In the context of the pressure on the market and the continuous reshuffling of the high-end market, Vivo has stepped on the high-end road through the vivo X Fold and X80 series, and gradually evolved from a climber to a leader in high-end trends.
Author/Ketchup
Produced/Newly Excerpted Business Review
The spring of 2022 is coming to an end, but the spring of the mobile phone industry has not yet arrived.
As a winner in the domestic high-end mobile phone market in the past year, Apple tried to enter the downward movement through the iPhone SE 3 series, but the market response after the release of the series was flat, and ultimately failed to shake the basic disk of the Android camp.
According to Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingqi, Apple has cut the shipment of iPhone SE 3 this year by about 10 million, cutting orders by more than 20%, coupled with the reduction of omni-channel prices of many models, it can be seen that in the cold winter of the industry, Apple may be ready to meet the decline in sales.
Apple's strength and self-help under the severe market may indicate a quiet change in the direction of the mobile phone market.
When the industry is cold in winter and the leader is tired, it is the stall of the rise of domestic manufacturers, and domestic manufacturers vow to regain the high-end market share occupied by Apple in 2022. Among many players, vivo is undoubtedly the most competitive challenger in the high-end market.
Counterpoint's latest statistics show that vivo has successfully reached the top of China's mobile phone market share in 2021 with a market share of 22%, and shipments have increased by 21% year-on-year. It is enough to show that in the last round of competition, vivo has the upper hand.
Nowadays, Vivo has returned with the vivo X series that has been sharpened for ten years, and has opened a new journey to compete for the high-end market with the vivo X80 series, which can be called the masterpiece of the strong.
First, on the high-end dark road, vivo suddenly emerged
The track's entry into the stock market is the primary reason why domestic brands are attacking the high-end.
According to GFK data, mobile phone sales in 2021 will be 310 million, which is a significant gap from the peak of 400 million yuan in annual sales before 2018. According to its forecast, mobile phone sales this year or will continue to decline, staying at about 300 million units.
The reasons for the decline in shipments are complex, on the one hand, the mobile phone terminal industry chain is gradually maturing, accelerating the speed of technology from supply chain to commercialization, thereby reducing the innovation space of upstream devices.
In the early years, flip-top, slide-top, and straight-panel mobile phones came together, and the current mobile phones have been tightened and become homogeneous in the flow of people. Without innovative technology at the supply chain end, it is difficult for manufacturers to build new selling points for products, and users' willingness to change machines is reduced.
On the other hand, with the chip process process under the restriction of physical laws, the downward detection rate is reduced, and the increase in hardware performance is also slowed down, and in the past, hardware and software companies "kicked the tacit ball" and promoted hardware replacement.
On the PC side, manufacturers can still promote hardware iteration by creating technologies such as ray tracing, but the performance of mobile phones has generally overflowed, and the market will naturally shrink.
In this regard, Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Vivo, said: "The user replacement cycle is 16-18 months at the earliest, followed by 20-24 months, and now it is 36 months. ”
For mobile phone manufacturers, the user's willingness to change the machine means that the "cost performance + high shipments" play is no longer useful, the product must be sold expensive to ensure profitability, "high-end" has become the only choice for high-quality players, and the battle has begun.
However, the capture of "high-end mountains" is not simply to say, in 2021, domestic mobile phone manufacturers embarked on a difficult journey of exploration.
In the early days, the logic of some players was very simple, that is, to continue the set of cost-effective mobile phones in the past, but to replace the cheap upstream devices with cutting-edge devices, and to launch an impact on the high-end market through the form of "hardware stacking".
Now a year later, in the face of the cake of the domestic high-end market, Apple is feasting. Obviously, high-end upgrading is not so simple, after all, the hardware level of the stack has not been able to penetrate the performance advantages of Apple's A series processors, but will pull up the price to weaken their competitiveness, obviously, based on the high-end needs a harder effort.
Vivo is a breakthrough in the high-end domestic difficult road. According to the data, the release of the vivo X70 series last year made it a leading position in the price range of $500-599, and its market share increased from 10% in September 2020 to 20% in September 2021.
Why based on high-end, Hu Baishan pointed out: "The only solution is to explore the real interests of users through product technology innovation, so as to truly attract high-end users." The so-called breakthrough innovation can not make the user's experience decline, but through a good experience to make those who choose to try to form a positive recommendation. ”
Among the many technical power points, vivo has chosen to bet on the ultimate pursuit of users. "High-end users have the ultimate pursuit of certain segmentation directions, such as the demand for large screens, or the ultimate pursuit of images, when we do better in the extreme scenes that these users care about, and completely exceed user expectations, high-end logic can run through." Hu Baishan explained.
It is adhering to this logic that Vivo has successively launched the folding screen model vivo X Fold with major screens, and the vivo X80 series with extreme imaging capabilities, consolidating the existing advantages while climbing upwards again.
