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"The anxiety of young people about changing machines is gone."
The source of this article is "AI Finance and Economics" (ID: aicjnews), which is reprinted by Tencent Venture with permission.
Text/Zhang Jikang Ni Ping
Editor/Fang Chen
1
Young people who are reluctant to change their phones
After 00, Xiaojie is a student at Hebei University of Science and Technology, and the Apple phone she uses now is a gift from her parents to start school four years ago, and she clearly remembers spending more than 7,000 yuan at that time. She had never thought about changing her phone in four years, and even if there was a problem with the battery of the phone in the middle of the way, and at one point her arm was scalded with a blister, she never wavered.
Xiaojie explained: "As long as the mobile phone can be used, it does not need to be changed, and it costs money to change it once. "She has not yet graduated, and she does not want to increase the burden on her parents, so she can save money in her daily life."
He Yimu, who is also a post-00, has not changed her mobile phone in the past four years, and she is too lazy to change the Huawei nova3i in her hand, mainly for fear of trouble. She is very resistant to changing mobile phones, thinking that changing mobile phones is a more troublesome thing than moving, not only to guide the address book, photo albums, documents, but also to reset the bus card, Wi-Fi, alarm clock, account password, "just think about it is big."
He Yimu told the "Finance and Economics World" weekly that the longer the mobile phone is used, the higher the cost of changing the machine, so it can not be changed without changing.
The OPPO R15 in the hands of Sisi after 95 has been used for four years, and this mobile phone was given to her by her mother, which was a medium-to-high mobile phone on the market at that time, and cost more than three thousand yuan. In the first two years, this phone was still relatively smooth to use, but today, four years later, there are more and more small problems in the mobile phone, and the memory is becoming more and more insufficient.
Si Si said that her daily use of mobile phones is to delete a software before downloading a software, and delete some old photos before taking new photos, and even then she did not think about changing her phone.
For Sisi, a recent graduate, changing his mobile phone is not a just needed thing. She just spent more than 8,000 yuan to pull out two teeth some time ago, if you change the mobile phone and have to spend thousands of dollars, she does not have too much savings in her hands to think or give up.
Guo Fan Huan huan is a post-85, since the iPhone 4 she will buy the first time every year to try a new iPhone, this habit remained until the iPhone XS stopped. Huan Huan looked at the iPhone XS in his hand and said that there are still more than 90 GB of memory, and it can be used for a few more years.
Looking at Apple's later launch of the iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13 and other models, Huan Huan did not think of replacing, but every time he squatted in front of the computer after watching the conference, he was disappointed, "The function is small repair, the appearance is the same, and there is no desire to buy after reading." ”
(Source: Visual China)
A few years ago, young people like Xiao jie, He Yimu, and Si Si who refused to change their mobile phones were still a minority. In 2016, someone posted in the Tianya community that his friends around him changed their mobile phones three times a year, which resonated with netizens. Someone lamented in the comments, "Changing mobile phones is faster than changing clothes now." Another expressed his panic on Weibo: "How often do you change your phone to not be abandoned by the trend?" ”
At that time, most young people still had a kind of "machine change anxiety", it seems that they can't keep up with the trend of the times without changing their mobile phones, and they are afraid of being looked down upon, so they save money for this, just to have the latest mobile phones, which is related to their face and is their capital to show off.
All this has changed in recent years, and practitioners in the mobile phone industry can clearly feel that the consumer replacement cycle is getting longer. A dealer who has been in the industry for more than 20 years told the "Finance world" weekly from 2014 to 2018, it was still the golden age of mobile phone consumption, and consumers changed mobile phones once a year on average, but in recent years, the replacement cycle of consumers has been extended to 28 months to 30 months.
Data from third-party agencies can also be corroborated. Not long ago, industry analysis company Counterpoint released data showing that the average replacement cycle of users has exceeded 31 months. Market research firm Strategy Analytics said that the average replacement cycle of Chinese users is 28 months.
