For technology companies, how to break through in differentiated competition and drive performance growth through strategic divisions such as "independent innovation" is a threshold that must be crossed on the road to growth.
With the great changes in the smartphone market pattern, the industry has entered a period of reconstruction, GFK data shows that the annual sales of mobile phones in 2021 will be 310 million units, and it is expected that the sales of mobile phones in 2022 will be about 300 million units, and it will be difficult for shipments to recover to more than 400 million units before 2018. China's smartphone market is fiercely competitive, and the total market is also facing downward pressure. The market peaked, the replacement cycle was extended, and domestic head manufacturers began to seek new growth points, so the high-end mobile phone market has become a battlefield for manufacturers to compete for strength.
On April 25, the latest generation of X80 series released by domestic smartphone manufacturer vivo, while adhering to the ultimate product and design concept, focused on high-frequency user use scenarios and pain point scenarios such as portraits, night scenes, and videos on images, and launched ZEISS portrait micro-gimbal, low-light mobile phone "night vision" and other configurations and functions that I have, covering all-time and full-focus scenes, comprehensively improving the camera and video capabilities of mobile phones. In terms of performance, through the optimization of self-developed chips and the in-depth joint tuning of software and hardware, the most stable experience of the game is achieved. Vivo hopes that the X80 series will work with top-of-the-line hardware to maximize performance and power consumption at the same time.
Markets are created
Successful high-end brands often stick to themselves, in addition to their own design philosophy and DNA, they should always remain active and ahead of the curve. However, becoming a high-end brand is not an easy task. Among the top competitors, the international brand Apple still has a large number of fans, and domestic smartphone manufacturers have also invested heavily. For vivo, while adhering to its own characteristics, how to carry out strategic planning and innovative layout is the key to breaking the high-end.
On April 21, Hu Baishan, executive vice president of Vivo, said in a speech at the Boao Forum, "In an uncertain economic environment, more and new market opportunities are often created. Every time a new technology is popularized, the market opportunities brought by it are huge. ”
Taking the vivo X70 series released in 2021 as an example, due to the V1, the first professional imaging chip under vivo, the chip and vivo's image algorithm have achieved a good combination, coupled with the in-depth cooperation with ZEISS in optics and technology, the X70 series has achieved good market performance after listing. According to the latest statistics from Counterpoint, vivo successfully topped the first position in China's mobile phone market share in 2021 with a market share of 22%, and shipments increased by 21% year-on-year.
The newly released X80 series is equipped with a new and upgraded self-developed chip V1+, which not only evolves again at the original image level, but also breaks through the application in the field of performance and display, and more effectively supports the game and video visual experience. In addition, through in-depth joint debugging with the flagship platform, the self-developed chip V1+ is compatible with all flagship SoCs (Qualcomm/MTK/Samsung) on the market. In the process of tackling the whole platform, vivo has generated more than 30 technical patents.
From hardware configurations such as glass lenses, coatings, filters, anti-shake modules, and CMOS, to software algorithm optimization such as vivo algorithm matrix and intelligent charging strategy, vivo will focus on the most cutting-edge technological innovations in the new X80 series. Through multi-core collaboration + hardware-level computing photography + performance experience that breaks through bottlenecks + flagship device specifications, the X80 series not only sets a new standard for high-end flagships in the industry, but also reshapes the flagship standards of the 4K+ price segment.
Not only that, in the X80 series released this time, the strategic cooperation between vivo and ZEISS global imaging has been further upgraded. From the series of full lenses, it is equipped with ZEISS optical lenses and ZEISS T* coatings; the algorithm has ZEISS natural color 2.0, primary color ultra-pure night scene, 107 layers of deep convolution algorithm and other algorithms covering all scenes; new ZEISS Cinematic movie bokeh style and other functions.
In vivo's view, real technological innovation is not only at the level of self-developed technology, but also through various ways to make a systematic thinking about the needs of users, to enhance the value of the brand to customers. From X1 to X80, every scientific and technological innovation of the vivo X series has been recognized by the market by virtue of the differentiation of photography, performance, appearance and other aspects. With the release of the X70 series, Vivo has taken a leading position in the price range of 500-599 US dollars (3184-3814 yuan), from 10% in September 2020 to 20% in September 2021, becoming a breakout in the high-end market monopolized by Apple.
However, China's smartphone market competition is becoming increasingly fierce, with the extension of the replacement cycle, GFK data shows that the annual sales of mobile phones in 2021 are 310 million units, and it is expected that mobile phone sales in 2022 will be about 300 million units, and it is difficult for shipments to recover to more than 400 million units before 2018. Domestic head manufacturers began to seek new growth points, and the high-end mobile phone market has thus become a battlefield for manufacturers to compete for strength.
