On April 6, 2022, the Japanese research company BCN released statistics that the iPhone SE3, which went on sale on March 18, successfully boosted Apple's mobile phone sales in Japan due to its low price, and the initial sales performance was far better than that of the previous two generations of iPhone SE models.
However, since the release of the iPhone SE 3, the sales of the model in China have been not optimistic, and the sales volume in Japan in the five days of sale has exceeded the previous two generations. In this regard, what is this phenomenon? What should we think?
First, in Japan, the Apple mobile phone SE series is simply a wool "sharp weapon"
We all know that Apple's market share in Japan has always been very high, statcounter to provide data to reach 65.63%, the following figure is the iPhone SE3 in Japan's various operators of the offer, Rakuten's lowest, DoCoMo, SoftBank and Au discounts are almost the same.
That is to say, because this mobile phone is equivalent to not having money, but also making money. In the SE2 era, my Japanese classmates had not yet gone to join in the fun, but last year's SE3 era he also went to shear the wool. According to his description, this timeline goes something like this:
Around the middle of 2020, Rakuten launched an event where the transfer carrier sent the mobile phone and used it for free for one year. At that time, a lot of people went to change Lotte.
At this time, he exchanged docomo's card for Rakuten for free, took a mobile phone for a free time, and then sold the mobile phone for 10,000 yen and enjoyed a year of free use.
By September 2021, major operators began to shift to 1 yen to buy iPhone SE3, which is sold in major electrical appliance stores. At this time, Lotte's one-year free use expired, so he transferred from Lotte to Y-mobile, took an iPhone se3 for free, and then went out to the store opposite the recycled iPhone to sell the phone, got 45,000 yen, and began to use ymobile for about 3,000 yen a month.
Then in March 2022, he used y-mobile for just over half a year, he can not be restricted from changing operators, the major operators began to engage in the transfer number 1 yen to buy iPhone 12 activities, so he went to y-mobile to docomo, and then took an iPhone12 and went out to sell this 12 to recycling stores for 55,000 yen.
In fact, he has been using his iPhone XS and did not change his mobile phone during the whole process, but he sold two machines for 100,000 yen and only spent half a year on the phone bill.
I think there are countless people like him in Japan, not only do people share their wool every day, but many people recycle the wool you get online, which is a one-stop service. As for the recovered SE3 and 12, where they were sold at a high price, I don't know, and I guess it is likely to be sold overseas as a new machine.
So you say sales can't be high? But Japanese carriers are far more volumeized than we are. SoftBank sold 64GB iPhone se3 at a price of "1 yen" at a home appliance mass retailer from the date of its sale on March 18, which became a hot topic, and then AU also launched a one-dollar machine activity, which can be described as a show of its own skills.
Second, models like the iPhone SE and mini are not popular in the domestic market
For SE and mini models, the latter benefits from a powerful configuration, even if the pricing is slightly higher and the sales volume is a little poor, it can still be pulled out by many users to blow a wave.
And the former, except for the processor, wants nothing, if there is no cheap price, not even the opportunity to be applauded, like the SE3.
You say it's okay? In 2022, the full screen of the hundred-yuan machine has been popularized, but it is still this set of "durable design". You say it doesn't work, right? The SE bare machine feels better than the mini, and even if it is a castrated version of the A15, only Apple itself can beat it.
Therefore, many small screen parties love and hate SE, the same LCD screen, SE's comprehensive quality is even not as good as iPhone 11. As a result, mini does not perform well, and SE can only be "full network black", almost everyone recommends.
In fact, although the Japanese market accounts for the majority of SE sales, the entire market is so large that there is no way to influence the global market. The domestic market accounts for a large proportion of the global market of the iPhone, and every year the new iPhone can rank first in the sales list of various platforms, even if the 6.1-inch iPhone is not very in line with the market demand.
We can see from the sales volume of the Android camp that most domestic consumers like large-screen models, and "small-screen machines" in their early 6-inch years are often unattended.
This is also a very perfect explanation, why the revelation that Apple is about to cut the mini product line, iPhone 14 will become two 6.1-inch versions, two 6.7-inch versions, and perhaps the future mini will return in the form of SE.
But in any case, this move is the right direction, even the iPhone 12Pro max, iPhone 13Pro max, a single machine price of nearly 10,000 models can rush into the top ten of the global sales list, it is not difficult to imagine how good the relatively cheap price of 6.7-inch iPhone sales will be.
Third, of course, the above is only part of the problem, I think it is more or more consumption habits and even consumption concepts
As a necessity of today's life, both software and hardware are equally important. Undeveloped countries such as China, Vietnam, and India, due to the relative abundance of labor, the level of purchasing power will also be unbalanced due to regional development factors.
For example, you may have a salary of 3-5K when you enter the factory, but although you can go to a first-tier big city as a takeaway rider, you can have 6K or even tens of thousands of dollars per month. But in Japan, you basically find a convenience store in the circle to work, and the hourly wage is 50CNY.
That is to say, in Japan, basically no one will pursue any "one mobile phone to get the game + watch the film" demand, the mobile phone is the mobile phone, at most one to take pictures and take videos.
On the contrary, more attention is paid to whether the mobile phone software and hardware can withstand long-term use, such as: the system can be upgraded for many years; the processor energy efficiency and performance can meet the software needs of many years; the hardware ID design should be reasonable, waterproof and in line with the original operating habits.
Among them, it can withstand long-term use, in their eyes is the real cost performance, rather than the domestic play machine consumers more pursuit of the "big bowl of material foot".
Therefore, the domestic do not want to see the iPhone SE 3 is normal, after all, only a small screen has made it lose the core quality of the mainstream model, especially the current variety of short videos and large screens are king.
At the same time, if we only put the iPhone SE 3 in the domestic mobile phone market, then it is really not competitive, which is not "psychedelic" in terms of pricing, the 128GB iPhone SE 3 is 3899 yuan, and the 128GB iPhone 12 mini is currently 3999 yuan.
It can be said that Japan's mobile phones are not a single one that can be played: you look at the Japanese mobile phone market report in the fourth quarter of 2020, apple accounts for how much, that is more than 50%, basically hanging all other brands.
Looking at the use of other mobile phones, in addition to Samsung, I believe that no mobile phone in Japan can surpass Apple's mobile phone in terms of experience.
It can be seen that at present, the mobile phone can be said to be the product that we deal with the most every day, and the experience in a short period of time may come more from the hardware, but in the long run, the real influence on the experience is the software level, and this is the fundamental reason why the user viscosity of Apple products is so high.
Final words: China's mobile phone market is really a hell to raise clams, and those who can live in the Chinese mainland mobile phone market for more than 10 years without going out of business are all at the level of the king of deception.
For this reason, it has led to the iPhone SE3 being ridiculed as a stock buster, but please note that of course, this is entirely because Chinese mainland mobile phone users have been served too well by domestic mobile phone brands, and formed unique consumption characteristics.
But in foreign markets, the iPhone SE3 level is indeed enough to play. Especially in the Japanese market, can you imagine how far Japanese homegrown brand mobile phones are pulling their crotches?