[Mobile Phone China] 3 months, placed in the long history of human evolution is just a drop of water, even compared with the development history of smart phones in the past 30 years, it is not worth mentioning. However, the truth of dripping water through stones tells us that the people and things that promote the development of the industry never care whether 3 months are too short. At the beginning of 2022, the smartphone industry ushered in the spring as usual, when a new machine came to us, when the industry quietly changed because of them, did anyone smell the mystery behind it?
In order to find the answer, mobile phone China launched a special report on "Smart Phone 2022 New 'Beginning'", the focus of this article is: domestic mobile phones accelerate high-end, who can stand out?
In recent years, some people in the mobile phone circle have entered the notebook industry, and some people have gone to build cars. After Huawei temporarily left the high-end mobile phone market, other domestic mobile phone manufacturers began to aim at high-end. But the data and financial reports tell us that their results are not ideal.
Do not retreat but advance, domestic mobile phones accelerate high-end
In the first quarter of this year, Mobile China noticed several data. One is the domestic mobile phone market operation analysis report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the above data show that in January this year, domestic mobile phone shipments of 33.022 million units, down 17.7% year-on-year, and Its domestic mobile phone shipments of 25.652 million units, down 24.0% year-on-year. In February, the domestic market mobile phone shipments were 14.864 million units, down 31.7% year-on-year, and its domestic mobile phone shipments were 12.783 million units, down 34.7% year-on-year, a decline that exceeded the overall decline level.
Domestic mobile phone market shipments and the proportion of 5G mobile phones (Source: Academy of Information and Communications Technology)
It can be seen that in recent months, the shipment of domestic mobile phones has continued to decline.
Another piece of data is from Counterpoint. It shows that in the global high-end mobile phone market, Apple's market share of high-end phones increased from 55% to 60% last year, Samsung and Huawei both fell, while Xiaomi increased from 3% to 5%, OPPO increased from 2% to 4%, and Vivo increased from 2% to 3%. This data tells us that in the high-end mobile phone market, the biggest winner seems to be Apple, and the progress made by domestic mobile phone manufacturers is not obvious.
iPhone 13 Series
It is foreseeable that this will continue for some time this year.
At present, the overall shipment of domestic mobile phones is declining, and the performance in the high-end market is not satisfactory. However, it is too early to conclude that the high-end of domestic mobile phones has failed.
Mobile phone China noted that domestic mobile phone manufacturers represented by Glory and Xiaomi are still implementing their high-end strategies.
In February this year, Xiaomi clearly pointed out at the high-end strategy seminar that the high-end road is a life-and-death battle for Xiaomi's development, and it will unswervingly implement the high-end strategy. The Xiaomi Group's 2021 financial report defines mobile phones priced at 3,000 yuan or more than 300 euros as high-end mobile phones. According to this definition, Xiaomi shipped more than 24 million high-end smartphones worldwide in 2021, and its high-end has achieved a stage victory.
Xiaomi Mi 12 series
In terms of products, this year's high-end mobile phone new products are not in the minority. According to the rough statistics of mobile phone China, in the three months at the beginning of this year, counting the edge of December 2021 and the upcoming April, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have released or will release at least 13 regular high-end mobile phones and high-end folding screen mobile phones, including OPPO Find N, Huawei P50 Pocket, Xiaomi 12 series, Honor Magic V, vivo XFold and so on. Counting down, on average, there will be three flagship machines released every month in China.
It can be seen that in the case of continuous decline in domestic mobile phone shipments, domestic mobile phones are still accelerating high-end.
The more expensive the domestic mobile phone is, the market buys it?
Due to the acceleration of high-end domestic mobile phones, this also leads to the more expensive mobile phones are sold.
According to a report released by market research firm Canalys at the end of this month, the average selling price (ASP) of smartphones increased by 10% year-on-year last year. Research data released by Counterpoint shows that the high-end mobile phone market (defined as mobile phones with a price of more than $400/2548 yuan) increased by 24% year-on-year last year, greatly exceeding the overall growth of the smartphone market by 7% in the same period.
Honor MagicV
"Do I really need to change my phone?" "Don't create a change of anxiety 1 This is the idea of many young people.
Why do young people increasingly not want to change their mobile phones? The reason is very simple, because mobile phones are getting more and more expensive. According to a Counterpoint data, the average selling price of domestic smartphones has increased from 1500 yuan to 2000 yuan in the past to 2700 yuan to 3000 yuan.
The rise in mobile phone prices has dampened market demand to some extent. According to data from market research firm Strategy Analytics, the average replacement cycle of Chinese users is currently 28 months, and the use time is more than two years. Changing the phone is not necessarily just needed, and even the user's demand for the phone case may exceed the new machine. According to statistics, more than 10 million users have to buy protective cases 12 times a year. Roughly calculated, this part of the user spends at least 1500 yuan per year on the phone case. If you buy a high-end phone case, this number may double to the price of a mid-range phone.
Smartphone (SourceNet)
The result is obvious, the shipment of domestic smartphones has dropped significantly, and there are already data in front of it as support.
This may also explain why mobile phone manufacturers have seen a surge in interest in car-making in recent years. At present, Xiaomi has put car manufacturing into action, and there are other rumors that OPPO and Vivo have been secretly building cars, but there is little relevant news.
Look for the next Huawei
Since domestic mobile phones are accelerating high-end, who can stand out in the limited market space?
Perhaps Huawei's experience can provide reference for other domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
Huawei's R&D investment in 2021
Huawei is a strong information and communication technology (ICT) solution provider and is born with a focus on research and development. Huawei's latest 2021 annual report shows that its total R&D investment from 2012 to 2021 reached 845.6 billion, of which 142.7 billion yuan was accounted for in 2021, and it is expected to exceed one trillion yuan in 2022. In terms of research and development, no domestic mobile phone manufacturer can achieve this kind of strength.
Strong R&D investment is bound to feed back into the product experience. Not to mention Huawei's highly acclaimed mobile phone signal and Kirin series chips, Huawei's efforts in recent years in terms of images, systems and other aspects are impressive, especially HarmonyOS, many users believe that its experience has been better than the Android system.
In fact, there are already domestic mobile phone manufacturers in the self-development of chips, OPPO, vivo and glory have released ISP chips, but involving CPU and GPU SoC chips, in addition to Huawei, there is no domestic mobile phone manufacturers to make achievements. Honor CEO Zhao Ming previously said in an interview that Honor is not ready to develop its own SoC chips, and will cooperate with SoC suppliers such as Qualcomm and MediaTek for a long time in the future. This is doomed to the high-end of domestic mobile phones is a protracted battle, just like the road Huawei once walked.