According to the report hours of the International Data Corporation (IDC), shipments of China's smartphone market in the first quarter of 2022 were only 74.2 million units per month, down 14.1% compared to the same period in 2021.
Earlier, Tianfeng International analyst Guo Mingxi said that many domestic mobile phone manufacturers are cutting orders, and domestic Android mobile phone brands have cut orders by 170 million units this year, accounting for about 20% of the planned number of original shipments of mobile phones in 2022. In the context of the sluggish market, the shipment reports of various brands in the first quarter have also been released, and most manufacturers have a large year-on-year decline, but there are still manufacturers that have risen against the trend and achieved eye-catching results.
Glory re-entered the top three of the market
In the tracking report given by IDC, OPPO ranked first in China with 13.7 million mobile phone shipments, with a market share of 18.5%, an increase of -33.5% over the same period last year, and shipments decreased by 6.9 million units.
The second-ranked Glory is very eye-catching, since the second half of 2021 began to exert efforts, Glory's shipments and market share have been climbing, from last year's Other rushed to the second place in the market, the first quarter of 2022 shipments reached a staggering 13.5 million units, the market share of 18.2%, a year-on-year increase of 291.7%.
To be honest, the increase given by this report is even higher than the increase given by another domestic data agency before, and even once suspected that it was a data fraud, but when multiple institutions have confirmed the amazing performance of Glory in shipments, the mobile phone market should also admit that Glory has returned, and re-enter the top three of mobile phone market shipments in one fell swoop.
In addition to the positive growth of glory, the market share and shipments of other domestic Android mobile phone brands have declined significantly, and Vivo ranks third with shipments of 13.3 million units, with a market share of 17.9%, an increase of -35.1% year-on-year.
Apple's two consecutive quarters of best sales in the third and fourth quarters of last year also slowed down sales at the beginning of this year, but the overall decline was lower, occupying the fourth place in the market share with shipments of 12.4 million units, accounting for 16.7%, an increase of only -5.8% year-on-year.
Xiaomi ranked fifth in the first quarter of 2022 with 11 million units of shipments, the market share is 13.7%, an increase of -18.4% year-on-year, although shipments are not as good as the peak, but the overall decline in the domestic major Android mobile phone manufacturers is relatively low.
It can be seen from the report that most brands have a relatively large decline in shipments, of which OPPPO and vivo, which are mainly channels of offline stores, have a decline of more than 30%, even so, they are still the main shipments of domestic Android mobile phones. Considering that sub-brands such as realme and iQOO are not included in the calculation, the actual market share of OPPO and vivo may be higher.
The main reason for the sharp decline in the shipments of various brands this year is the sharp decline in market shipments themselves, and the strong return of Glory has also seized many shares. However, relatively speaking, the main downward pressure of millet is due to the sluggishness of market shipments, while OPPO and vivo have been affected by more epidemics and are also the main impact objects of the return of glory.
On the one hand, the recurrence of the epidemic has made many consumers in third- and fourth-tier cities tend to spend conservatively, so that OPPO and vivo, which account for the mainstream of the offline market in third- and fourth-tier cities, have been significantly impacted. On the other hand, Glory relies on the previous Huawei offline system, and is the only brand in the third and fourth-tier cities that can compete with OPPO and vivo, directly impacting the offline sales of OPPO and vivo.
In addition, benefiting from the publicity of media platforms such as Kuaishou, in the eyes of many users, Glory and Huawei are still one (brand), after Huawei's mobile phone shipments fell sharply and changed their strategy to attack the high-end market, they basically gave up their low-end market to Glory, under the support of Huawei's brand effect and the original user group, a considerable number of users gave priority to Glory when changing machines, accelerating the speed of Glory's market share climb.
With the decline in domestic consumer sentiment for non-essential consumer goods, even the market in the first quarter under the bombardment of new products is inevitable, then the continuous decline in future mobile phone market shipments is basically a foregone conclusion. According to IDC's forecast, the capacity of China's smartphone market may fall below 300 million in 2022, making it the worst year in recent years.
