In addition to Apple, which domestic mobile phone manufacturer can inherit the high-end market space left by Huawei, the results are not yet visible, but the beginning seems to have appeared.
Throughout May and the first week of June (annual W23), statistics from market research agencies show that Vivo's annual high-end flagship vivo X80 series released on April 25 ranked first in the market share of 3.5K-5K smart 5G mobile phone price segment shipments.
In terms of the reputation and performance of the terminal application experience, the characteristics of vivo in the direction of high-end machines can be summarized as "hardware higher matching" superimposed "soft tone is more in place".
In fact, vivo attaches great importance to the relationship between end devices and consumers. In order to improve the application experience of terminal devices, vivo has built a matching degree of system (software) and hardware performance, and continuously improved and optimized from the four directions of storage, computing, display and full-scene fluency.
X80 has become the main force of vivo's high-end market share
The shipment volume of vivo's top flagship mobile phone is gradually occupying an increasingly high-end market share of domestic 5G smartphones.
On June 13, a market research agency statistics obtained by Wall Street News showed that in the 3.5K-5K and 4K-5K price segments, vivo shipping market share occupied the first and third positions in the 5G smartphone market, respectively. Among them, vivo in the 3.5K-5K price segment, from May 2 to May 29, the shipment share of up to 29%.
In addition, in the W23 period from May 30 to June 5, in the 4K-5K price segment, Vivo ranked third in the domestic smartphone high-end market with a market share of 16.9% of shipments.
From the perspective of sales of 5G mobile phones with a long period of time and full price, how did Vivo perform in the first quarter of this year?
According to the Data of Market Pulse Service (Monthly Report on Mobile Phone Sales) released by Counterpoint on April 29, in the first quarter of 2022, Vivo sales led the Chinese market, accounting for 19.7% of the share, ranking first; OPPO and Apple accounted for second and third place, with sales shares of 18% and 17.9%, respectively.
Commenting on Vivo, Ivan Lam, senior research analyst at Counterpoint Research, believes that Vivo has regained its market leadership from Apple (compared to the fourth quarter of 2021). "Vivo's new mid-range S12 series, featuring selfies and a lightweight and stylish design, has received positive market feedback, especially among younger customers."
Commenting on the performance of China's smartphone market, Mengmeng Zhang, a research analyst at the agency, said, "Sales in March also fell by 3.5% year-on-year due to the related impact of the epidemic and urban control in China, the first decline since August 2020." ”
In the first quarter of this year, in the industry environment of China's smart 5G mobile phone market contraction, vivo returned to the leading position in the market; In May, although the domestic first-tier cities affected offline sales due to the upgrading of control caused by the new crown epidemic, the shipment volume of vivo's high-end flagship models still reached the first place in the market share of Android models, which shows that vivo's product strength is strong and the high-end flagship experience is very competitive.
According to the data, the vivo X80 flagship machine (3699 yuan-4899 yuan), which was just released in late April, had a shipment market share of No.1 in the price segment from May 2 to 29, twice that of the second place.
Why is vivo X80 so recognized by the market?
Comprehensive vivo X80 is the most concerned features of C-end users, and the previous generation of vivo X70, X80 image capabilities are the focus of market attention.
Vivo X80 is a dual-core configuration, the main chip is MediaTek Tianji 9000, released on December 16, 2021, TSMC 4nm process; It is also equipped with vivo's self-developed chip V1+.
The role of this independent self-developed chip is to enhance AI computing power, achieve imaging noise reduction, restore the details of the object being photographed, reduce power consumption and enhance endurance, which can mainly effectively make up for the performance deficiency of Tianji 9000 in TERMS.
In addition to the chip configuration bonus, vivo also gives X80 on the optical lens with ZEISS T* optical coating lens, the role is to effectively reduce flare and dispersion, facilitate the shooting of a purer picture effect, but also prevent ghost glare; The X80 is also equipped with Sony's IMX866 RGBW outsole sensor, which has a light sensitivity area of 1/1.49 inch, which can get more light intake in low-brightness environments such as night scenes, so it can improve night shooting performance.
A supply chain optical lens engineer told Wall Street Insights, "Optical coating, that is, a very thin transparent film on the surface of optical lenses, is used to reduce light reflection, increase light transmittance, resist ultraviolet rays and suppress flare and ghosting." ZEISS T* coatings are multi-layer coatings. From the perspective of image experience, it can make the imaging clearer and sharper, so as to achieve more realistic picture restoration. ”
Double core performance: how 1+1 is greater than 2
As the second generation of vivo's self-developed chip, vivo V1+ has display performance while maintaining image performance, which can effectively support the game's high requirements for computing power and energy consumption.
It is difficult to imagine that without the support of full-scenario game application requirements, vivo X80 can achieve a market share of No.1 in shipments for almost the entire month of May.
In general, by encapsulating three algorithms of 3D real-time stereoscopic night scene noise reduction, MEMC interpolation and AI superdivision, the data throughput speed of vivo V1+ can be efficiently maintained at about 8GB/s; Once combined with SRAM (Static Random-Access Memory), the vivo V1+ can be increased by about 300% in energy efficiency and about 72% in power consumption.
From the perspective of supporting the performance requirements required for the game, the GPU Fusion technology first launched by vivo V1+ can work together with multiple processors through the AI computing power of MediaTek APUs (accelerated processors: Accelerated Processing Units, which integrate CPU and GPU functions), and work together with the GPU to complete the game screen rendering to release the GPU load; At the same time, the hardware-level interpolation frame algorithm of vivo's self-developed chip can be called to optimize the frame rate stability, and the GT2.0 upgrade algorithm can be used to split the overloaded thread at multiple levels to achieve the effect of performance and power consumption balance.