The decline in consumer demand for mobile phones is directly reflected in shipments. Recently, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology released the domestic mobile phone market operation analysis report shows that in February 2022, the domestic market mobile phone shipments of 14.864 million units, down 31.7% year-on-year, domestic brand mobile phone shipments of 12.783 million units, down 34.7% year-on-year.
Liu Yixuan, an analyst at Analytics, told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that in the first quarter of 2021, due to Huawei's decline, the shipments of other manufacturers were very aggressive, so the market was at a high level in the quarter, and it was foreseeable that the first quarter of 2022 would decline year-on-year. "We expect a year-on-year decline of between 15% and 20% in the first quarter of 2022."
2
Innovation is insufficient, and the price is getting more and more expensive
Why are consumers reluctant to change their phones?
This is not unrelated to the fact that mobile phones are selling more and more expensive. According to the Canalys 2021 Smartphone Market Analysis Report, the average selling price of smartphones in 2021 will increase by 10% year-on-year. Counterpoint data shows that the average selling price of mobile phones in the Chinese market has increased from 1500 yuan to 2000 yuan in the past to 2700 yuan to 3000 yuan.
Price increases have become a tacit secret of mobile phone manufacturers. Some consumers complained that they used to spend 1999 yuan to buy high-end mobile phones equipped with the latest flagship chips, and now spend 1999 yuan, can only buy plastic mid-frame, performance is not as good as the old flagship, everywhere exudes a compromise atmosphere of mid-range mobile phones.
In recent years, domestic mobile phones, which have been called cost-effective, have been increasing the price of new machines. The Huawei Mate 20 released in 2018 started at 3499 yuan, and two years later, the Huawei Mate 40 started at 4999 yuan, up 1500 yuan.
The Xiaomi Mi 8, which was listed in the same year as the Huawei Mate 20, started at 2699 yuan, and the Xiaomi Mi 12 released at the end of last year rose by 1000 yuan to 3699 yuan. In the just released earnings report, Xiaomi highlighted the business performance of high-end mobile phones, saying that the global shipment of high-end smartphones priced at more than 3,000 yuan in 2021 exceeded 24 million units, accounting for about 13% from about 7% in the previous year to about 13% in 2021.
The price of mobile phones is becoming more and more expensive, and when you buy a mobile phone, you must "use enough money", which has become a consideration and plan for consumers when buying a new mobile phone. Many consumers admit that a core factor in not changing their mobile phones is that mobile phones are selling more and more expensive, while their wallets are getting more and more depressed, and there is no money to change.
In addition to price reasons, old-fashioned smartphones have also reached the ceiling of innovation.
Consumer Chen Feng told The Finance and Economics Weekly that since the full screen, there have been almost no exciting innovations and changes in the mobile phone industry, coupled with the overall improvement of mobile phone performance now, people's motivation to change mobile phones is much weaker. "I used to change Apple once a year, and now I have an iPhone 12 in my hand for a year and a half."
A few days ago, He Yimu wanted to use the Didi software, and after going through the app store and not finding it, she thought that her idle old mobile phone was equipped with Didi, so she found the mobile phone she bought in 2015. Unexpectedly, the long-hidden Huawei mobile phone experience is still very smooth, and the camera is still flipped.
He Yimu said that the new mobile phone has not increased much compared with this old mobile phone, and the mobile phone manufacturers have been unable to impress her by promoting those so-called new features.
There is no transformative innovation of mobile phones, in recent years are in the function of tinkering, or on the screen to make a fuss, engage in full screen, bangs screen, folding screen; or on the color of the article, "mint green", "dark night green", "cangling green", how to attract people how to come; or in the functional parameters to make an article ...
The in-roll innovation of mobile phone manufacturers is vividly reflected in the camera. In 2021, Apple announced that the iPhone 13 Pro series is equipped with a telephoto lens that supports 3x optical zoom, the Honor Magic3 Pro claims to use a rear ring five camera combination, the OPPO Find X3 microscope lens claims to have reached a macro effect close to the traditional optical microscope, and the vivo X70 Pro has been promoting its own "ZEISS optical lens".
