"The best time to plant a tree is ten years ago, followed by the present." One day in the future, this sentence should become a footnote to the evolution of China's smartphone industry pattern, used to review the high-end market in the 2022 reshuffle.
In the smart phone market, which is under pressure and basically flat in the market, the layout of high-end and trying to drive the overall performance to the good has become a "clear card" played by many brands. Industry variables are still there, as far as the more distant future is concerned, the current awakening and efforts may not be too late, and a brand that planted the "high-end seed" ten years ago will harvest the gift from the selfless friend of "time" earlier: in 2012, vivo's X series debuted on the market, with the current "world's thinnest" fame, and vivo also planted a seed of strength, will "the ultimate pursuit" buried in the soil of innovation.
Recently, the release of a new generation of flagship X80 series, standing on a decade-old accumulation of "innovation highland", the success of the product, and then further promote vivo's success in the high-end market and the overall market, will come to fruition.
The smart phone market is under pressure, and the high-end market has launched a "breakout war"
"This may be the worst year of the past decade, and it may be the best year of the next decade," a judgment that has often appeared in the opinion sharing of many industry people in the past two years, which is both a concern about the current situation and the future, as well as a warning.
The smartphone market is undergoing a round of structural adjustment, the challenge is the first to be revealed, the market volatility, shock situation at least in the short term is difficult to end: according to GFK data, 2021 mobile phone sales of 310 million units, compared with 2020, a decline of 3%, has been in the recent trough, while the rebound situation is not expected to appear in 2022, mobile phone sales are expected to be 300 million units, compared with 2021 another 3%. Overall, it is difficult to see a peak similar to the amount reached around 2017.
Then the opportunity emerged, contrary to the steady decline in sales, in the GFK data, smartphone sales exceeded the peak level in previous years in 2021, reaching 1.03 trillion yuan, an increase of 8% year-on-year, and this data is expected to continue to grow slightly to 1.04 trillion yuan in 2022. The average price increase is also very obvious, on the basis of the year-on-year increase of 10% in 2020 to 2956 yuan, the year-on-year increase in 2021 is 11% to 3295 yuan, and it is expected that this figure will reach 3420 yuan in 2022.
Behind the volume decline, the structural adjustment of smart phones is actually manifested as the contraction of entry-level products and the expansion of high-end products. The operation of the global market has also become evidenced, counterpoint and other institutional data show that in 2021, the global high-end smartphone market sales growth reached an all-time high of 24%, 27% of the market share also hit a record high. Continuing to grasp the opportunities of high-end market expansion is already a common issue facing the industry.
In this context, the head brand is trying its best to win the market initiative by virtue of the time barrier of high-end layout. For example, Apple, the world's largest player in the high-end market, did not stand still, but tried to maintain its advantage in the world by continuing to exert its strength in the Chinese market. According to Counterpoint data, its high-end market share in China will reach 63.5% in 2021. At the same time, it can be seen that Chinese brands represented by vivo are also stepping up their layout and striving to compete with global giants by opening up the situation at home. A high-end market battle with the intention of breaking Apple's monopoly is being staged.
Behind the local giants reaching the top, the "high-end potential energy" is accelerating the release
The structural adjustment of the market hints at the reshaping of the industry pattern, and in the process, the strong competitiveness of China's local giants is continuing to be released: data, vivo has become the "king of sales" in the new cycle. According to Counterpoint data, 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.
Behind vivo's ability to reach the top of the Chinese market with a double-digit high growth rate, the first is the most simple brand operation logic: the accumulation of product strength. For vivo, this is the result of deep ploughing in the "innovation highland" since X1.
Over the past 10 years, Vivo's sense of innovation and innovation ability have been fully demonstrated through generations of products including the X series: from "the world's thinnest", to the industry's first front-facing soft-light dual camera, the first lifting camera, to the first micro-PTZ stabilization, ZEISS T* optical lens, as well as the self-developed image chip vivo V1, compatible with all flagship SoC V1+ on the market... From the appearance to the core, Vivo's continuous and stable innovation is a long-term adherence to the value of technology, and it also stores enough energy for the shuffle of the high-end market.
According to further, the release of high-end product power has become a key force to promote the evolution of the brand competition pattern. According to the data, 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), and its share has increased from 10% in September 2020 to 20% in September 2021.
Of course, vivo's staged success in the high-end market is not only the success of the release of high-end product power, but also the result of the synchronous establishment of high-end brand potential energy and market potential energy.
What is more obvious is the user's recognition of various "benchmarking" products and the consequent word-of-mouth communication: such as the "world's thinnest" X1, or the X70 of the "annual Android image new benchmark" under the support of the V1 chip last year, these products have helped the vivo brand itself to continue to strengthen its brand influence through its own prominent longboard.
