China Post Hi nova, can not go out of Huawei features

Image source @ Visual China

Wen | Finance New Knowledge Pro, author | Wang Siyuan, editor| Yi page

"Huawei nova has sent 4 5G mobile phones in a row?"

"How come this nova doesn't have a Hongmeng system?"

"Why doesn't nova have a Huawei logo?"

Recently, Hi nova has been on fire.

From the name of the "cottage" flavor at the beginning, to the product design and overall configuration that are very similar to nova, and the short-term continuous release of 4 mobile phones with 5G functions, Hinova has successfully attracted many consumers.

But almost every Hi nova follower would have asked these questions.

Indeed, in Huawei's current situation, a mobile phone with 5G capabilities is impossible to build, let alone release 4 models in a row. So the emergence of Hi nova is difficult not to make people think.

Since the end of 2020, after Huawei sold Yourong, the outside world's discussion of Huawei's mobile phone business has reached a climax, and the P series, M series and nova series have also become a hot issue.

Hi nova unveils the future development of the nova series.

01 Finding a home

Huawei's plan to separate NOVA has long been promising.

In September last year, the well-known digital blogger "Juchang Pictures Fans" released a Weibo post saying that "Hi nova 5G Smart Selection is about to be launched", unveiling the mystery.

Affected by sanctions and lack of cores, Huawei's mobile phone business is struggling, and after the glory is completely packaged and sold, the separation of the nova series has become the consensus of the industry.

Shortly after the news broke, a corporate account called "Hi nova" attracted market attention. The Weibo account authentication company is not Huawei, but China Post Communication Equipment Co., Ltd.

According to the investigation, China Post Communications is 100% owned by China Post and Telecommunications Equipment Group, which is not only one of the largest mobile phone distributors in China, but also accounts for 21.79% of the shares in the main company that acquired Glory, and is the third largest shareholder of Honor.

With this layer of relationship, coupled with the hi nova trademark, it is not difficult to see that Huawei's nova business is most likely oem to China Post Communications.

Last November, Bloomberg's release confirmed the speculation. According to the news, Huawei is considering licensing its smartphone design technology to Xnova, a division within the China Post and Telecommunications Equipment Group (PTAC).

In addition, from the current release of Hi nova and several models ready to be listed, it can be basically concluded that nova adopts the way of cooperation with China Post Communications, China Post Communications is responsible for doing the brand, and Huawei provides technical support behind it.

Because whether it is the Hi nova9, 9Pro, 9SE that has been released, or the upcoming release of 9Z, from design to configuration, it is a "shell" of Huawei's previously listed models; and within Huawei, nova only exists in the form of series, research and development, design, supply chain, etc. belong to the Huawei brand research and development team, unlike Glory is an independent sub-brand, in addition to some shared technologies with Huawei, the others are independent operations.

This also means that if nova wants to become an independent brand like Glory, then it needs to build a complete team. Therefore, even if Huawei and China Post Communications have not yet announced specific cooperation rules, nova has become the OEM brand of China Post Communications and has become the mainstream consensus in the industry.

In fact, cooperation with third-party manufacturers to carry out mobile phone business is the norm for Huawei, but this does not mean that Huawei does not have requirements when selecting partners.

Cooperation with third parties, on the one hand, is to inject funds, but huawei also wants to maximize the protection of the design and operation team and brand value of the original mobile phone when conditions permit.

Although brand divestiture has become Huawei's main means to survive the crisis, forming a win-win situation with partners is also what Huawei values, especially the nova brand.

Because for Huawei, the importance of nova is difficult to compare with these cooperative brands such as Thunderbird and Mai Mang. To a certain extent, nova is the moat of Huawei's P and M series, which is second to the two high-end series in internal positioning, and the main young market also brings good sales.

As an offline brand, nova needs channels the most, so Huawei is bound to consider the buyer's offline channel capabilities when selling novas.

In addition to the inextricable relationship with glory, China Post Communications was also the national representative of Huawei's nova series before, relying on Huawei's rebates for profitability, and the ability of channels is beyond doubt.

And because of the previous relationship with Huawei, China Post Communications is difficult to receive xiaomi, OV, Apple and other mobile phone manufacturers of resources, after the Huawei mobile phone business fell lonely, China Post Communications can not sell Huawei products, resulting in a deficit, but as a state-owned enterprise, want to make personnel changes is not simple, in order to make a profit, there is a period of time in some provinces of China Post channels even turned to do e-cigarette, tea sales business.

One side is Huawei, which needs to protect the original nova team to the greatest extent, and the other side is worried about not being able to find a business to do, although the two sides have not officially announced the relevant matters, but the emergence of Hi nova is also an indirect confirmation that the two companies have reached an agreement in some aspects.

02 Peeling

At present, the relationship between hi nova and Huawei is also reflected in the word "smart selection".

Since last year, Huawei's mobile phone department has increased its investment in the industrial chain on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is also cooperating with operators and third-party manufacturers to minimize the impact of chips as much as possible.

Through cooperation with the three major operators or other brands, the Huawei logo no longer appears on the mobile phone, and Huawei only provides technical support. In fact, in the early domestic mobile phone market, a large part of it was customized by operators, and the mobile phone was the logo of the telecom operator.

These "shell" brands launched in cooperation with third-party manufacturers, because they are not affected by sanctions, partners can obtain chip supply from Qualcomm and other enterprises, and then the research and development of mobile phones, systems, etc. are completed by Huawei, such as Mai Mang, Imagination, etc., these brands are also included in Huawei's smart selection, on the Huawei Mall, Hi nova is the same.

