The high-end market has always been the heart disease of domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
Huawei, the only one that has made waves in the high-end market, has been affected by chip sanctions and other influences, and has quickly fallen to the altar, leaving a sigh.
However, Huawei's success has given Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo, these "second echelons" great confidence, and "rushing to the high end" has also become the main theme of the development of Mi OV in the past two years.
The result, however, was unexpected, but reasonable.
In the past two years, Mi OV has actively prepared for the blank market and upgraded and iterated flagship products, but the market gap left by Huawei has almost all been swallowed by Apple. The data shows that in 2021, Apple will occupy nearly 80% of the domestic smartphone market of more than 5,000 yuan.
As for the representatives of domestic brands, a well-known digital blogger recently concluded: "The collective rush to the high end is a failure, and some brands' flagship product lines next year are in jeopardy, either they can't do it, or they are not ready to go, and they are fighting the mid-end market again." ”
In the view of "new knowledge of science and technology", it is too early to conclude that mi OV has failed to rush high, but the current embarrassing reality is that the three mi OV shock high-end breakthroughs are not obvious, and Apple has begun to target the mid-end market. This also means that if the Mi OV high-end flagship machine can no longer rise, then retreating to the mid-end market is only a matter of succession.
The shadow of the apple that can't go out
The start of Mi OV's sprint to the high end was around 2018, that is, when Huawei first revealed the risk of sanctions. At that time, the high-end logic of the three companies was very simple, that is, frantically stacking materials at the hardware level to enter the high-end market with the flagship model of the so-called "black technology".
Xiaomi Mix series, OPPO FIND series and vivo NEX series, in 2018-2020, basically the strongest Snapdragon processor, 120Hz high brush, 2K+ resolution, 65W fast charging, linear motor and other top matching made into a high-end threshold.
Hardware stacking is obviously the most convenient way to play, but the comprehensive quality of the three domestic brands themselves cannot get a "big cake" for them.
Counterpoint data shows that in 2020, Apple will dominate the global high-end mobile phone market with a market share of 55%, while the total market share of mi OV is only 7%.
By 2021, Huawei's shipments affected by chips have declined rapidly, and its high-end market share has also been coveted by the crowd. But from the results, the three Mi OV families have not been able to eat much, and Huawei has lost this cake.
According to CINNO Research data, in 2021, the high-end market above the domestic 5K price level, Apple's share increased significantly from 48% in 2020 to 75%.
And even if the high-end standard is reduced to about 4000, the meter OV is far behind Apple. According to IDC data, in the whole year of 2021, apple shares in the domestic market of more than 600 US dollars (about 4000 yuan) and above.
After entering 2022, the three Mi OV companies began to compete for folding screens, although sales can be regarded as a breakthrough, but the niche market in the subdivision track cannot change the pattern of the entire high-end mobile phone market.
According to the "2022 Q1 Best-Selling Mobile Phone List in the Chinese Market" released by StrategyAnalytics, only apple brands occupy three of the top five, iPhone13 ranks first, iPhone13 Pro Max and iPhone13 Pro rank third and fifth, and the domestic mobile phone brands that rank second and fourth in the middle are honor 50 and OPPO A56.
In the past 618 e-commerce festival, iPhone 13 is also with an absolute advantage (based on the statistics of Jingdong's own mobile phone sales list), achieving a crushing transcendence of domestic mobile phone brands, and even a fraction of it is enough for opponents to catch up.
From the perspective of data alone, the impact of domestic mobile phone brands in the past two years has obviously failed.
This also confirms Yu Chengdong's sigh in 2021: "Huawei's mobile phone high-end gave way to Apple, and the low-end gave way to OV Xiaomi." ”
"On the high-end track, without Huawei, Apple is almost the only one." An analyst who has been deeply observing the mobile phone market for many years tells a reality. What is more fatal is that "Apple began to adopt a more aggressive low-price strategy to reduce the dimensionality of Millet and OV." Chief electronic analyst of Minsheng Securities Research Institute said.
Recently, Apple's official website released information, from July 29 to August 1, the official website can enjoy a discount of up to 600 yuan for the purchase of designated models, and the iPhone13 series is also among them. Apple's official discount for 4 consecutive days is very rare in overseas markets, and it is the first time in the domestic market.
It is worth noting that Apple CEO Cook denied the idea of "clearing inventory". "If it weren't for clearing inventory and making way for the iPhone 14, then Apple's official attitude of giving preferential treatment may be a change in Apple's marketing strategy." An investor told "Technology New Knowledge".
The above-mentioned people also analyzed that if apple's iPhone 13 series is compared with the domestic Android high-end flagship machine at the same price, the sales volume directly hit the latter. In addition, apples under the low-price strategy will also gradually dissipate the "competitive alternative dividends" previously enjoyed by Mi OV.
A number of industry-related research reports have pointed out that the lack of brand power is the reason why domestic smartphone manufacturers are difficult to break through in the high-end market and cannot be ignored.
Who defines the high end?