Previously, Wall Street Insights had exchanged chip technology with Qualcomm and MediaTek.
In fact, the comprehensive performance of the flagship standard SoC equipped with the smartphone itself is related to the advanced process of the foundry and the yield of the finished product.
In terms of process stability and advanced degree, although Samsung and TSMC express convergence on marketing caliber, such as 5nm or 4nm, due to the slight intergenerational differences in the underlying technology, its stability and yield are not as good as TSMC. For the end application experience, the influencing index is power consumption, and power consumption ultimately affects chip performance.
For example, the same 4nm process, Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 is a Samsung OEM, and MediaTek Tianji 9000, which is oem by TSMC. Therefore, the power consumption index, Tianji 9000 is better than Snapdragon 8, so it is considered to have the strength to challenge Snapdragon 8.
In addition, when soCs are used in different products of different mobile phone manufacturers, whether they can release the full performance of soCs is also different. A mobile phone manufacturer, what level of adjustment ability, becomes the guarantee that determines whether it can freely adjust and release the performance of various chips according to the needs of product positioning.
If the adjustment level is excellent, then in different positioning products, according to different product needs, the specific performance of SoC can be released, and at the same time, it has the ability to ensure the consistency of the terminal experience; The better the tuning ability, the stronger the performance of the SoC that is stimulated, so the better the experience when doing the application experience on the terminal.
Therefore, in the actual application process, if only the vivo V1+ and Tianji 9000 main chips are simply physically superimposed, the flagship image performance of 1+1>2 cannot be achieved. From the technical principle, it depends on whether vivo's ability to adjust the performance of the self-developed chip and the SoC main chip is strong enough.
In order to achieve the overall performance goals, on the one hand, Vivo and MediaTek signed a strategic technology partnership; On the other hand, from 2021 onwards, the two sides will jointly invest in a technical development team of more than 300 people, spend 350 days to do joint software and hardware in-depth collaborative development, and adjust the performance of V1+ and Tianji 9000 in terms of imaging, computing power, energy consumption and data throughput, with the purpose of releasing all the performance of both.
In terms of imaging, vivo V1+ uses video noise reduction algorithm, polar night noise reduction algorithm and extreme speed memory management system, with the camera module and SoC ISP performance, and finally reaches the professional night vision camera imaging level on the experience side. Wall Street has learned that this capability has been extended to the front lens and wide-angle lens rather than only the rear main camera, so it can cover all-time full-time full-focus and full-scene shooting, so the overall image capability is extremely comprehensive.
Obviously, the statistics of market research agencies show that through the hot sales of X80, it shows that vivo's adjustment ability is more prominent.
What to rely on to succeed in winning the high-end market
Observing the positioning path of X generations of products, Wall Street found that from the vivo X30 to the vivo X50 series for the first time equipped with an ultra-large bottom sensor, vivo used three generations of X series models to continuously polish and optimize image positioning, and finally built a distinct and competitive X series differentiated image reputation.
Judging by market reputation and application feedback, vivo X60 opened the prelude to the explosion of the X series. Since then, the X70 series and X80 series have been recognized and welcomed by the market.
Vivo X series is vivo's current high-end positioning flag bearer, and the high-end of mobile phone brands depends on the strength of self-developed top products and vertical integration capabilities; In other words, it depends on whether mobile phone manufacturers can achieve differentiated performance or high-quality experience in terms of general concerns on the C-side or the common needs that exist; The X Series differentiates in the imagery and gameplay.
At present, in terms of self-developed technology, vivo has not solved the problem of independently designing SoC chips and self-developed operating systems independent of Android (Android) systems (such as Huawei Hongmeng system or Apple iOS system), but in the widely concerned application track such as imaging and games, vivo has reached a technical advantage based on the underlying tuning through deep cooperation with ZEISS to develop a long-term technology research and development strategy with long-term technology, but has reached a technical advantage based on the underlying tuning of the part that no one has me or that people have my own excellence, and has been recognized by the market.
From the perspective of the technical focus and overall performance of vivo's flagship products, it is clear that vivo has clearly defined the long-term research and development investment of four long tracks of design, imaging, system and performance, and there is no upper limit on investment.
The road to high-end smartphones essentially depends on whether the product force is strong enough and whether the technological innovation is prominent enough. The so-called product force is not to have enough cost performance by stacking excellent hardware in the supply chain, but whether the C-end needs that must be based on product positioning can be insightful, whether they are paid enough attention and whether they can be fully satisfied.
For example, vivo X80, if the ambient light is sufficient, the exposure control of the film screen is just right, the shadow details are delicate, and the imaging effect is excellent, which can be said to belong to the first echelon of many brand flagship models; If the light is insufficient at night, the details of the X80's film picture are also extremely rich, the color is pure, and the film completion rate is very high, which is of self-evident significance to C-end users who love images.
In fact, whether it is the mid-range positioning of the S series or the high-end flagship X series, vivo's product strength is obvious to all; As for technological innovation, this is the technical guarantee for vivo to achieve product strength, and all innovation is to meet the needs of the C-end as the core, starting from improving the underlying technical capabilities.
Vivo builds and consolidates the underlying technical capabilities to improve the technical capabilities of the system core. Vivo believes that the most powerful technical direction related to the C-side pain point is storage, followed by computing, display and full-scene fluency.
The in-depth cooperation with MediaTek is an extremely important step in the field of vivo's technological innovation, with the aim of achieving "the same chip, a stronger experience".
This year is the 27th year of the establishment of vivo, adhering to the long-term doctrine of vivo, in the journey to the high-end market, whether it can continue to bring the market such as vivo X80 series of extreme products, will determine whether vivo or domestic smartphones can replicate Huawei's success.
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