Text/Yang Jianyong
In the past few years, Huawei and Apple have been talking about the topic between the two, especially some "shock bodies" that make people stunned. It is undeniable that for Huawei, as a world-class technology giant, it has a pivotal position in the global technology market. Unfortunately, in recent years, the development of mobile phones has been hindered, resulting in a sharp decline in revenue. In the absence of Huawei, a heavyweight competitor, Apple has shown a strong growth trend, and it is the first company in the world to exceed $3 trillion in market value, with a current market value of $2.87 trillion (about 18.27 trillion yuan).
Huawei's revenue fell by nearly 30%, and Apple's single-quarter revenue exceeded 100 billion US dollars
In 2021, Huawei's full-year revenue was RMB636.8 billion (US$99.887 billion), a decrease of RMB254.5 billion compared to 2020, a year-on-year decrease of 28.56%, and a net profit of RMB113.7 billion (US$17.837 billion), of which RMB57.4 billion was made from the disposal of subsidiaries and businesses, including Glory. In contrast, Apple's single-quarter revenue exceeded the 100 billion US dollar mark. For the first quarter of fiscal 2022 (as of December 25, 2021), revenue was US$123,945 million (approximately RMB789 billion at current exchange rates) and net profit was US$34.63 billion (approximately RMB220 billion).
For Huawei, revenue fell by nearly 30%, and the core lies in the sharp decline in the consumer sector. In 2021, consumer revenue was 243.4 billion yuan, down 239.5 billion yuan from 2020, down 49.6% year-on-year. The development of mobile phones has been limited, which in turn has dragged down overall revenue. It can be seen that the importance of mobile phones to Huawei. It is worth mentioning that in the global market without Huawei, a strong competitor, Apple's days are quite moist, and the iPhone shows a high-speed growth trend in the domestic market.
According to data from third-party Canalys agencies, in the fourth quarter of 2021, Apple shipped 21.5 million units in China, a 40% year-on-year increase, ranking first in China with a market share of 25%. Combined with financial report data, revenue from Greater China for the quarter (the first quarter of fiscal year ended December 25, 2021) from Greater China was $25,783 million, up 21% year-on-year. In fiscal 2021, Greater China contributed $68.366 billion in revenue to Apple, up 70% year-on-year, making it Apple's brightest growth region in the world. At the same time, with strong consumer demand for the iPhone 13, Apple regained the top spot in the global smartphone market. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Apple ranked first with a market share of 22%.
Overall, apple is one of the biggest beneficiaries after Huawei mobile phones are resisted, and the iPhone has become the dominant global high-end smartphone. In The Canalys 2021 annual smartphone market analysis report pointed out that compared with Apple, Android manufacturers have a weak increase in high-end smartphone shipments, and the growth of global high-end smartphones is mainly driven by Apple. Combined with the financial report Apple financial report, in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 (as of December 25, 2021), iPhone revenue was $71.628 billion, accounting for 58% of total revenue, and iPhone revenue in fiscal 2021 was $191.973 billion, an increase of $54.192 billion compared with fiscal 2020, an increase of 39% year-on-year.
Both the financial report and the institutional report data show that Apple is the largest reaper of the global mobile phone market and makes most of the profits of the mobile phone industry. Driven by strong demand for the iPhone, Apple's overall revenue and net profit growth have been accelerated. For the first quarter of fiscal 2022 as of December 25, 2021, Apple's revenue was US$123.9 billion (approximately RMB788.3 billion), an increase of 11% year-on-year, net profit was US$34.63 billion, an increase of 20% year-on-year, total revenue for fiscal 2021 was US$365.8 billion, an increase of 33% year-on-year, and net profit increased by 65% to US$94.7 billion, making it the world's most profitable technology company.
Apple is the real sense of the day into the gold, the iPhone makes Apple earn a lot of money. Behind this shows the competitiveness of the iPhone in the global market. As the world's best-selling high-end smartphone, it has long occupied the global high-end mobile phone market, bringing a steady stream of profits to Apple, and the net profit in fiscal 2021 is comparable to Huawei's annual revenue.
Smart home has broad prospects, and Huawei is making the whole house smart
The unfair treatment of mobile phones has put Pressure on Huawei's consumer business and begun to target whole house intelligence, including the recent upgrade of the "1+2+N" strategy of whole house intelligence. Drive the transformation of a single scene to a whole-house scene to further enhance the smart home experience. However, there are many heavyweight players gathered on the smart home track, including mobile phone manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, as well as Internet manufacturers such as Baidu and Ali. There are also home appliance giants such as Haier and Midea, and many smart home innovation enterprises such as Oribo and Green Rice have emerged, forming four camps of mobile phone manufacturers, Internet manufacturers, traditional manufacturers and innovative enterprises.
In the mobile phone camp, Xiaomi is the first manufacturer to harvest the smart home dividend, and its IoT and life consumer products show a steady growth trend. In the whole year of 2021, Xiaomi's IoT and consumer product revenue reached 85 billion yuan, an increase of 26% year-on-year. However, Huawei's ambitions in the smart home track come from many advantages such as strong brands, user scale, technology, and the smart home ecology it has built.
Smart home will become an important market for consumer technology, in order to seek new growth points in performance, mobile phone manufacturers have been targeting the smart home field for many years. According to data given by Omdia, the global smart home market size is expected to exceed $178.5 billion by 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.1% during the period 2020-2025. It should be pointed out that the mainland, as an important global smart home market, has previously shown that the shipment of smart home devices in 2021 is expected to be 230 million units. By 2025, the mainland smart home device market will ship close to 540 million units.
At last
The smart home market cake is tempting, but in the situation of active influx from all walks of life, the industry competition is becoming increasingly fierce, for players on this track, in addition to excellent products, it is also necessary to build an ecology. At the same time, the huge market cake, all kinds of players combined their own advantages, with the whole house intelligent landing so that people's smart family life can be realized, but also expected to harvest the smart home industry development dividends.
Jianyong Yang, a contributor to Forbes China, is committed to in-depth interpretation of cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud services and artificial intelligence.