In this regard, Hu Baishan believes that there are always some high-end users who care about the ultimate application experience. "Our camera function is better than Apple's, and there will be users who recommend our products." Our idea is to explore the places that users are really interested in, and then continue to make breakthroughs and innovations to attract users, which is our high-end logic. He said.
Although vivo has begun to develop folding screen mobile phones in 2018, in order to ensure that the product reaches the ultimate and perfect state, it released its first folding screen mobile phone X Fold on April 11. Hu Baishan said, "The initial product quality is not suitable for the market. It wasn't until our structural engineers, inspired by the variable-retractable gear plates on the wings, developed floating wing hinges that made the creases almost invisible to the screen. At the same time, six aerospace-grade materials are used to reduce the hinge thickness to 10 mm and fold up to 300,000 times. We finally think it's time. ”
According to the data, in July 2019, 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market accounted for only 0.2% of total shipments, and in 2021, the annual shipment volume was 266 million units, accounting for 75.9%. In 2021, the global shipment volume of folding screen mobile phones reached 9 million units, an increase of 200% year-on-year. There will be a 10-fold increase in the coming years.
User demand drives high-end R&D
"Every big turning point in vivo's business is the result of taking technological innovation as the cornerstone, user-oriented, and pursuing the ultimate product." Hu Baishan believes that "innovation has two attributes in essence, one is 'uncertain', and it is a process from scratch. Second, innovation is essentially differentiation, and it is a process of 'seeking difference'. Therefore, the culture of innovation is to always maintain curiosity and imagination, and dare to take a different path. In terms of expanding the industry's innovation of "from scratch", in 2018, Vivo created screen fingerprint technology and became the standard in the industry, and the global screen fingerprint mobile phone shipments reached about 200 million units in 2019, an increase of 614% year-on-year. In terms of "seeking difference", the innovation that Vivo identifies with is "not willing to be mediocre, unwilling to blindly follow, and to do different things".
Within vivo, the design-driven process from demand to technology to product landing is mainly achieved through the "Iron Triangle" research and development system of "product planning + technical planning + technical pre-research". In this regard, Hu Baishan said, "If a company's products do not bring new value and significance to users, this product cannot have real differentiation, so we will return all work to the user as the origin, return to various scenarios and tasks under the scene, truly insight into the real needs of users, and truly define products that meet user needs." ”
The "Iron Triangle" system explains the transformation and development path of vivo's technology research and development and innovation system since 2009 - by thinking clearly about what to do with product planning; thinking about how to meet user needs for technical planning, and finally conducting technical pre-research, so as to achieve the landing of product planning and technical planning in this step. This ensures that each generation of vivo products can maintain a differentiated advantage in a complex and highly competitive market.
It is precisely by relying on the system innovation ability that Vivo has realized the first self-developed chip V1, the first fingerprint under the screen, the lifting camera, the micro-gimbal and many other innovative technologies that lead the industry wind. In 2021, Vivo upgraded its corporate culture and wrote "design-driven" into its values.
Hu Baishan stressed that the goal of Vivo's continuous efforts in the next 10 and 20 years is to establish a design-driven system and values, and use design-driven to create products and services that change the world. At the beginning of 2021, Vivo established the "Academia Sinica". Led by Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, the team mainly focuses on the long-term exploration of four aspects: the attention and research of technology evolution at home and abroad; product research and incubation in future technology scenarios; platform-level capacity building, such as chips, systems and other underlying technologies; based on consumer needs, industry technology trends and scene definition and related layout, such as perception interaction, human-computer interaction, etc. On this basis, the user innovation laboratory, chip laboratory, simulation network laboratory, Thousand Mirrors Safety Laboratory and other laboratories have been established.
"We believe that only the continuous investment of cutting-edge technology, the ultimate products provided to users, and then the formation of a good virtuous circle, the industry has enough development and enough vitality." Hu Baishan said, "It is the technological revolution that acts as the 'golden key' to start the next round of economic prosperity." At a time when the world economy is affected by various uncertainties, we must remain optimistic, bold and innovative, and strive to do so. ”
In fact, every time a new technology is popularized, the market opportunities brought by it are huge. The integration of smartphones with various industries in the future will also stimulate greater new demand. At present, Vivo will design (including appearance, interaction, etc.), image (shooting, video, etc.), system (including the underlying system and the use of AI technology, etc.), performance (game and other scenes) as the company's four long tracks. And has started the 6G advanced technology pre-research and exploration for 2030.
As Hu Baishan said, "Scientific and technological innovation is the fundamental path for the competitiveness of science and technology enterprises, and continuous investment in future technologies can have lasting vitality, and this understanding drives us to dare to embrace uncertainty." ”
Shen Jianyuan/Wen