For such a variety of innovative ways, most consumers believe that this is a bright and beautiful publicity tool in the pursuit of the end of the world. There is a called "I will scan a code, what is the meaning of a better mobile phone camera?" " video, nearly 10 million views. In the video, He asked the question in everyone's heart: "Is the upgrade of the camera on the mobile phone really meaningful?" ”
In the video, He said that the current mobile phone is so obsessed with the improvement of photography, just like the comparison pixel at the end of the functional machine, which is the embodiment of the mobile phone as a communication tool and the bottleneck of innovation.
(Picture source B station up master: teacher hello my name is He classmate)
Nicole Peng, vice president of mobile business at analytics canalys, once said: "The main growth bottleneck in the Chinese market is on the demand side. "And now the functional innovation of mobile phone manufacturers can not stimulate consumers' desire to buy."
3
Practitioners are in a difficult position
Mobile phones can't be sold, and the survival situation of practitioners has become more and more difficult.
In 2019, a dealer who had sold mobile phones for many years decided to change careers, and when it came to the reason, he admitted frankly, "You can't make money doing mobile phones." In the end, he was forced to change tracks, and now seeing the development status of the mobile phone industry, he is particularly grateful for the choice he made.
Indeed, in a mobile phone hypermarket in Beijing, apple, Huawei, OPPO, VIVO and other mobile phone brands are gathered, but when the traffic is high in the evening, the store does not have a single customer, only a few clerks leaning on the counter, bored to brush their mobile phones.
A dealer with more than 20 years of industry experience told Caijing Tianxia Weekly that from 2019, the decline in mobile phone sales can reach about 15% per year, especially the proportion of Huawei mobile phone purchases has dropped from the original 40% to 8%. On March 28, Huawei released a financial report showing that its consumer business declined the most seriously, with revenue of 243.431 billion yuan in 2021, a sharp drop of 49.6% year-on-year, and the proportion of revenue fell back to 38.2%.
According to the report of the analyst agency Canalys, since the first decline in China's mobile phone shipments in 2017, China's mobile phone shipments have fallen for four consecutive years, falling by 4%, 14%, 7% and 11% from 2017 to 2020, and the shipments in 2021 have increased slightly by 1%, which is the only time that mobile phone market shipments have risen in the past five years.
According to market research firm GFK data, China's annual mobile phone sales in 2021 will be 310 million units, which is at a recent low. Combined with external factors and market conditions, the trend in the short term will run at a low level for a period of time, there is no sign of recovery for the time being, and it is expected that mobile phone sales in 2022 will be about 300 million units.
At the same time, market dynamism is decreasing. Data released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that new machines in the market are decreasing. In the first two months of 2022, the total number of new models listed was 59, down 27.2% year-on-year.
In the context of the lack of overall growth in the industry, the current mobile phone field presents a competitive situation of the weak and the strong, and the price reduction of Apple's mobile phone against the trend has allowed it to gain more market share.
In September 2021, Apple released the starting price of the iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13 at 5199 and 5999 yuan respectively, compared with the iPhone 12, the price reduction reached 300-800 yuan. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Apple ranked first with shipments of 21.5 million mobile phones, which is the first time since the first quarter of 2015 that Apple has ascended to the first place in shipments in the Chinese market. IDC data shows that in 2021, Apple's mobile phone shipments increased by 39.5% year-on-year, ranking first in growth.
(Source: Finance World Weekly)
Liu Yixuan told Caijing Weekly that Apple's performance in 2021 is very strong, with shipments up 40% year-on-year in 2020. Apple's growth has depended on its more aggressive pricing, localized product design and filling the gap for Huawei.
Although vivo, OPPO, and Xiaomi grabbed a lot of market share that originally belonged to Huawei in 2021, and the performance is still in a state of growth, the pressure facing the future should not be underestimated, after all, the industry has entered the era of stock competition.
