Producer / Sina Technology(ID:techsina)
Highlights:
1. Huawei launched the first ink screen tablet. Experts believe that this is a difficult transformation attempt after Huawei's mobile phone business was stuck in the neck. The significance behind it is: digesting the inventory of low-end processors; expanding the user base of Hongmeng; and maintaining the original supporting system.
2, the Amazon Kindle, a pioneer in ink screen equipment, has a very dismal survival situation in China. Customer service said that the lack of cores led to shortages of goods, but users and industry insiders did not agree.
3. Experts believe that behind the decline of Kindle is the result of the stagnation of its products and business models, and it is only a matter of time before Kindle withdraws from China. However, whether new entrants such as Huawei can be recognized by users is still unknown.
Huawei, which has limited mobile phone business, has once again entered a new field.
On March 16, Huawei launched the first ink screen tablet, in addition to the hardware configuration, the biggest highlight is equipped with Hongmeng OS, which can realize interconnection and resource sharing with mobile phones, PCs and other devices.
Huawei's move also reminds the outside world of the Kindle, a pioneer of ink screen equipment.
At the beginning of this year, the Kindle Tmall flagship store was closed, and the Jingdong self-operated flagship store was out of stock in a large area, and even the news that Kindle was going to withdraw from the Chinese market was even rumored. Experts believe that Kindle has long been outdated in China, and with domestic companies rapidly occupying the ink screen market, it is only a matter of time before Kindle withdraws from China.
Huawei survives and expands the category
At the press conference on the 16th, Huawei launched a number of mobile phone products such as P50E, nova 9 SE, and P50 Pro new color matching. However, due to the absence of 5G capabilities, the highlights of mobile phones are very limited.
New products such as whole house intelligence, tablets and cars have become the biggest highlights. On whole house intelligence, Huawei has launched a new generation of solutions, starting from 39999 yuan, and the goal of opening 500 stores in 2022, all of which indicate that Huawei is viewing whole house intelligence as the next important growth point; in cars, the ultimate version of the Q&I M5 four-wheel drive has opened reservations, priced at 319,800 yuan.
In the tablet category, Huawei has also opened up a new market segment: ink screen tablets.
In terms of hardware, Huawei officially said that MatePad Paper is equipped with a six-core processor, and has not announced a specific model, and the outside world speculates that it may be Kirin 820E; at the software level, MatePad Paper is equipped with Hongmeng OS, which can connect other Huawei devices and use each other's functional modules for hardware mutual assistance, resource sharing, and collaborative operation. At the same time, the open system supports App download; in terms of content, MatePad Paper is equipped with its own Huawei reading, and at the same time, it has united content platforms and publishing houses such as palm reading, dianzhong reading, Chinese online, and CITIC Publishing House.
In the eyes of the outside world, ink screen equipment has always been a relatively niche and vertical market, why did Huawei choose to suddenly enter at this time?
Zhang Xiaorong, president of the Deepin Science and Technology Research Institute, told Sina Technology that Huawei's launch of the ink screen tablet is a difficult transformation after the mobile phone business was stuck in the neck. The significance behind this product is: first, it can digest a number of low-end processor inventory; second, it can expand the Hongmeng OS user base; and third, it can continue to maintain the original industrial supporting system.
He believes that the low-end components on the mobile phone are high-end for the reader. Although Huawei's ink screen products are lower than the tablet competitors in terms of hardware and functions, they have no small advantage in the reader market, so they are expected to quickly occupy the ink screen market.
Kindle lost and hit again?
Huawei enters the field of ink screen equipment, and the outside world will naturally think of Amazon's Kindle.
Back in 2007, Amazon launched the first-generation Kindle, a $399 one-handed e-reader that was snapped up quickly after going public.
In 2013, the Kindle officially entered the Chinese market, which was also popular, maintaining double-digit growth rates almost every year; by 2016, China had become the kindle's largest market in the world.
How popular was the Kindle at the peak of the Chinese market? According to data once released by Amazon, it said that it sold millions of Kindles a year in China, and the online bookstore resources reached 700,000 copies. Hardware + rich e-book content has become kindle's killer tool for attracting gold in China.