Whether it is Xiaomi or OPPO or vivo, on the road to sprinting to the high-end, the biggest problem is that it is impossible to get rid of the brand baggage.
Xiaomi started with cost performance, and the initial business model was to save channel costs and reduce prices through the high efficiency of e-commerce. However, IDC data shows that in recent years, domestic online channels have become saturated, and the proportion of online and offline market sales has also stabilized at 37 kai; Even in Q1, 2020, where the epidemic was the worst, online channel sales accounted for only 38.7%; Specific to high-end mobile phones, the weight offline will be heavier.
This was also confirmed after communicating with multiple mobile phone dealers. "Generally speaking, several domestic manufacturers sell models online are volume, many models with higher cost performance are generally only sold online, these models often do not appear in offline stores, after all, the profit is too low, so many offline stores are still based on high-end models with higher prices."
On the contrary, although OPPO and vivo mainly attack the line, both adopt the "rural encirclement of the city" playing method, the main stores are in the form of county and township authorized stores, and there are not many direct and franchised stores in the main business circles of high-tier cities.
The channel structure of the three companies and the sales model relied on in the early days determined that their user groups were not related to the high-end. Xiaomi users are mostly college students and grassroots white-collar workers, and OPPO and vivo cannot tear off the label of "factory sister machine" for a long time.
"Offline is not only a sales channel, but also represents the user's experience, your service, consumption atmosphere, people-to-people interaction, and the creation of a store environment, which is very important for creating a high-end brand." A former JD.com mobile phone business manager said.
If you can't change the user group, just work the product, it is naturally difficult to promote the high-end brand.
The influence of users on the high-end of the brand can be more crudely explained as: at present, it is still the elite or influential public figures who can define a mobile phone and a brand high-end, and the judgment of ordinary netizens and brand fans typing on the keyboard on the Internet cannot withstand the daily use of a photo of the star V.
In fact, in addition to the channel problem, another major reason for the industry's failure to impact the high-end of the mi OV is attributed to the lack of breakthroughs in the underlying technology, but this is not something that can be changed through a momentary effort.
In addition, the three Mi OV companies have also had a short highlight in the high-end business, so in the view of "new knowledge of science and technology", the management chaos within the brand is a more direct influencing factor.
Taking OPPO as an example, the RELEASE OFD X1 in July 2018 is also the pioneering work of OPPO's high-end product line, which has dominated multiple lists such as JD.com and Tmall at the first time, and has exceeded 10,000 units in only 47 seconds on the JD platform. In August of that year, it overpowered the Huawei P20 Pro and won the third best result in sales.
The opening did not continue to the second generation of products. The OPPO FIND X2 released two years later, the hardware stack directly raised the starting price to 5499 yuan, and the top version reached 6999 yuan, becoming the most expensive mobile phone in the domestic market in the same period, even surpassing Apple.
And such a high price also makes THE FIND X2 high and low, released three months, the monthly sales of the two models in the Jingdong platform have not exceeded 10,000, and compared with other brands with the same price model, the monthly sales in Jingdong are basically more than 30,000.
The high price does not work, OPPO chooses to reduce the posture, find X3 series to relearn Huawei, the main image, the pricing has also fallen back to less than 5000, but sales are still sluggish. Chaotic decisions have created pricing results that are contrary to the mainstream, and have also consumed the market's patience with its high-end.
Under normal circumstances, after getting better feedback from the market and users, mobile phone brands will gradually increase the price of their products. For example, Huawei's high-end MATE series, the price increase is basically maintained at 100 yuan.
Oppo's pricing is like riding a roller coaster - starting from a high starting point, suddenly reaching the peak of 6999, and then taking a sharp turn, it has not yet bottomed out. In essence, the OPPO team did not sort out the idea of high-end from the beginning, and could only follow the short-term market feedback to make decisions.
Xiaomi and vivo can also see similar problems.
Xiaomi from the MIX series to the digital series, vivo from nex to the digital series to IQOO, the first generation debuted four seats, but the products after the show did not have enough design highlights, the sense of inheritance is insufficient.
Especially in terms of the more sensitive price of the brand user group, the "price reduction backstabbing" of Mi OV high-end products is not a minority.
"Around 2018, led by Huawei, it was the best time for the three Mi OV companies to impact the high-end, and there was a shortcut to pile up materials, but unfortunately, they did not seize this window period in the end." Nowadays, if you want to hit the high-end again, you can only seek differentiation. The above-mentioned brokerage analyst said.
The posture of the high should be correct
It is true that the mobile phone market has entered a downward cycle, but it does not mean that there are no opportunities, especially in the high-end mobile phone market where the development is not complete.
When Huawei and Apple face each other, they grasp each other's weaknesses like wolves. At that time, Apple had only one significant product iteration a year, and there was no revolutionary innovation breakthrough after Jobs.
As a result, Huawei has invested heavily in imaging, strengthening the user experience such as photography and video, plus the help of self-developed chips, so that it can gradually gain a foothold in the high-end. Another opportunity is that Huawei also seized the window period of the Samsung Note7 incident, and followed up to grab the share of Samsung after its defeat in the domestic market.
