Image source @ Visual China
Wen | LeiTech
I don't know when it started, the price of the mobile phones around me became more and more expensive.
Eight years ago, the entire domestic mobile phone market was still in a situation of 100-yuan machine melee, when Redmi, Glory, Coolpad, LeTV, 360 and other Internet manufacturers/brands were in a mess, and strived to seize market share with low-cost 100-yuan machines. Four years ago, as the domestic smartphone market gradually saturated, the manufacturers who stood firmly moved towards the high-end market, and high-end mobile phones with a price of more than 1,000 yuan began to emerge.
Today, eight years later, the number of 100-dollar smartphones on the market has become less and less. Leaving aside those niche mobile phone manufacturers that have disappeared in the long river of history, as the traditional hegemon of the hundred-yuan machine market, Redmi has not updated the low-end hundred-dollar machine product line for nearly two years, and the Redmi digital series was once cut off on the Redmi 9A, making people unable to see the hope of new products.
However, a month after the news of the new product was exposed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, yesterday evening, the much-anticipated 100-yuan entry machine finally came, and without any warm-up, Redmi 10A suddenly landed on a number of e-commerce platforms such as Xiaomi Mall, Jingdong Mall, Tmall Mall and so on. The question is, can the Redmi 10A continue the reputation of its predecessors? What is the significance of the launch of this product for a dead and silent 100-yuan machine market?
Redmi 10A: New bottle of old wine
Let's first understand the Redmi 10A product, in terms of design, Redmi 10A still uses a rounded fuselage design, the fuselage back cover is not the same as the previous generation of products frosted design, but instead of using the minimalist line texture design that Redmi likes in low-end machines in recent years, which brings better feel and appearance while improving the anti-slip ability.
In addition, the Redmi 10A's rear camera module has also changed, from a strip single camera module to a square matrix design similar to the iPhone 13 series. Not only that, this time Redmi also continued the design inspiration of the Redmi Note 8 Pro, ingeniously using a black box to integrate it with the rear fingerprint recognition, bringing higher recognition and rear fingerprint recognition to the Redmi 10A.
In terms of configuration, the Redmi 10A is equipped with mediatek Helio G25 processor, which is the same processor as the Redmi 9A. Helio G25 processor using TSMC's 12nm FinFET process manufacturing, equipped with 8 * Cortex-A53 CPU and PowerVR GE8320 GPU, support 4G dual SIM dual standby, the actual performance of the Snapdragon 625 processor is similar. Considering the price and positioning of the Redmi 10A, users who need performance obviously do not need to consider this model.
In other aspects, Redmi 10A adopts a 6.53-inch 720P 60Hz LCD waterdrop screen, equipped with a 5 million pixel front camera and a 13 million pixel rear single camera, built-in 5000mAh battery, support 10W fast charging, basically a conventional 100-yuan machine should be a hardware configuration. It is worth mentioning that the charging interface of the machine is still a Micro-USB interface, and it has not been upgraded to a USB-C interface that can be plugged in front of and behind, which is still quite surprising.
To sum up, compared with the previous generation of Redmi 9A, Redmi 10A's screen, processor, camera, speaker, and battery life are basically the same, without any improvement. In addition to the 2D face recognition upgrade to rear fingerprint recognition, the biggest change in the two products is basically reflected in the design, which can be said to be a complete "new bottle of old wine".
At present, the first price of the Redmi 10A 4+64GB version is 649 yuan, while the same configuration price of the Redmi 9A is 599 yuan. In addition to the absence of fingerprint recognition, the latter is basically the same as the Redmi10A in terms of performance, screen, battery life and imaging systems, and is currently available from stock. If you don't have a problem with the design, the Redmi 9A is obviously a more cost-effective option.
The current situation of the 100-yuan machine market
Today's mobile phone market can be described as a storm, and major mobile phone manufacturers are making every effort to impact the high-end mobile phone market. Whether it is a mainstream manufacturer such as Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, or derivative brands such as Redmi, iQOO, and realme, they are launching flagship mobile phones with a product price of three thousand yuan, hoping to seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to gain a foothold in the high-end market.
In this context, the low price and low profit margin of the hundred yuan machine naturally became a victim. Readers who pay a little attention to the digital field are not difficult to find that in recent years, the major mainstream mobile phone manufacturers in China have basically withdrawn from the 100-yuan machine market. In addition to the operator-customized machines launched by some manufacturers and operators, only some sub-brands are left with the hundred-yuan machines secretly launched.