However, with the decline of Amazon's e-commerce business in the Chinese market, kindle's fate has also taken a sharp turn.
Due to the increasingly fierce competition in the domestic e-commerce market, in 2019, Amazon announced the closure of its Chinese e-commerce business, retaining the Kindle business and cross-border e-commerce business. But the outside world soon found that Amazon China's official website also stopped selling Kindle devices in 2019, but recommended users to buy them in Kindle's Tmall and JD.com flagship stores.
At the beginning of this year, there was even news that the Kindle or withdraw from the Chinese market. The important performance is that the Kindle Tmall flagship store has been closed, and the Kindle Jingdong self-operated flagship store has also experienced a large-scale shortage of equipment.
Sina Technology saw that at present, the Kindle equipment of the Kindle Jingdong self-operated flagship store is still out of stock, and only peripheral accessories such as power adapters and protective covers are in stock. For the reason why the Kindle continues to be out of stock, the customer service of the Kindle Jingdong self-operated flagship store told Sina Technology that due to the lack of chips in the manufacturer, all Kindles are out of stock. "Waiting for manufacturer news, there is no notice at present, and it is not sure when it will be in stock."
However, customer service's explanation for the lack of chips leading to the Shortage of Kindles has not been accepted by users and experts. "Then why are foreign machines flying all over the sky, and the National Bank of China has been out of stock for several months?" One user questioned.
A person in the consumer electronics industry also believes that the manufacturing difficulty of e-book reader chips is not as difficult as that of terminal chips such as mobile phones and computers. The chip used by the Kindle is relatively basic, and the impact on supply should not be too serious. The Kindle is out of stock, and in the final analysis it is a matter of demand.
It is true that compared with the popularity of the Kindle many years ago, many users now say that their Kindle devices have been eating ash for a long time, and netizens have even given this device a nickname of "cover bubble noodle artifact", which shows its low frequency of use.
Is e-reader still a good business?
With the Kindle on the brink, the industry has also developed two very different views on e-readers.
One side believes that e-readers may not be just needed, mobile phones, tablets and other devices can replace specialized e-readers; the other side believes that e-readers still cater to the needs of some people in some aspects, such as the eye protection function of the ink screen, the immersive reading experience close to paper, and so on. The decline of the Kindle is not that there is no user demand, but that it has not kept up with the needs of users.
A Kindle user told Sina Technology that Kindle did not solve the needs of domestic users in many aspects, such as slow interface operation, complex e-book downloading methods, etc., which made her have to give up using Kindle reading.
This is true. Yuan Bo, a communications engineer, pointed out that over the years, Kindle's technology, products and business models have not changed substantially. Mobile phones and tablets as terminals, these carriers can be read and downloaded at will, the diversity of terminals has caused the Kindle to no longer shine. Coupled with the fact that Wenshi, Palm Reading, Xiaomi, iFLYTEK, etc. have launched their own e-readers, the competition for hardware is more intense.
In terms of software and content, a large number of e-book Apps have also begun to rise, and domestic users have more and more resources and channels to obtain digital reading for free, which has also brought an impact on Amazon's e-book business.
Zhang Xiaorong, president of the DeepInn Science and Technology Research Institute, said bluntly to Sina Technology that kindle has long been outdated in China, the hardware configuration is low, the software function is small, it has been surpassed by many competitors, it can only circulate actively in the second-hand market channel, whether there is a chip or not is not important, and it is only a matter of time to withdraw from China.
However, the starting price of Huawei's MatePad Paper of 2999 yuan has caused a lot of controversy among users. Some Kindle loyal users believe that Huawei's pricing is too high, after all, most Kindle devices are only about a thousand yuan.
But in contrast, Huawei's ink screen tablet launched this time is not only aimed at the segment of e-book reading, but also the office market. More precisely, the Huawei MatePad Paper is used more than the Kindle.
There is no doubt that under the siege of Huawei, as well as more and more competitors such as Wenshi, Palm Reading, and iFLYTEK, the living space of the Kindle business in China will become smaller and smaller; but whether the new entrant Huawei can quickly occupy the ink screen equipment market by relying on its brand aura remains to be seen.
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