategy.
A typical example is the flexible OLED, lifting lens, screen fingerprint and other technologies born around the full screen, which have been fully popularized soon after the maturity of the industrial chain. These technical solutions, which could only be seen on the concept fuselage of four or five thousand yuan, were deployed on some thousand yuan machines or even hundred yuan machines in a very short period of time. Under the empowerment of the more and more mature mobile phone industry system, the time period left for concept machines to maintain product differentiation is getting shorter and shorter.
The continuous evolution of the high-end strategy requires that the innovation of mobile phone manufacturers must go to the "deep water area". This prompts domestic mobile phone manufacturers to gradually expand to a lower level and more core technology at the level of technology and research and development. Through the establishment of a large-scale technology research and development team, continue to increase R & D investment, in recent years, each company has begun to focus on self-developed chips, images, fast charging, systems, screens and other aspects of technical research and underlying innovation.
After several years of development, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have completed a certain accumulation in the high-end flagship market. The mission of the original "concept machine" has also changed from "seeking breakthroughs" to "comprehensive broadening" and "consolidating achievements". In this context, its market positioning must also be adjusted: to pursue stronger universality, it is necessary to tilt towards more mainstream markets and user groups. As a result, it can be seen that the concept machine has gradually stepped off the altar and begun to tend to the mainstream.
There is also an inherent factor that after comprehensively strengthening the underlying R & D investment, mobile phone brands also need to quickly deploy these technology research and development results to larger shipments of product lines to dilute huge R & D costs, a mission that is difficult to achieve with a relatively narrow audience.
The mission of exploring black technology and concept technology on the original concept fuselage can use the folding screen product line that has not yet been widely popularized to do some exploration and testing, which is undoubtedly a more cost-effective and reasonable choice. OPPO Find N, Honor Magic V, Xiaomi MIX FOLD and the vivo folding screen that will soon come out , Butterfly , all follow this line of thinking.
Starting at the high end and ending at the high end, it is a definition and annotation of these former concept machines.
Their rise and retirement are a symbol and symbol of the gradual maturity of China's mobile phone industry. For many industry enthusiasts, their disappearance does make the mobile phone market less interesting and interesting. But from the perspective of the development of the industry, this is also the trend of the times, not to the will of anyone.
In a sense, these concept machines are not really withering away. The original technology and innovation genes in them have been inherited by the subsequent product system and transformed into real products and experiences. Gradually stripping away the original "concept" attributes at the product level and focusing on the research and development of innovative technologies is the key to a virtuous circle of the entire industry.