But Hi nova is also fundamentally different from a real nova:

First of all, on the processor, due to the separation from Huawei, several hi nova models are equipped with 5G chips provided by Qualcomm Snapdragon, while the nova series is equipped with Qualcomm's same model of 4G chips.

Although 5G is now the standard of smart phones, after several years of landing, the market has not given consumers a reason to use 5G, and 5G and 4G are not much different in the process of daily use.

Like WeChat, Taobao, Jingdong and other mobile phone Apps with more text and pictures, the network speed requirements are not high when used; in addition, through communication with multiple anchors, it is found that even if it is live broadcast on video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, 10M network speed is enough to meet; and according to the data given by telecom operators, 4G daily network speed can generally reach the level of 100 megabytes.

On the contrary, the high cost of 5G packages has also made most ordinary consumers have no good feelings about 5G. The nova users themselves are sinking the market and mostly young people, in the case of 5G experience and 4G, the price, communication packages are more expensive "5G version of nova" is not a good choice.

Secondly, due to the fact that a number of companies with close ties to Huawei have been included in the sanctions list, it has become a consensus that the huawei mobile phone brands that have been split do not use the Hongmeng system, and several models that Hi nova has sold have not used the latest Hongmeng system, but use the EMUI system based on Android customization.

After the development of the domestic mobile phone market came to a bottleneck, excess performance led to the use of a mobile phone for three or five years became the norm, and the complicated replacement steps gradually smoothed out the consumer's desire to change the machine, until the emergence of the Hongmeng system, which set off a wave.

Whether it is the official publicity warm-up, or the actual evaluation of the media, it has conveyed a very smooth message to the outside world that the Hongmeng system has been transmitted; and the Hongmeng system, as the first pure domestic operating system, has also received support from many consumers, and the desire to change the machine in the market has been rediscovered.

Previously, Phoenix Technology also released an investigation "Will you buy Huawei products because of the Hongmeng system?" The survey results show that more than 260,000 people have voted and chosen, of which more than 220,000 people will consider the choice, which is very heartwarming, accounting for 84% of the survey.

The novelty of the new system coupled with excellent adaptation capabilities, the Hongmeng system has become a "killing move" for Huawei to retain old users and even develop new users, but Hi nova, which lacks this "killing move", is bound to lose a large part of consumers. "Finance New Knowledge" also confirmed this when it asked the relevant offline sales personnel in many cities.

"Almost every customer will ask about the Hongmeng system, if it is not equipped for the time being, their interest in this phone will be greatly reduced." About 8 out of 10 customers will turn around and leave. ”

It is worth mentioning that "Finance and Economics New Knowledge" learned in the communication with sales staff that the lack of Huawei logo is also a major reason why consumers are reluctant to pay for it. Some netizens on Weibo also said, "After buying it back, I found that there was no Huawei logo, and directly chose to return it." ”

Huawei nova in this period of silence, Xiaomi OV three benchmark products have divided its market share clean, in the absence of Hongmeng system and Huawei logo blessing, Hi nova wants to impress consumers is not easy.

However, for Hinova, China Post Communications has always had great expectations.

03 Bet

On November 4, 2021, the Dingqiao N8 Pro, which is considered to be the 5G version of Huawei's nova 8 Pro, opened pre-sale. But Dingqiao didn't seem to be ready, and in less than half a month, the N8 Pro was hastily removed.

Unlike the rapid release and exit of The Dingqiao N8 Pro, China Post Communications is more fully prepared for Hi nova, with Weibo warm-up, press conference, official flagship store and other actions readily available. These treatments have never appeared on Huawei's other cooperative brands such as Mai Mang and Thunderbird. It can be seen that China Post Communications has the intentions.

However, making a mobile phone is a manifestation of comprehensive strength. There is no doubt about the offline channel capabilities of China Post Communications, but in addition to channels, marketing promotion, brand reputation, profits, after-sales and so on are all problems that need to be solved.

First of all, in terms of marketing promotion and brand building, without the support of Huawei logo, Hinova's offline promotion cannot avoid the embarrassment of being used as a copycat machine; offline front-line sales personnel may also conceal the facts for short-term performance, causing damage to brand reputation.

According to the feedback of Weibo netizens, at present, Huawei's offline stores have the problem of confusing "Hi nova" and "nova" is not a single case, and many store staff will say "only the trademark is not Huawei, the others belong to Huawei" when recommending Hi nova mobile phones, completely ignoring the differences between the two in after-sales service and software updates.

There are also many complaints on the black cat complaints about Huawei authorized stores concealing facts and recommending Hi nova to consumers.

Secondly, in terms of after-sales service, China Post Communications is not ready. It is reported that Hi nova claimed that the after-sales service was provided by Huawei at the time of sale, but the actual situation is that only a few Huawei service stores have the authorization to carry out after-sales service, and many times if there is a problem, they can only return to the factory for maintenance.

In addition, the after-sales telephone provided by Hi nova officially has nothing to do with Huawei, and "Finance new knowledge" also confirmed that Hi nova has its own independent after-sales after calling for inquiries.

What's more, some netizens on the consumer guarantee said that when they were after-sales, there was a situation where Huawei kicked the ball to the Hinova after-sales after-sales, but it did not handle it.

Finally, if China Post Communications wants to make Hinova a second glory, it has to face the pressure of industry competition.

At present, the domestic mobile phone pattern is basically stable, Apple, Xiaomi OV, Glory basically occupied 90% of the market share, if there is no Huawei's blessing, Hinova wants to play a world is not easy, Samsung can not get back the share of the domestic market is a good example.

For China Post Communications, getting the good card of nova is an opportunity and a challenge. How to gain market recognition while reducing its dependence on Huawei is the next problem that it needs to think about.