It is worth noting that compared with some mobile phone manufacturers, the time node of the launch of the vivo folding screen model is slightly lagging behind, while the exploration of imaging capabilities is at the forefront of the track. Vivo's different attitudes in the face of different technologies reflect its philosophy as a high-end breakout - change, and unchanged.
Second, change and invariance, vivo's high-end philosophy
At present, the high-end battlefield is surrounded by heroes, and domestic manufacturers have also learned lessons from last year's defeat, abandoned the uncompetitive way of playing with materials, and actively sought to become a new survival essential for players.
The philosophy of "change" is reflected in both the current hardware specifications and the brand tone.
Obviously, in the highly homogeneous environment inside the track, only by building technical barriers and achieving differentiated competition can we create selling points and attract users to try. The self-developed chip V1 released by vivo in 2021 is the product of this logic.
In 2022, vivo continued its previous successful playing style, and launched an upgraded version of its self-developed chip V1+ on the basis of the V1 chip, in addition to evolving the image capabilities that V1 is already good at, it will also expand the capabilities to the performance and display level.
It is reported that the self-developed chip V1+ is compatible with all flagship SoC chips on the market, and has reached a deep joint commissioning with the flagship platform to achieve the effect of 1+1>2.
Playing the self-developed chip brand, Vivo has changed the pace from a single scene specializing in computational photography to comprehensively improving the comprehensive ability of mobile phones, and this attitude of "seeking change" not only leads the dual-core flagship standard, but also indirectly reflects the philosophy of vivo conforming to the times.
In addition to V1+, vivo also carries an exclusive sensor customized exclusively to Samsung and an IMX866 outsole sensor using RGBW fusion units.
Obviously, Vivo is trying to dig deep into its own moat in the image "longboard" through technical accumulation.
In addition, the hardware configuration such as glass lenses and coatings and the optimization level of software algorithms such as algorithm matrix and intelligent charging strategy have vivo's self-developed figures, combined with the above-mentioned technical paths around the horizontal and vertical directions of images, the philosophy of vivo "change" seems to reveal a main line, that is, the pursuit of the ultimate.
At the hardware level, it is important to build barriers, but mobile phones are ultimately low-frequency consumer goods, even if there are selling points in the product technology, users are likely to limit themselves to trial and error costs and try cautiously. Therefore, breaking through the user's mind can not rely only on technical barriers, the importance of brand tonality can not be ignored.
Last year, Vivo upgraded its corporate culture, writing "design-driven" into brand values, and creating the concept of "not wanting to be mediocre, not wanting to blindly follow, and doing something different". Between the words, they all reveal a self-examination of the current homogenization status quo, and "change" and "creation" have become the propositions of the next stage.
More than a decade ago, Jobs came out with an iPhone, and when many brands still created products with small keyboards and touch pens, the iPhone has only been a simple but subversive "sliding" to reshape mobile phone thinking.
However, at a time when the supply chain is becoming more and more mature, it is difficult to interpret the connotation of "change" in short-term technology selection, and only the foresight of medium- and long-term uncertain technologies can be undertaken.
According to Hu Baishan, vivo internally divides R & D projects into 1-3 years and more than 3 years, for more than three years of medium and long-term cutting-edge technology, vivo not only divides it independently in the internal structure, but also ensures that it has enough R & D personnel.
"Vivo Central Research Institute" is such a product, which is committed to technical planning for more than 36 months. The exploration of uncertain technologies is bound to promote "product change" more than focusing on short-term supply chain innovation.
Of course, seeking change is not an absolute law of victory, and "changing for the sake of change" will only bring negative feedback. Taking the folding screen model as an example, the early stage of birth did refresh the public's understanding of mobile phone design, but the rapid process of technology commercialization made problems such as screen creases and hinges also hit.
The same is true of the phenomenon of "grabbing the first launch" of the mobile phone track, blindly hardening the flagship processor for the so-called "first" and ignoring the polishing and tuning of the hardware, which is likely to lead to overheating and de-frequency reduction, performance degradation and other drawbacks. This kind of "semi-finished product" not only damages the user experience, but also hurts the user's mind, which is a big taboo in the white-hot stage of high-end warfare.
"In fact, in 2018, vivo has begun to develop folding screen mobile phones, we believe that it has not reached the ultimate and perfect state, and the product quality is not suitable for the market." In order to ensure that the basic flagship machine experience is not sacrificed because of folding, the entire smart phone industry continues to innovate, so that the product quality of folding screen mobile phones is becoming more and more perfect, and this process also promotes the upgrading of the industrial chain. Hu Baishan revealed.
It can be seen from this that for the part that has not yet been polished enough, vivo is not eager to mass production and "grab the first launch", but follows the "perfect" product thinking and exerts the maximum efficiency of cutting-edge technology and top hardware. Taking the vivo X80 series as an example, through cooperation with MediaTek and tuning of the V1+ chip, vivo released the full performance of the Tianji 9000 chip and optimized the power consumption performance, exerting the effect of 1+1>2.