Not only that, if you open the e-commerce website, you will find that there are even fewer brand 100 yuan machines on sale. For example, the 100-yuan machine sold in the Glory Jingdong self-operated store only has the Honor Play 20 products, and the OPPO Jingdong self-operated store only has the OPPO A32 and OPPO A36, which are two hundred-yuan machines, and many of the hundred-yuan machines are only offline sales products.
The lack of attention of brand manufacturers to the 100-yuan machine market not only provides a final safe haven for niche manufacturers, but also adds opportunities for the comeback of cottage mobile phones. With the east wind of the live broadcast room and Pinduoduoduo, many niche manufacturers and cottage mobile phones in the online hundred yuan machine market have rejuvenated the second spring, and the early players of the smart machine market such as Duowei, Candy, Small Pepper, Ivvi, and Tianyu have made a wave of farce to rectify the live broadcast of cottage mobile phones.
So the question is, why in this era of full impact on the high-end market, Redmi still has to launch such a hundred-dollar machine?
Personally, I believe that there are two main reasons. First of all, at present, the entry-level smart phone market of one hundred yuan, there are still a large number of people in the sinking market every day, although the profit is weak, but the sales volume is very considerable. According to the February 2022 JD.com self-operated smartphone sales rankings, although it was released nearly two years ago, Redmi 9A was still able to achieve 158,000 sales, ranking in the top ten sales.
Not only that, but the Performance of redmi 100 yuan machines in the international market is also outstanding. Recently, market research agency Counterpoint released the "2021 global mobile phone sales" list, Xiaomi became the only domestic manufacturers to enter the top 10 of the list, and Redmi 9, Redmi 9A, these two products have become the "only seedling" left by domestic manufacturers in the list with cost performance.
It is worth mentioning that in the top ten rankings of global mobile phone sales, basically every generation of Redmi digital series is on the list.
Secondly, for mobile phone manufacturers, the stickiness of the users of the hundred-yuan machine will actually be higher than that of the users of the mid-range machine and the flagship machine, because as long as you bring some configurations that are not available at the same price and provide some warranty services that are not currently available in the same price range, you can make many consumers pay for it. Based on the prestige previously established in the 100-yuan machine market, in the case of users' impression of the brand, Redmi 10A hardly has to worry about product sales.
For this situation, many digital enthusiasts may be puzzled: obviously as long as you increase the purchase cost slightly, you can get a thousand yuan machine with a comprehensive improvement in hardware configuration, why do consumers stick to the weak configuration of the hundred yuan machine?
It is true that compared with mainstream mobile phones, there are many disadvantages of hundred-yuan machines. We take Redmi 10A as an example, this product only has a 720P 60Hz screen, plastic body, charging speed is not fast, processor performance is weak, the image module can only scan the code, and even today it still does not support 5G network communication. Purely from the perspective of hardware configuration, it can be said that there are few bright spots.
However, the starting price of the Redmi 10A is 649 yuan, which is a price segment where the brand machine is almost invisible. On the basis of this price, When Redmi "does subtraction", it still cares about the parts that affect the experience of consumer groups, uses the saved budget to strengthen the endurance, and increases the rear fingerprint recognition to ensure the daily use experience of the users of the hundred yuan machine.
While pursuing a high-profile flagship phone, we should not overlook one thing, there are still quite a few people in the world who need cheap mobile phones. Students need mobile phones that are not over budget but can meet the needs of social entertainment, people who work outside the home need mobile phones that can support a whole day of contact, loss and damage are not painful, and the elderly need mobile phones that can keep up with social changes, forget to charge and can also pick up and contact their children.
In the past six months, leTV, coolpad and charm blue mobile phones that have been dormant for a long time have announced their return, and have launched three hundred-yuan machines of LeTV S1, Coolpad COOL 20 and Charm Blue 10, these niche brands are obviously aimed at the same market - entry-level smartphones in the hundred-dollar price segment. However, due to the cost problem, the product configuration of the hundred-yuan machine launched by these niche brands is not prominent, and the user viscosity and product warranty are obviously lagging behind the level of Redmi.
Getting a piece of the pie from Redmi may not be easy.