"I want to buy an 'apple.'"
Since the release of the iPhone13, colleagues around me have always been obsessed with changing apple phones, but its price has always remained high, and finally can only sigh.
With a smooth operating system and advanced chips, Apple can be said to have gained a lot of "fruit powder", but most consumers will often discourage the idea because of its high price. Recently, that seems to be changing.
At two o'clock in the morning of March 9, Apple's spring new product launch came as scheduled. At the press conference, Apple officially launched the iPhone SE, a new low-end machine.
The iPhone SE2022 of the iPhone SE series is regarded as the cheapest 5G Apple phone in history, and according to official disclosures, it will be officially launched as early as March 18, priced at $429 (about 2710 yuan).
On social platforms, some netizens joked: Apple has reduced prices, what do I want Huawei to do?
It cannot be denied that in most cases, consumers who do not contradict apples will most likely choose apples in the context of the same price. For domestic mobile phones, Apple's entry into the mid-range market has undoubtedly brought new variables, and an invisible war is beginning.
Apple opened the road to low-end attack
The theme of the Apple conference is "high-energy transmission", and as last year, the event continues to be carried out in the form of online, and the iPhone SE launched again after two years has pushed the conference to a climax.
According to the information released by Apple at the press conference, the iPhone SE2022 once again refreshed Apple's lowest price at a price of 2710 yuan. Although Apple has tried to reduce the price before, whether it is the plastic shell of the iPhone 5C, or the earliest iPhone SE, the price has never been as affordable as the iPhone SE 2022. Why is apple, which is positioned at the high end, selling cheaper and cheaper?
According to the data released by the research institute, Apple's market share in the domestic high-end mobile phone market has increased to 83.6%, and the huge market share makes it impossible for Apple to continue to achieve breakthroughs in the high-end market.
Although Huawei faded out of the market due to supply constraints, Apple temporarily shrugged off important competitors and occupied most of the high-end mobile phone market, but Apple's overall development trend in the high-end market is still weak. Especially in 2020, Apple's global market share fell by 7%. In stark contrast, the high-end market share of domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, OPPO, and OnePlus has increased internationally.
In short, the development space that Apple has in the high-end market is accelerating and tightening.
To this end, Apple has set its sights on the low-end product line and achieved results in the low-end machine attempt. According to Apple's 2020 financial report statistics, in the second quarter, Apple's iPhone SE accounted for 19% of the sales of the iPhone series, of which 26% switched from Android devices. Judging from the domestic reaction, the popularity of the iPhone SE is also higher than previously expected. PhoneSE2 was listed for more than ten days, and sales exceeded the results of many domestic flagship mobile phones in the past two or three months.
In recent years, Apple's mobile phone product line strategy has gradually become clear, that is, by launching mid-range mobile phones, the market has continued from the high-end to the mid-range. Apple hopes to use an aggressive pricing strategy to cover a wider range of user groups, help its software ecosystem develop, and bring long-term service revenue.
The beginning of a new catfish effect?
On the one hand, Apple's soaring progress, on the other hand, is the difficult situation of domestic mobile phones. Affected by the epidemic, the domestic mobile phone industry generally lacks high-end chips, and Qualcomm, as the world's largest chip manufacturer, has pinched domestic mobile phone manufacturers too much. Most of the domestic high-end chips and processors come from Qualcomm, and domestic manufacturers cannot be self-sufficient. Even if the Qualcomm 888 series fever last year, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have no other choice.
At the same time, the road of independent research and development of domestic mobile phone brands is not smooth, and many key technologies have not yet made breakthroughs. In the case of Huawei, although it has attracted a large number of users with its self-developed Kirin processor and Hongmeng OS. However, once the chip production capacity is limited, it will directly affect the development of the entire mobile phone business. Huawei's rotating chairman Guo Ping previously revealed that Huawei's revenue is expected to be 634 billion yuan in 2021, a sharp drop of 215.5 billion yuan compared with 2020, a drop of nearly 30%.
In addition to the impact of chips, most domestic mobile phones are less competitive than Apple. With a relatively silky IOS system, self-developed chips and a relatively strong software ecology, the iPhone stands out from many mobile phone brands, and has become the most popular smartphone in the domestic market for six consecutive weeks in early 2022. Among them, the iPhone 13 increased by 11.4% year-on-year, and won the first single machine sales in the domestic market for the fourth consecutive month with sales of more than 2.3 million units.
Because of its high popularity in the Chinese market, every time a new machine is released, it will usher in a large wave of enthusiasts. It can be expected that with its own brand benefits, the iPhone's entry into the low-end may further engulf the domestic mobile phone market.