4
Change: one hand high-end, the other hand to build a car
In the context of weak growth in the broader market, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have invariably set their sights on high-end and tried to boost sales growth by increasing product prices.
Although there is an invincible Apple in the high-end market, domestic mobile phone manufacturers still choose to issue a clarion call to this market.
On March 17, Honor released the Magic4 series of smart flagship machines, including Honor Magic 4, Honor Magic4Pro, Honor Magic4 to the best edition of three products. Zhao Ming, CEO of Glory Terminal Co., Ltd., revealed in an interview after the meeting that since September last year, Glory has no longer paid attention to the issue of benchmarking and market share with domestic mobile phone brands. After that, the goal is to use high-end flagship machines to benchmark Apple and fill the gap in the domestic high-end market.
Wang Xiang, president of Xiaomi Group, also said on the 2021 earnings call that Xiaomi will continue to increase the overall proportion of high-end smartphones in China and overseas markets.
In terms of mobile phone innovation, folding screen mobile phones are regarded as a new breakthrough in mobile phone innovation. A dealer said, "If there are more than 4 people in a room using folding screen mobile phones, then the next wave of mobile phones is not far away." In his vision, the folding screen mobile phone represents a social business card. When a person pulls out a folding screen mobile phone from his pocket and opens it with a "snap", "This is a very revealing thing."
Mobile phone manufacturers are also concentrating on betting on this product direction. In 2021, Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi and other brands that launched folding screen models earlier carried out product iteration; while OPPO, Honor, etc. have also successively cut into the folding screen market.
According to the data given by IDC, there are about 1.5 million folding screen mobile phones in the Chinese market in 2021, and Huawei accounts for 49.3%, ranking first with nearly half of the market share; while Samsung and Xiaomi account for 28.8% and 13.2% respectively, and it is worth noting that OPPO, which launched folding screen products for the first time in 2021, has a market share of 6.1%.
But overall, folding screen mobile phones still belong to the niche market. IDC said that folding screen mobile phones account for about 0.5% of the domestic smartphone market.
Existing folding screen technology also needs to be improved. Some consumers complained that Huawei mateXS has a lot of screen problems, "either not working, or leaking fluid", maintenance costs are also "sky-high", "the current mobile phone only sells about 10,000 yuan, change a screen to 6580 yuan." On the black cat complaint platform, there were 579 complaints about folding screen mobile phones, involving problems such as leakage, poor touch screen, and black dots on the screen.
(Source: Visual China)
Some insiders told "Finance and Economics World" that due to poor performance, high prices and low yield rates, the folding screen mobile phone market is still facing no small challenge.
A noteworthy phenomenon is that mobile phone manufacturers have also begun to look for new growth points and vigorously throw themselves into the "car-making" movement.
In the first fiscal year's annual report after the high-profile official announcement of the car, Xiaomi maintained the expected plan of official mass production in the first half of 2024. Up to now, its automotive business R & D team has more than 1,000 people, and will expand research and development in core areas such as autonomous driving and intelligent cockpit in the future.
Huawei, which has always stated that it will never build a car, also launched a new car M5 at the end of last year in conjunction with AITO, a new brand of Xiaokang Automobile Group. It is reported that the Q&I M5 has Huawei's brand in the configuration of intelligent cockpit and electric drive system. This has once again triggered speculation about Huawei's car manufacturing. However, on March 28, Guo Ping, Huawei's rotating chairman, once again reiterated that Huawei does not build cars, but uses Huawei's technology and experience to help partners build and sell good cars, and has established cooperative relations with more than 300 industrial chain partners.
In addition, in order to build cars, ZTE has set up an automotive electronics line and an automotive electronics team at the beginning of last year. Oppo, vivo, etc. have also been rumored to be secretly building cars many times.
Whether it is entering the high-end of mobile phones or the car-making business that does not know the geometry of the results, it is a measure for mobile phone manufacturers to try to break through in the increasingly fierce competition, but whether it can work depends on time to verify.
(The consumers in this article are pseudonyms)
END
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