Especially in 2021, vivo has upgraded its corporate culture, written "design-driven" into its values, and deeply rooted the concept of "not wanting to be mediocre, not wanting to blindly follow, and doing something different" into the heart of the brand. More importantly, through high-end products including the X70 series, vivo will spare no effort to present its innovative attitude to users, so that such a concept can be more fully perceived by users, so that high-end brand positioning keywords such as innovation and value are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, which makes vivo get the first overall market shipment, and take the lead in breaking through the high-end market.
X80 series reshapes high-end flagship standards, stable output achieves "king of innovation"
In the high-end market, Apple was once a teacher of Chinese brands, and its success in the high-end market was once due to the relatively stable innovation output of each generation of products. However, from the perspective of recent years, its stable innovation output has slowed down, and it has been ridiculed as "toothpaste innovation", and its performance in the high-end market also relies more on the established brand potential, showing a "shoucheng" trend.
In a recent interview, Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Vivo, had this statement: "In the past year or so, the data given by the analysis agency is that the share of Android products in the high-end machine market has decreased, and most of the high-end market share has been taken away by Apple. This is not difficult to understand, for high-end users, if the new product is not attractive enough, they will be more conservative in choosing the product that has been established. ”
In fact, in other words, many Android products, because of the long-term lack of sufficient innovation awareness and innovation ability, are not enough to compete with Apple, which has established high-end advantages, so that the latter has in fact formed a snowball effect.
It can be said that the current state of Apple has set a threshold for the high-end market, but also left opportunities and space.
Therefore, the overall success of vivo and the breakthrough in the high-end market are easier to understand. As mentioned earlier, since X1, vivo has implanted the pursuit of innovation into the soil of brand development, and refined the ability in each generation of products to achieve "benchmarking", which represents the stability of the X series as a high-end flagship in the output of innovation ability, corresponding to the stability and consistency of high-end image shaping.
In the process, the newly released X80 series has become a new milestone accumulated over the past decade, which is manifested in three aspects:
First, as a "two-core flagship", it brings comprehensive performance improvement. The X80 series is equipped with the self-developed chip V1+ that leads the second generation of dual-core flagship standards, taking into account the two major functions of image and performance, not only allowing the image function to evolve again, but also applying computing power breakthroughs in the field of performance and display, bringing a more powerful game experience.
With the compatibility of the self-developed chip V1+, vivo X80 series realizes the multi-platform dual-core adaptation of all models. Through the dual core collaboration between V1+ and SoC, the potential of SoC is stimulated, and multi-dimensional dynamic balance such as operation efficiency, use experience, and endurance and heat dissipation is achieved.
Second, continue to position the image flagship, and the image system is fully upgraded. As the latest product of the X series positioned as the flagship of professional imaging, vivo X80 series continues the industry status of "image ceiling", and through the continuous upgrading of optics, imaging algorithms and self-developed chip V1+, the imaging system has been comprehensively upgraded in the three dimensions of soft, hard and core.
Among them, in terms of hardware, the vivo X80 series has reached the ZEISS T* coating standard; At the software level, ZEISS Natural Colors 2.0 can restore the natural native colors seen by the human eye with fine and accurate adjustments, and add ZEISS Cinematic style bokeh to create a portrait shooting effect with a strong film style; In terms of algorithms, a series of depth image algorithms have been spawned to meet the shooting needs of users in all scenarios and all time periods.
Third, the configuration of all products has been upgraded to redefine the industry flagship. Even Apple still adopts the industry's common "medium cup, large cup, super large cup" product portfolio strategy, and the details of the product differences blur the definition of the flagship to a certain extent.
As the flagship models of the X series, the vivo X80 and vivo X80 Pro released this time bring the configuration upgrade of the "full series of liter cups". Among them, vivo X80 Pro positions the image flagship, continuing the reputation of the X series professional image flagship; Vivo X80 focuses on creating a "performance flagship" image, and the image aspect is also supported by ZEISS T* optical lens, color and image algorithms. Vivo X80 series meets the differentiated needs of different users while ensuring the "comprehensive and all-round" experience of each product.
Overall, the X80 series has reshaped the high-end flagship standard of the 4K+ price segment in terms of professional imaging, performance experience, and aesthetic design through multi-core collaboration + hardware-level computing photography + performance experience + flagship device specifications that break through bottlenecks.
In the smart phone industry, high-end market opportunities have been clearly revealed, and it also needs to be clear that the exploration and cultivation of the high-end market, the competition between Chinese brands and global giants in the high-end market, although it may not be a long-term battle, it will still be a position war under the guidance of long-term doctrine and valueism.
"Ten years of grinding a sword", the achievement of "the price of a thousand gold", the success of vivo has shown that persistence and persistence, is always the achievement of a brand must have excellent quality. The vivo X80 series is a witness to the "high-end seeds" planting for ten years and blossoming, and also heralds the opening of a high-end market belonging to vivo and Chinese brands in the next decade. (Nail Technology original, reprint please be sure to indicate the source of "Nail Technology Network")