At the same time, for the above-mentioned scenes that are deeply integrated with users, Vivo has chosen not to blindly follow the radical route, focusing on "stability" and ensuring the user experience, which is its "unchangeable philosophy".
Three, ten years of grinding a sword, X80 series interpretation of what is strong
From the world's thinnest fuselage design of the first vivo X1 in 2012, to the world's first 2K screen model vivo XPlay, and then to the world's first screen fingerprint model vivo X20Plus in 2018, unconsciously, the vivo X series has gone through a ten-year journey.
In the process of climbing the peak of high-end, the "extreme" story written in the past has built the ascending base of vivo's high-end flagship, and X80 is the product of this "theory of evolution".
In an era of widespread hardware performance overflow, large-scale games stacked with a 120 frame rate have become the final performance threshold for many models. In other words, strong game performance will become the driving force for users to change machines.
However, as a portable game terminal, mobile phones have limited space for heat dissipation design, which also makes it difficult for some models to maintain stable performance during high-intensity gaming. Software and algorithm capabilities have become the gateway to break through bottlenecks.
Under the general trend of manufacturers adopting flagship SoCs, the performance of Android flagship models tends to converge, and the differentiation often only stems from the difference in the tuning capabilities of various manufacturers. The manufacturer's power point is also mainly focused on the adaptation and optimization of the flagship chip itself, and the ultimate goal is to release the "full blood" performance.
Vivo X80 series is not the case, based on the upgraded V1+ chip, the X80 series not only fully releases hardware performance, but also achieves performance beyond "full blood" through the industry's first GPU Fusion technology. As a product of hard-software collaboration, GPU Fusion is mainly aimed at game scenarios.
It is reported that GPU Fusion can intelligently identify game scenes and dynamically adjust the screen strategy according to the load, thereby saving power consumption and solving the problem of long-term game frame drop. For large-scale mobile games such as "Original God" and "Celestial Oracle", GPU Fusion has a proprietary scene AI algorithm, which greatly reduces power consumption through AISR supersing, makes its frame rate and picture more stable, and releases the ability to surpass "full blood".
In addition, after the V1+ chip has been deeply tuned, it has also realized the functions that players urgently need such as game superframe and game super-clear, for games that do not support high frames, the X80 series can insert it to double the frame rate with lower power consumption; vivo R & D team has also optimized the visual effects such as tone mapping and memory color protection for mainstream games to maximize the game display effect.
The X80 series, which focuses on deep game scenes, did not give up the advantages of past images, but co-created with ZEISS depth, and strengthened the computational photography capabilities of the V1+ chip, making it an image "ceiling".
As we all know, mobile phones are different from professional cameras, and their imaging capabilities depend on both optics and software and algorithmic tuning.
In this regard, Hu Baishan took the "ghost shadow" as an example: "In the past, ZEISS's optical capabilities were reflected in high-end cameras, lithography machines and other equipment, and the purpose of our joint laboratory operation was how to reflect the technology on mobile phones.
For example, many mobile phone glare shots always have ghosts, which is not solved by algorithms, so we eliminate it through coating through ZEISS-guided technology, and solve the problem purely through optical design. ”
There is an old saying in the field of photography that "the bottom of the big level crushes people", that is, the "cinematic sense" advantage brought by the format advantage can often exceed the quality of the lens. The so-called "sense of cinema" is the background bokeh effect of the "big bottom" photosensitive element.
However, unlike professional cameras, mobile phones have limited structural design space and are difficult to place in the "big bottom". Therefore, even if the "ghost" problem can be solved through optical design, the realization of "cinematic sense" still requires algorithmic support.
In this regard, vivo through the joint laboratory with ZEISS, the use of algorithm matrix, reproduction simulation of the effect of real ZEISS film lenses, and combined with the portrait background bokeh algorithm to achieve a 2.39:1 movie format image, so that vivo on the mobile terminal to achieve the original taste of ZEISS optics.
At the same time, as a flagship model, in addition to the creation of performance and image longboard, hardware configuration and aesthetic design are also superior.
It is reported that the X80 series of the entire series adopts a high-brush low-power E5 screen, while the screen ratio is higher, the picture quality is more delicate, and the color is more realistic; and the whole series is equipped with dual battery cell 80W flash charge, 10min can be charged to nearly 50%; heat dissipation, the thermal conductivity of the VC vaporizer board of the two models is about 10,000, covering more heat sources.
It can be seen that the X80 series is worthy of vivo's efforts to reshape the flagship standard. In the context of the pressure on the market and the continuous reshuffling of the high-end market, Vivo has stepped on the high-end road through the vivo X Fold and X80 series, and gradually evolved from a climber to a leader in high-end trends.