Any market where competitors make mistakes can seize the opportunity to develop.
For Mi OV, when Huawei is sanctioned and glory is still being reorganized, it is the time to catch up. However, the reality is that everyone is not ready and has made a catch-up action, but they do not have the strength to catch up.
Horizontal comparison of the high-end flagships launched by Mi OV, all without the same processing chip, the same flagship screen, the same outsole lens, the only difference is only the optimization of the system level, software experience, UI design and gimmick component of the camera tuning.
At the level of the upstream supply chain, Qualcomm currently focuses on the strategy of two flagship chips a year, which leads to Android models often only choosing to release a number of high-end models at these two points in time, and the market and users do not feel the so-called high-end "scarcity".
In order to make up for the shortcomings, self-developed chips and joint development have always been the focus of Mi OV, but the road to success is by no means smooth.
In 2014, Xiaomi Songuo Electronics was established, and three years later, it polished the first system-level chip surging S1 of the 28nm process, but the shortcomings of maturity and performance made it controversial.
So after 2017, Songguo turned to the development of isP (Image Signal Processing) chip Surging C1 and fast charging chip Surging P1 and other non-system chips to improve the image and charging effect.
This year's self-developed battery management chip surging G1, combined with P1 as a battery management chip, supplements Xiaomi's preliminary chip layout.
The layout of the OV side on the chip is slightly slower, OPPO currently has only one image NPU chip, and vivo's V1 has only been updated for two generations.
In terms of external investment, it can be seen that Xiaomi is mainly laid out in chip design, and OV's entire semiconductor investment does not have a clear direction, communication, positioning, camera, etc., but it has not yet achieved full link coverage.
In addition, it should be noted that in the list of shareholders of the two OV investment companies, including Weijie Chuangxin and Nanxin Semiconductor, there are three figures. Among the 14 semiconductor companies invested by OPPO, 11 even coincide with Xiaomi.
"The CPU is the core." Many analysts emphasized that "the CPU is the result of the integration of a variety of chips, the embodiment of comprehensive strength, and not comparable to a single function chip." ”
At present, it can be known from public information that in addition to the surging S1 that Xiaomi has released, only OPPO's self-developed processor chip has been rumored to have been rumored to be on the development progress.
In March this year, a well-known person in the semiconductor industry broke the news on Weibo, "OPPO has invested tens of billions of yuan and thousands of chip design and development personnel to develop mobile phone processors and baseband chips in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing, which have been more than 2 years, and have the opportunity to tape-out in the second half of 2023, and in 2024, they will be installed on their own mobile phone products, and they plan to use TSMC's 6nm and 5nm processes." ”
But the reality is that the general chip on the market needs three years of research and development time, and OPPO from the proposal of the plan to the product landing, only took 20 months, and the start chose to create a 6nm chip (Xiaomi, Huawei is from 28nm), and the current manufacturers that can do 6nm are only Huawei HiSilicon, MediaTek and Tsinghua Unigroup Zhanrui, the latter two are still doing low-end chips.
Therefore, according to the analysis of a group of industry insiders, even if OPPO makes a 6nm chip, it may still not be able to compare with Qualcomm and MediaTek in terms of process adoption and performance design, and the technology can only test the water on low-end products first.
In fact, from OPPO's first chip Mariana X, it can also be seen that OPPO is not fully prepared for chip research and development.
OPPO FIND X5 Pro, as the first model equipped with Mariana chip + Hashro-Soviet name, did not do its best in the adjustment of photography, and the performance in other aspects can only be said to be reasonable.
Shen Yiren, former vice president of OPPO, also admitted that this mobile phone without obvious shortcomings does not have a particularly prominent personality and is not suitable for "big fanfare" publicity, so as not to disappoint consumers.
The facts also confirm that OPPO is somewhat hasty. Mariana X's initial performance is not good, X5 Pro's image tuning did not reach the ideal height, can only be said to be decent, and even in contrast, halo, pixels and other aspects of consumer spit, which also caused X5 Pro early reputation is not satisfactory, but fortunately after a series of OTA upgrades in the later stage, to save some face.
The chip performance tuning and polishing of high-end flagship mobile phones takes more time. Therefore, OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo, even if the processor chip is developed by itself in the future, tuning and running-in is also a long process.
If the times have not changed, entering the high-end market may only be a chip, but as the trend of the Internet of Everything becomes more and more obvious, take this opportunity to build the underlying ecosystem and use other IoT products to pull mobile phones, which is an opportunity for Mi OV.
In short, although the success or failure of the high-end of mi OV cannot be defined in the short term, the high-end of each company in the situation is in an embarrassing period, like a chicken rib. And if the rush is a firm goal, then for the polishing of the next generation of flagships, it is necessary to invest twelve points of effort, otherwise it is likely to embark on a situation of retreating to the mid-end market or even worse.
Source of this article: Science and Technology New Knowledge, Author: Wang Siyuan, Editor, Yi Page.