Today, counterpoint Research, a market research firm, published its latest research report. The report pointed out that in 2021, the market share of Android smartphones in China above $600 (about 3800 yuan) will shrink from 44.6% in 2020 to 36.5%. The share of iPhone models with iOS mounted increased to 63.5%. From this, it can be seen that "Chinese OEM mobile phone manufacturers have not succeeded in seizing the high-end market space vacated by Huawei."
The high-end market of the mobile phone industry has not been busy in the past two years. Impacting the high-end market has been the consensus of domestic mobile phone head manufacturers. When the thinking is put into action, the mobile phone manufacturers and their sub-brands have launched a number of flagship mobile phones with high-end positioning last year. However, from the Counterpoint research report, it can be seen that domestic mobile phone manufacturers have not been able to fully seize the high-end share left by Huawei in 2021, but the overall share has declined, making the iPhone.
So, why is it difficult to say that the high-end of domestic mobile phones is difficult?
1, the track is more rolled; 2, Android high-end homogenization; 3, ecological layout and iOS still have a big gap. Last year, many domestic mobile phone manufacturers chose to target the high-end market with new strategies such as "double high-end". Rather than focusing on just one high-end product line, many Android phone brands currently have two or more high-end product lines. This means that the "high-end track" in the price range of more than $600 has become more crowded than ever, and the flagship mobile phone with high-end positioning is bound to become more "volume".
This year, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi Mi 12 and Mi 12 Pro series, followed by the Mi 12 Ultra; Honor HONOR launched the Magic V and Magic 4 series; OPPO launched the Find N and Find X5 series.
There are more high-end models available for Android, but there are not more reasons for consumers to choose more expensive high-end models.
That said, while it's foreseeable that Android smartphones will be able to take back some of their market share from the iPhone in 2022, such an achievement will not be easy. Taking Xiaomi's digital series models as an example, its sales in the first month of its listing in 2021 fell by more than 60% compared with the previous year.
On the other hand, the hardware specifications of Android's high-end flagship are similar, and balancing the performance and power consumption of flagship chips is also a key problem that manufacturers have to solve in the past two years. In the high-end differentiation, this has always been the key to competition, now several head brands in order to win a chip, camera sensors the first right, exclusive rights, but also willing to invest a higher amount, and Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony and other upstream suppliers signed a cooperation to support higher product prices.
At the same time, the wrestling chase of "self-research" also began silently. Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo have all begun to invest huge amounts of money and manpower, launching self-developed technologies and chips around imaging and charging, with the aim of bringing a differentiated experience of "no one has me".
Previously, Huawei brought a thriving leading photography experience in the high-end market, ushered in a wide range of consumer reputation, and achieved a high-end image of the P and Mate series. Behind it is the long-term accumulation of technical reserves and abundant cash flow and the input of a large number of personnel.
Finally, if domestic mobile phone manufacturers want to seize more market share in the high-end market, there is still a lot of homework to be done in addition to hardware. Especially in terms of system ecology, this iPhone has always had obvious advantages, not only has good hardware specifications, but also has a rich ecosystem behind it.
In addition to Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo, the glory of independence has shown good competitiveness since last year. Then, whether the market left by Huawei will be taken away by "its own family", or gradually cannibalized by other manufacturers, or the iPhone is the only one, it is still full of uncertainty.