MWC restart after the replenishment and grab food European mobile phone market ushered in a "wheel war"

Every year in February and March, barcelona is the busiest time, since hosting the Mobile World Congress in 2007, it has become a vane for the European market and even the global mobile communications market, in addition to being sought after by global communication operators and mobile phone manufacturers, small partners in the industrial chain, but also has become a "arena" for various cutting-edge technologies.

In the latest official data, although it has experienced two years of "downturn", the flow of people at the venue this year still reached 60,000 people. This figure is still far from the 100,000 people in 2019, but in the complex peripheral environment, MWC, as the "window" of the European market, is still favored by Chinese mobile phone manufacturers.

From the perspective of participation in the exhibition, Huawei is still the manufacturer with the largest booth scale, but the lack of flagship models has blurred the focus of its mobile phones, while OPPO and Xiaomi, which regard Europe as the second center of strategy, have placed the first launch of high-end mobile phones in China, but also brought the latest flash charging and other technologies. In contrast, realme and honor are more active in mobile phone action, the former released a high-end series for the European market for the first time, while the latter debuted a flagship model in Europe for the first time after independence, and the return is full of meaning.

In the view of the analysis agency, in the window period of the mobile phone industry pattern change, the table in the European market is ushering in new players, while making up for the position and grabbing food, it also reflects the cruel survival mirror faced by the current smart phone manufacturers.

Conquest of the European market

Before Europeans were accustomed to Chinese-mixed English, they may have become familiar with Mobile Phone Brands from China, such as Huawei, Lenovo, and TCL.

From CES, MWC to IFA, in the past decade, more and more domestic manufacturers have been active on the stage of international electronics consumer shows, of which domestic mobile phone manufacturers have become regular customers of these exhibitions.

Some overseas media have described the achievements of Chinese manufacturers in the international market as "opening up an 'era of great navigation' in China's mobile phone industry". At that time, under the leadership of Huawei, although China's "mobile phone army" had not yet surpassed Samsung and Apple from the brand, from the perspective of market share, it had gradually approached the above two head manufacturers in the European market.

According to Counterpoint Research data, before the outbreak, the overall market share of Chinese brands in Europe was close to 40%. Among them, Huawei, Xiaomi and OPPO squeezed into the top five of the European market in the fourth quarter of 2019.

The above-mentioned institutions believe that Samsung and Apple have a very strong user base in Europe, especially in the more solidified Western European market, and the brand awareness that is difficult for domestic manufacturers to match, and the competitive barriers they have established are still difficult to be surpassed in a short period of time. However, domestic manufacturers are approaching the share of head manufacturers through more aggressive product strategies and pricing strategies, supplemented by more generous subsidies for channel providers.

After Huawei's "aphasia", the upward momentum of Chinese manufacturers has not weakened, on the contrary, the "filling" of the Blank Market in Europe is more aggressive.

In the latest 2021 European smartphone market share released by the above-mentioned institutions, Xiaomi and OPPO increased by 50% and 94%, while realme and vivo reached 162% and 207% respectively. In the Western European smartphone market, which is counted by another agency, Canalys, shipments of Samsung and Apple in 2021 fell by 13% and 14% year-on-year, respectively, and the share of Xiaomi and OPPO increased by 31% and 94% year-on-year.

Sean, the person in charge of realme, who is responsible for the MWC exhibition site, told the first financial reporter that although the flow of people will be less than in previous years, the attention of overseas markets to products is very high. "For example, our product launch venue has a ceiling of 250 people, and some overseas media can only watch outside the venue, and the seats in the venue are already full."

The relevant person in charge of Honor, who participated in MWC for the first time after independence, told reporters that MWC still represents the highest level of technology today. "We also put the release of honor Magic4 at this exhibition as an important signal to fully enter the overseas market."

Honor CEO Zhao Ming said that the European market is still a "must-fight place", compared with 2021, Glory's total global sales this year are expected to double. "In the fourth quarter of last year, Honor began to officially launch overseas markets, in addition to the Magic 4 series, there are three other products will be released in France and other countries, as soon as March and April Honor will launch a full set of products in Europe."

The European mobile phone market ushered in a "wheel war"

Although the shortage of spare parts continues, the European mobile phone market is ushering in rapid growth as the COVID-19 epidemic gradually improves.

According to Counterpoint Research data, the European smartphone market reversed a 7% decline in shipments in 2020, with shipments reaching an annual growth rate of 1% in 2021. Taking the third quarter of last year as an example, 5G mobile phone sales accounted for half of the overall smartphone sales, up from 14% in the same period of the previous year.

From the price segment, most of the market sales of mid-range smartphones (priced between $250 and $499, about 1580-3160 yuan) are dominated by 5G smartphones, while in the market below $250, the share exceeds 15%, and in 2020, the market share of this price segment is almost zero.

In other words, the official launch of the 5G market in the European market is a new opportunity for Chinese manufacturers, especially in the absence of Huawei, this market will once again usher in the "wheel war" launched by domestic mobile phone manufacturers, but from the perspective of playing, there are different emphases.

Thanks to the high development of the Chinese market, OPPO and vivo mainly copy the playing style of the domestic market, and quickly seize the market share with the first-mover advantage of the high-dimensional market facing the low-dimensional market, and "stabilize" the fundamental disk.

The cost-effective machine sea tactic is the main way for Xiaomi and realme to occupy the European market, with cost-effective models such as Redmi, Redmi Note series and Mi Lite, crushing the Samsung Galaxy A series and other low-end mobile phone products.

Huawei and Honor are still concentrating resources on tackling new technologies and directly attacking the mid-to-high-end market where Apple and Samsung are located. For example, Huawei always put the flagship P series in the first half of the year in Europe before the chip was restricted, and the glory after independence also continued this style, pushing the Magic that served as the flagship main force in the product series to the European battlefield.

For Glory, it is imperative to re-seek the dominance of European discourse through technological iteration and product power. The reporter learned from Honor that on magic4, Honor introduced the HONOR Image Engine image engine into photography, and at the same time jointly developed a dual TEE security system with Qualcomm, aiming at the user privacy issues that European users attach the most importance to.

"Honor is ready for the global market to hit the high end in 2022. We have established an R&D center in France, which is also part of the strategy of product development and development of the French market, first investing in R&D and then marketing. Zhao Ming said that more than half of the more than 11,000 employees are R&D personnel, and countries and regions outside China also have 6 major R&D centers in the world, two of which are located in France and Japan.

In the view of analysts, the European market is not an unfamiliar market for most Chinese manufacturers and brands, and in the era of stock competition in the global smartphone market, the European market will become a new battlefield for Chinese manufacturers to compete with Apple and Samsung.

"The bottlenecks and challenges that Chinese manufacturers will encounter in the development of the European market still exist, mainly in brand image building and channel relationship maintenance." Canalys research analyst Liu Yixuan told reporters that the European market, especially Western Europe, is dominated by operators, and the channel requires manufacturers to invest heavily in marketing in the local market, such as sponsoring sports events, investing in TV advertising, etc. to establish a brand image and show channel customers the determination to deepen the local market.

"With large investment in the early stage, how to stabilize the brand market position in the development process, and how to balance investment and revenue in the long run are very important challenges and issues for Chinese manufacturers." Liu Yixuan said.