The smart phone market outlet has passed The small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers have begun to actively seek changes

Per reporter: Wang Jing Per editor: Yang Xia

On April 21, data agency Canalys released the first quarter of 2022 global mobile phone market report showed that in the first quarter of this year, due to the poor economic situation and seasonal sluggish demand, global smartphone shipments fell by 11% year-on-year. In the domestic market, there are also frequent news of Android manufacturers reducing orders.

Under the downward trend of sales, small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers have begun to actively seek transformation. "This year, OnePlus's offline experience points will cover 2,800 districts and counties across the country, more than 4,000 business districts, and the number of experience points will exceed 5,000." On the evening of April 21, Li Jie, president of OnePlus China, told the media, including the daily economic news reporter. In the history of OnePlus's development in the past decade, sales channels are mainly concentrated on online platforms.

OnePlus Online Conference Image source: Courtesy of the enterprise

In addition to the channel change, with the return to the domestic market, Yiplus, which used to focus on the "geek" crowd that preferred the performance experience of technology, also began to go to the mass market - launched a new series of Aces, and the price was lowered to 2499 yuan, focusing on technology and game entertainment experience, trying to drive its sales growth.

Unlike OnePlus, Coolpad Group, a mobile phone manufacturer that is equivalent to a new start in China, is seeking new business models to offset the lack of growth in hardware. Sima Yunrui, vice president of Coolpad Group and president of the Internet Center, recently told reporters, "At present, the hardware iteration of the mobile phone industry has slowed down, and it is difficult to make a difference simply by relying on hardware. Maybe in the future Coolpad is a subscription company, and we want to do SaaS. ”

Accelerate the iteration speed of new products to shift to offline channel layout

For a long time in the past, because OnePlus insisted on only being a flagship, it was questioned that its business model was too single, and even its popularity in China was limited to first- and second-tier cities. But now, OnePlus is starting to make a difference.

In addition to releasing the new Ace series as a supplement to the current product line, Li Jie also revealed to reporters, "Next, OnePlus will iterate according to the two series of products, and every quarter will see new product releases." ”

Behind the intensive planning of new products is the sales growth pressure faced by OnePlus. In May 2021, OnePlus had proposed to reach the goal of 10 million units in the Chinese market in three years, and the current completed sales volume was more than 2 million units. In China's sluggish and competitive mobile phone market, the target is not an easy number.

Li Jie said frankly that there will definitely be pressure, but the goal will not change. "In the entire Android camp, ten million (sales) is not a very large value. Including the technology, channels, services and quality control capabilities of oppo blessing, etc., give us a little time, this (task) can definitely be completed. ”

Since June 2021, after the comprehensive merger of OnePlus and the OPPO team, it can be intuitively felt that the integration of the two sides has become closer. On the channel, with the help of OPPO's offline stores throughout the country, OnePlus offline experience points will cover 2800 districts and counties across the country.

What is this concept? Li Jie responded: "Basically, it can cover most of the major districts and counties in China. But he stressed, "We will not enter all of OPPO's offline stores, but first ensure that the core business district can experience oneplus products, which is the logic of the layout." ”

When talking about the reasons for the large number of offline layouts, Li Jie said, "I often receive feedback from many users on the Internet, many of whom say that they can't find a oneplus experience store, why do users know less about one plus? Because he has not been in contact with the oneplus brand, there are fewer people around him. At the same time, in terms of after-sales service, since January this year, nearly 1,000 OPPO national after-sales outlets have been opened to OnePlus users, covering more than 90% of the prefecture-level cities in the country.

In addition, OPPO's annual shipments worldwide are close to 200 million units, and OnePlus will also share the stable product supply and cost advantages of oppo's supply chain. Moreover, in terms of technology, OnePlus will also have more opportunities to deeply customize with suppliers and jointly develop new technologies and new components. For example, the Tianji 8100-MAX chip launched by oneplus Ace is customized by one plus and MediaTek in-depth cooperation.

Games are becoming a new growth track under a downward trend

Although mobile phone manufacturers continue to update the screen, chip and appearance, the average replacement cycle of consumers continues to be extended. According to the Strategy Analytics report, the average replacement cycle for the UK group is 38 months, the average replacement cycle in the US is 41 months, and the average replacement cycle in China is 28 months. More worryingly, IDC has also announced that it has lowered its terminal market forecast for the whole year of 2022.

But in Li Jie's view, there are still huge opportunities in the Chinese market. "No matter how the domestic market declines, there are still more than 200 million android markets, which means that there are many real user needs here."

He believes that under the downward trend, games are becoming a new growth track. "There are more than 600 million game users in China, 60-70% of young people love to play games, for us, games are the core scene."

However, e-sports mobile phones and game phones are not a new category. According to incomplete statistics, since the beginning of the black shark branding of game mobile phones in 2018, in the past 5 years, black sharks, red devils, Lenovo saviors and other mobile phone brands such as IQOO, redmi, and one plus have been born.

The reporter noted that in April alone, there were new machines aimed at the e-sports market, including the realme Q5 series and iQOO Neo6. Among them, the former will significantly reduce the price segment of high-power flash charging, and the price range of 80W flash charging is only 1799 yuan-2199 yuan; the latter will be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon Gen 1 flagship chip Mobile phone price down to the 2799-3299 yuan price range, while matching independent display chips, 80W flash charging and other configurations to strive for more e-sports users.

But Li Jie stressed that OnePlus does not want to make mobile phones into e-sports mobile phones or gaming mobile phones. "As the most intimate device in people's daily lives, mobile phones must take into account its daily scenes, such as taking pictures, appearance, etc." In terms of creating differentiation, OPPO already has a main line of development for performance games specially created for OnePlus to support onepl's product innovation. He said, "In the future, technological innovations around the performance track such as game technology, heat dissipation materials and charging technology will be launched on OnePlus products, which will become the support of the difference points of our products." ”

Although in the overseas market, OnePlus has achieved a good foundation for development, in its domestic market, is still in the penetration stage, and under the competition, the pressure on domestic mobile phone manufacturers has increased sharply, each of which is in the product line, channel, technology and other levels of strength, whether OnePlus can compete for the product market from it, it remains to be seen.

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