In 2021, for the mobile phone industry in recent years, it is a boom, and the global shipment of 13.548 units is close to the level of 2019, an increase of 5.7% compared with the previous year. However, in 2022, the situation suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse, according to the data released by the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in February this year, domestic mobile phone sales were 14.77 million units, down 30% year-on-year, and compared with 32.74 million units in January, it was even more "waist cut".
More notably, Apple's shipments fell by only 4%, and considering Samsung's tiny share in China, it can be concluded that this decline mainly originates from domestic brands. Famous analyst Guo Mingxi also broke the news that due to the decline in demand, Chinese mobile phone brands have cut orders for 170 million mobile phones, equivalent to 20% of the original plan. Moreover, this is likely to be just the beginning, if consumer demand can not recover quickly, then the "cut order" will come more violently.
Downstream mobile phone sales were also quickly affected. Some media visited offline mobile phone stores in Gansu, Hubei and other places, and many operators said that in recent years, mobile phone sales and profits have declined significantly, and some stores have opened up accessories, after-sales, broadband processing and other businesses, while some smaller stores can only change careers or close stores.
It is an indisputable fact that the epidemic has led to a decline in both manufacturers' production capacity and consumers' willingness to buy, and the depressed state of the mobile phone industry is of course also greatly related to this. However, in 2017-2019, when the epidemic has not yet broken out, global mobile phone shipments have declined for three consecutive years. Therefore, it is obviously unrealistic to attribute the status quo of the industry simply to the epidemic and hope that everything will return to the original state after the epidemic is over.
Why are consumers reluctant to change their phones?
Young people, as the main group of mobile phone consumers, are naturally regarded as the "culprit" of the decline in mobile phone sales. In general, young people are willing to buy more expensive mobile phones and change them more frequently. Since the iPhone 4 series shined in China, mobile phones once became "New Year goods" among consumers, and changing mobile phones every year has become the norm for many people. When you buy a mobile phone on Apple's official website, you can see the words "Join the iPhone Renewal Program every year" next to the Apple Care+ service, and video creators have also changed the offline machine as an annual reserved program.
But today, young people's willingness to change machines has dropped significantly. In March this year, a topic called "how long have you not changed the mobile phone" appeared on the hot search, many people said that their mobile phone has been used for three or four years, if there is a problem can be repaired, the battery will be replaced when the endurance is reduced, in addition to the hard injury of insufficient capacity, I really can't think of too many reasons to change the mobile phone.
Throwing aside a variety of objective external factors, the core of the decline in mobile phone sales is still a significant decline in product strength.
It must be seen that today's mobile phones are increasingly lacking in novelty. Manufacturers have not tried new gimmicks, but whether it is 5G or folding screens, the stimulation effect for consumers is not as good as imagined. Especially 5G, which has been pushed for many years, has so far lacked a "killer" application on the consumer side, and in January this year, there was even a decline in 5G mobile phone sales and an increase in 4G mobile phone sales. Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers can only continue to follow the old road of "rolling images" that has lasted for more than ten years.
In terms of the basic experience, many of today's mobile phones are not satisfactory. Chip performance is on the one hand, but after all, the performance of Qualcomm chips in the past two years has been a clichéd topic, and it is meaningless to talk more about its drag on major manufacturers. In addition to this "common denominator", the major manufacturers themselves have their own shortcomings.
Xiaomi's once proud system in the past two years has become a constraint to hinder its further progress, every time MIUI releases a new version, there will be a different style of bug videos on the video website; vivo and OPPO brothers have released products equipped with self-developed image chips in the past two years, but there have been hard injuries such as shooting video frame drops, flickering, etc., combined with its not low price, it is still difficult to get rid of the "high price and low match" hat; Huawei's sanctions are certainly worthy of sympathy. However, the quality of mobile phones is not as good as before, but it still maintains a relatively high price, which really discourages many consumers who want to express support with practical actions.