While Apple mobile phones are entering the Chinese market, domestic mobile phones are actually trying to go out. Previous Xiaomi, OnePlus and Huawei mobile phones have also achieved gratifying results. In 2019, Huawei's overall mobile phone market share reached 17.6%, an increase of 2.8% over 14.8% in 2018, surpassing Apple's 14.5% market share to reach the second place in the world, the first place Samsung, the overall market share of 21.8%, the fourth and fourth and fifth places respectively accounted for the 9.2% market share of the Xiaomi market and 8.2% oppo.
However, due to the impact of the epidemic and policies, the road to "going to sea" of domestic mobile phones is still full of hardships, and the share of foreign markets in 2021 will drop by 10%. Domestic mobile phones in the foreign high-end market has been seriously frustrated, of which the main Huawei due to chip production and 5G obstruction in the foreign market seriously shrunk, the proportion of the Americas fell as high as 24.5%.
As an iPhone SE2022 aimed at the low-end mobile phone market, it may let the domestic smartphone market that is already rolled in into a new stage of competition, but in turn it is a good thing for domestic consumers, when the iPhone also joins the mid-range market competition, it will be like a "catfish", continue to promote domestic mobile phones to improve cost performance and differentiation, and better meet the needs of consumers.
How to "stick" and "turn" domestic mobile phones?
On the one hand, it is "Apple price milletization", on the other hand, it is "domestic mobile phone Appleization". In recent years, domestic mobile phones have begun to enter the high-end market, in the domestic flagship mobile phones, Xiaomi digital, MIX and Ultra series, OPPO Find, X series, vivo X and S series, and glory Magic series, the price has risen to 5000-6000 yuan range.
There are two main core paths for domestic brands to rush to high-end:
The first is to jointly name with luxury brands, such as OPPO and Hasselblad, Lamborghini, OnePlus and McLaren, vivo and ZEISS, iQOO and BMW, Xiaomi's Redmi and Mercedes-Benz, and indeed achieved some results through marketing means. For example, OPPO Find X Lamborghini Edition, through the official data of Xiaomi Mall, only through the joint Lamborghini, it is 3,000 yuan higher than the price of the same type of product, and the sales volume is 20% higher than that of OPPO Find X series products.
The second is to continuously improve the configuration of mobile phones, because the replacement frequency of domestic mobile phones is very high, and now the average annual release of two generations, many technical just launched, domestic mobile phones can be quickly used. However, at present, the proportion of domestic mobile phones using independent research and development technology is not high, mainly because independent chips do not have the corresponding capabilities.
According to industry insiders, from the supply side, in the communication baseband main chip in the Android mobile phone market, the supply of foreign chips accounts for more than 50%. Domestic mobile phone brands such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, etc., most of the communication baseband chips use foreign chips. Once there is a problem with the supply of chips, the domestic mobile phone industry will be in a very passive position.
Relying solely on marketing and copying is not a long-term approach, and the only way to achieve high-end is innovative products.
If there is no innovation, just rely on marketing and configuration to hit the high-end, users really will not buy it. For example, the reason why Huawei can sing all the way in the high-end market is that it has the ability to independently develop. Most of the other domestic mobile phone brands are too homogeneous to each other, and the difference in configuration cannot be formed, which also makes it difficult for domestic mobile phone brands to have a strong user stickiness like Apple.
It should be clear that although Apple launched a low-end new machine, the situation of domestic mobile phone manufacturers following the price reduction should not appear. Each mobile phone manufacturer will basically do a good job in its own product operation strategy, such as continuing to go to the front line to understand the channels, the real demands of users, or the continuous polishing of the core functions of the product, independent research and development and product optimization.
The key to research and development is to continuously explore new technologies, optimize products through exploration, to meet customer needs, and the sensitivity of customer needs, and to manufacture products and services that meet customer needs.
Whether from the perspective of product strength or product focus, domestic mobile phones actually have their own advantages and living space. Apple's advantage lies in having a high-tech software ecology, but in the adaptation of localization functions, Apple is far inferior to domestic mobile phone brands
In addition, domestic mobile phones are also looking for unique power angles to meet the needs of consumers from different directions, such as Tencent's Black Shark game mobile phone. As a mobile phone brand that focuses on game e-sports, Black Shark is equipped with Snapdragon 845 processor, adopts 18:9 full screen and cool appearance design, and pursues strong endurance. Last year's Black Shark 4 series market feedback is very good, only 5 minutes after the start of the sale of the whole network sales exceeded 200 million.
The future is not static, Apple's so-called "dimensionality reduction blow" will not make domestic mobile phones into a desperate situation. As long as the domestic mobile phone does not make a "frog lying in warm water", the end of this game of chess in the mid-end market is still unknown.