The glory of stepping out of the "smile curve" in early 2022 also encountered the "black swan" event. On March 31, 2022, Honor officially released the news that the Honor Magic 4 Pro, which was originally scheduled to go on sale on April 2, will be postponed to April 22 due to the impact of the global epidemic on supply.
Honor Magic 4 Pro
I think everyone is curious, what is the most direct reason for the postponement of the release of the Honor Magic 4 Pro? In the context of the continuous decline of the mobile phone industry, what is the next product strategy of Honor? On the same day that Honor announced the extension of the Magic 4 Pro, PChome participated in a group interview with Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor Terminal Co., Ltd. Zhao Ming patiently answered the above questions to us.
The mobile phone industry continues to decline
When talking about the general trend of the smart phone industry in 2022, Zhao Ming frankly said: "Under the pause of the entire large smart phone industry, how to break through the bottleneck of innovation is a problem that the company thinks from top to bottom. ”
Once upon a time, with the innovation of hardware, smart phones repeatedly captured new consumers, but with the increasing homogenization of smart phone products, consumer demand for machine replacement has dropped sharply, and by 2022, the entire smart phone industry will continue to be under pressure.
According to data released by industry analysis company Counterpoint, the average replacement cycle of users has exceeded 31 months. Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingji also said on social media that China's major Android mobile phone brands have cut about 170 million orders this year, accounting for 20% of the original 2022 shipment plan, of which more than 70% use MediaTek chips. Due to low consumer confidence, orders are likely to decrease again in the coming months.
In response to this trend, Honor's most important product strategy is to combine market trends and consumer needs to create products.
From the perspective of market trends, with the maturity of the supply chain, the folding screen mobile phone track continues to be hot. Honor also launched its first folding screen phone, magic V, in late 2021.
According to Zhao Ming, "In fact, today's glory MagicV is still a difficult state to find, we also said at the Magic4 conference, I am sorry that many online purchases have to wait for about 20 days to be shipped, and now the goods after 20 days have been booked, and there is still this situation." ”
In addition, Honor has also created the Honor Magic4 series for consumers' pain points. "In this generation, we launched the Honor Magic4, which we call the consumer's pain point terminator," Zhao Ming said, "that is, to break the existing competition and product parameters, and what advantages can be brought to consumers in the end, from this logic to define the Glory Magic4." ”
For example, in terms of imaging, the Honor Magic4 Pro has a two-pronged approach in both optical and computational photography, the strength of the 50-megapixel IMX766 main camera is obvious to all, the 50-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens provides a large field of view, and it can also take macro photographs; the 64-megapixel telephoto lens enriches the focal length, providing up to 100X zoom function.
At present, there are many flagship mobile phones that do not have good zoom capabilities, and the Honor Magic4 Pro is equipped with a periscope telephoto lens, the zoom ability is quite excellent, the machine is excellent in 1X, 3.5X, 10X zoom photos, the zoom magnification is increased to 50X or even 100X is still clear.
In response to the photography strategy of the Honor Magic4 Pro, Zhao Ming explained: "It is not good on paper, he is really good at taking pictures in real life. In fact, this is also the reason why we bring the most balanced design to consumers, because the mobile phone is not pursued from one direction, it must be the whole. ”
Glory meets the "Black Swan"
Unfortunately, the Honor Magic4 Pro didn't meet with consumers as scheduled.
In response to this adjustment, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, apologized to consumers and said that instead of letting consumers suffer a bad experience of "one opportunity is difficult to find" after listing, it is better to delay the sale. Zhao Ming also said that the core reason for the delay in the first sale is the emergence of various "black swans" on the delivery of various shipments under the current complex situation, including the obstruction of devices imported abroad.
Although Zhao Ming did not say exactly which supply chain link had a problem, which led to the postponement of the listing of the Honor Magic4 Pro, only said that "in fact, the core reason is still the delivery problem in various situations", but combined with the product characteristics of the latter and the entire smartphone market, this key shortcoming is likely to be because of the screen.
According to official information, the Honor Magic4 series adopts the 6.81-inch flexible OLED screen supplied by BOE, equipped with BOE LTPO technology, 1Hz-120Hz adaptive seven-frequency dynamic refresh mode, 360Hz high touch sampling rate, and BOE's self-developed Q8 new generation EL light-emitting devices, which have the advantages of low power consumption, high image quality and strong endurance.
Considering that several major production bases represented by BOE, such as Gu'an, Shanghai and Shenzhen, have encountered the "black swan" of the epidemic, it is likely to affect the glory Magic4 series of downstream "all in" BOE screens.
In fact, the "ripples" generated by the upstream industry chain have not only affected a smart phone manufacturer in Glory. On March 18, 2022, OPPO official micro also released news that the OPPO Find X5 Pro Tianji edition, which was scheduled to be sold on the same day, will be postponed to April 1 due to the serious impact of the epidemic.
Judging from the data displayed by JD.com, in less than a day after the launch, the sales volume of oppo Find X5 Pro Tianji Edition exceeded 5,000+. This also seems to indicate that once the supply chain returns to normal, the Honor Magic4 Pro with core competitiveness will be sought after in the market as usual.
Insisting on innovation at the bottom is the core driving force
The reason why Honor has the confidence to launch the product release date is largely because Honor has unique advantages in technology. According to Zhao Ming, "We have almost 7% of the investment in research and development every year, and the efficiency of our overall engineer research and development is very high."
Taking the screen as an example, the previous LTPO screen only supports 480Hz, but the 480Hz PWM dimming is very bad for the human eye in the case of low light. In this regard, Honor and BOE set up a joint innovation laboratory for screens, and put forward the most stringent standards to ensure the entire future balanced experience.
According to PChome's tests, the HONOR Magic4 Pro's LTPO screen lives up to its name. The advantage of the adaptive dynamic frame rate function over the previous generation ltpo function is that the refresh rate gear is more flexible, and it can recognize the content displayed on the screen and quickly adjust the refresh rate.
For example, in the main interface of the mobile phone screen cutting operation, you can see that the refresh rate when the screen slides quickly soars to 90Hz, and after the screen is completed and static, it is adjusted to the 10Hz refresh rate in time to save power. The quick scroll screen in the setting interface will quickly increase to the 120Hz refresh rate. In reading applications, a minimum refresh rate of 1Hz can be performed to maximize power savings.
In fact, the screen is just one aspect of Honor's continued deep cultivation of technology. The Honor Magic V we saw before also has a technical advantage that is difficult to match with the competition. Zhao Ming said: "Folding screen glory Magic V hinge field, we really make it so thin, is a pioneer in the industry."
Fang Fei, president of the honor terminal product line, once said that the hinge design is the module that leads to the core of the folding screen mobile phone, and the honor MagicV challenges the design ability and manufacturing process, and adopts the self-developed ultra-thin suspended water droplet hinge design.
One of the great benefits of continued deep cultivation of technology is that former consumers have begun to turn to glory. Zhao Ming revealed: "The Magic4 standard version is listed, and we see that more than 60% of the users who buy the machine are from Apple and Huawei, which also makes us very excited. ”
Considering that Honor has begun to fully benchmark Apple, as its products are gradually rolled out, it is presumable that Apple, which stands still at the technical and experience level, will continue to be under pressure.