Even apple, high brush, battery life and other long-complained problems have been delayed until 2021 to have signs of resolution, and heat dissipation, signal, ghosting and other problems that will have a significant impact on daily use have not even received an official positive response. Many people will think that Apple is fully capable of solving these problems, but under the "background of peers", this seems "ok but not necessary". However, from the perspective of consumers, "provoking" merchants is a natural behavior, so everywhere for the sake of merchants, it will only make them more unscrupulous. As an Apple user for many years, I sincerely hope that Apple has only temporarily not found a solution to these problems and is working on it.
Most of these problems have become so serious that they are somewhat unacceptable regardless of the price, and it is a natural result that consumers are increasingly reluctant to pay for mobile phones.
Up and down, left and right, eight immortals across the sea
The problems in the mobile phone industry are already obvious, and different manufacturers have also given their own ideas for breaking the game.
Looking upwards, Apple's relatively solid performance proves that high-end products still have a strong appeal to users. Therefore, xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, honor and other brands have launched 5000 or even higher price segment products in recent years. It is undeniable that there are still obvious deficiencies in these products, but as long as these brands do not regard "high-end" as a marketing gimmick, but continue to achieve breakthroughs in texture, performance, imagery, etc., and make progress little by little, then they will naturally be more willing to pay.
Downwards, sinks and segments are equally noteworthy. Some industry analysts said that at present, many mobile phone stores are funded by dealers, so offline expansion does not need to pay too much cost for mobile phone products. By expanding on a large scale in the sinking market and opening the market with some mobile phones that are mainly cost-effective, it can also play a certain role in the sales of mobile phone brands and brand image building.
The market segment has been dismissed by many people, but in this era of less and less cake, being able to get more than one bite may be of great help to manufacturers. Taking the game phone as an example, The Black Shark funded by Xiaomi and the Red Devils under Nubia have defined themselves as pure game phone brands, and the rapid development of vivo sub-brand iQOO is also aimed at the game track at the beginning of its establishment. According to statistics released by Newzoo, the global mobile game market size has reached 90.7 billion in 2021, which is bound to drive game mobile phones.
Many people have regarded market segments as "pseudo-demand", but in the eyes of electric technology, this is more like "pseudo-supply". Take a certain "e-sports mobile phone" launched this year as an example, under such a name, but even games with lower loads such as "Glory of the King" are forced to reduce the resolution, and consumers can only shout and be deceived. This is just a microcosm of the market segment, many manufacturers of this market attitude is still looking forward, both want to highlight the characteristics, but also want to be stable, the final product can only be a lack of performance, than the lower cost performance of the four unlike.
Therefore, since the importance of the market segment is becoming more prominent, then manufacturers should come up with stronger boldness, to do game phones, then they should appropriately sacrifice photography, especially selfie functions, and invest more resources in frame rate, heat dissipation, etc.; if you want to do camera phones, then you don't have to over-publicize how powerful the chip of the product is, put more of an image chip, and develop more photography algorithms is a more practical approach.
Finally, in addition to looking for breakthroughs vertically in the field of mobile phones, horizontally, the technology industry also has many opportunities for development. Huawei has gradually expanded from communications and mobile phones to computers, smart homes, displays, acoustics and even auto parts, Xiaomi announced the manufacture of cars in a high profile, and Apple has made frequent moves in the AR field. Stepping into the new track is naturally a major test for these companies, but once they successfully cross this threshold, it will also be a huge improvement for their comprehensive competitiveness.
After more than a decade of rapid development, smart phones have ushered in a cold winter, and in a rapidly changing environment, even giants like Apple cannot guarantee that they can sit on the Diaoyutai forever. Therefore, in the next period of time, the theme of mobile phone manufacturers will be to find a way to break the game. Perhaps whoever launches a radically designed product first, and whoever makes the craziest-looking changes first, has the potential to become the next leader in the industry.