On the other hand, the global shortage of semiconductor chips, to a certain extent, also affected the mobile phone market, the cost of core components rose so that the mobile phone manufacturers' stand-alone profits become thin, while the sluggish mobile phone market and the decline in residents' consumption capacity, so that mobile phone manufacturers in the pricing had to tend to be conservative, in the cost of rising and stand-alone price of the double superposition, this year's mobile phone manufacturers' profit margins may have a significant decline.
The domestic mobile phone market has entered hell mode
For mobile phone manufacturers, 2022 is undoubtedly the beginning of the hell mode, each manufacturer has launched a variety of products, even at the expense of their own product line conflicts, to seize the market share of other brands. Taking Xiaomi as an example, the overlap of its K50 series of three products is significantly higher than in previous years, and the three models are launched together in previous years, and last year's K40 game enhanced version (also known as the e-sports version) was released two months later than K40 and K40 Pro.
The overlap of the three K50s in performance, configuration and price, although they have impacted each other's sales, but also effectively impacted the sales of other brands in the mid-range mobile phone market, stabilizing the overall sales of Xiaomi, compared with OPPO and vivo, Xiaomi's shipment decline of less than 20% is a good proof.
On the other hand, the overlap between Xiaomi's user groups and the user groups of Honor, OPPO and Vivo is not high, and the resurrection of Honor and the impact of the offline market war are also lower for Xiaomi. However, even so, it is difficult to hide that brands will enter hell mode in the next half of the year, and the competition between mobile phone brands may become more intense.
The main core of the competition will be the offline market that OPPO, vivo and glory all value, at the same time, Xiaomi also announced its offline store expansion plan last year, and the addition of the fourth party will make the offline market fall into an extremely inward-looking situation. In the online market, OPPO and vivo's sub-brands and themselves are also launching a fierce attack on the millet market, OPPO uses find N, Find X5 Pro and other high-end models to gradually establish its own innovative, high-end image, while using sub-brands to release a variety of low-end products to attack Xiaomi's advantage area.
The same is true for iQOO, folding screen products X Fold and vivo X80 Pro and other models have also caused a lot of discussion, and iQOO's performance in the low-end online market is also remarkable. Therefore, for Xiaomi, it is not only necessary to focus on offline expansion, but also to prevent the online market from being "stolen", and Xiaomi's response in the next six months will affect the future market share distribution.
On the other hand, as the only positive growth brand among the top five mobile phone manufacturers, the return of Honor is also worth the vigilance of OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi, and Honor has successively launched Honor 60, X30 and other products since the end of last year, which are well received by the market, contributing more than 60% of the shipments in the first quarter to Honor.
Moreover, the positive growth rate of Honor is also largely because the shipment volume in the first quarter of 2021 is too low, the proportion of the market is too small, and there has been a rapid growth after the shipment returned to normal, so the data looks very amazing, in fact, a considerable part of the market share of Honor is the previous Huawei's low-end market share, just to make up for the needs of many users who have not changed machines for two years.
The next time will be the key time for Honor to maintain its existing advantages, on the one hand, the low-end product line needs to be updated, and it will face the product lines of OPPO, vivo and millet that are strictly guarded, on the other hand, the high-end market will also face many challenges.
The uncertainty of the high-end market, so that the glory just released Magic4 chose a conservative response strategy, not only the overall configuration compared to magic3 has a comprehensive improvement, the starting price is relatively reduced a lot, through the strategy of increasing the amount and reducing the price to make Magic4 stand firm in the high-end market, with the folding screen product Magic V to meet the high-end products of the remaining manufacturers.
In general, the mobile phone market in 2022 will be far more intense than in 2021, and the return of glory, the overall sluggishness of the market, and the rumor that the appearance of the iPhone 14 will be greatly changed have made the mobile phone market in 2022 have more uncertainty. How to stand out in the fierce battle in 2022 will test the comprehensive ability of mobile phone manufacturers, from channel operation to supply chain costs, from product positioning to product design, will usher in a "big test".