So far in 2022, it seems that there is no real mid-range machine.
This is not to say that there are no mid-range models on the current market, but the mid-range market currently lacks enough representative products. Ready-made example: Yesterday evening Honor brought a Honor X40 GT priced from 1999 yuan, the most special thing about this mid-range machine is that it is not equipped with mid-range processors such as the common Snapdragon 7 series and Dimensity 8000 at this price. Instead, it used the familiar old flagship - Snapdragon 888.
Glory is not alone. Using old flagship chips to make mid-range products is the practice of many mainstream manufacturers this year. Before the Snapdragon 870, Snapdragon 888, and even the first half of the Snapdragon 8... These flagship chips all seem to be being rapidly decentralised to the mid-range market. Buying flagships in 2000+ seems to have become a new normal in 2022.
The taste of the market is even worse
The emergence of such a new situation has long been anticipated.
In 2021, with its excellent performance and power consumption, the Snapdragon 870 became the most acclaimed flagship processor in the mobile phone market throughout the year. This product can be regarded as the "high-frequency version" of the Snapdragon 865 from the positioning. During the period when the Snapdragon 888 was criticized for power consumption and heating problems, the Snapdragon 870, which was more stable and reliable, became an excellent choice for many flagship users. Even many users shouted out the slogan "buy 870 and don't sell 888".
In terms of positioning, the Snapdragon 870 is obviously a "sub-flagship". This can be seen from the name of its inheritance of the Snapdragon 8 series. However, the Snapdragon 870 has the potential to become a mid-range product: as a small upgraded version of the Snapdragon 865 mobile platform, it is mature enough in process and architecture, and its production and supply capacity, software and hardware tuning have been tested by the market and a variety of terminal products.
This means that the Snapdragon 870 itself has obtained sufficient cost advantages with its mature and perfect technology. Although it is positioned as a sub-flagship, it can also be quickly decentralized to a more affordable market through relatively low cost.
In fact, the Snapdragon 870 soon entered the mid-range market of less than 2,000 yuan, and thus gave birth to Android annual explosive products such as Redmi K40. By the end of 2022, the Snapdragon 870 terminal will further penetrate to about 1000+ markets. On some e-commerce channels, you can even buy this Snapdragon 8 series product for more than a thousand yuan.
In this way, the products that were originally positioned as sub-flagships have become the main force in the mid-range or even thousand-yuan machine market, even if there are still many new Snapdragon 870 products in the mobile phone market in the first half of 2022. But in any case, the Snapdragon 870 as a consumer product also has its own life cycle. With the discontinuation of the Snapdragon 870 in the second half of the year, this classic product has gradually withdrawn from the mainstream new market.
After the gradual withdrawal of the Snapdragon 870, the mid-range market is currently lacking a "replacement" for the Snapdragon 870.
There is a situation worth playing: after the mid-range market war in 2021, consumers' taste for mid-range mobile phones is indeed becoming more and more "tricky". Especially after the main flagship products began to emphasize high-end and flagship, the mid-range market became more inward-rolled: more emphasis on cost performance, more attention to the configuration and experience of "leapfrogging".
Especially in the mid-range main market of 2,000 yuan, consumers want a balanced experience, and at the same time not lose to last year's flagship mid-range products in core configuration and experience.
The mid-range "God U" has no successor
By this standard, the mid-range machine market in 2022 is indeed facing the status quo of the "successor unmanned" of the Snapdragon 870.
Although Qualcomm launched the Snapdragon 7 and Snapdragon 6 platforms for the mid-range market in 2022. But judging from the final market performance, the market response of the Snapdragon 7 platform seems to be a bit tepid. Only a few main flagship products such as OPPO Reno8 Pro have been installed, and the response has been mediocre. Not to mention that it is much inferior to the previous Snapdragon 870, or even compared with last year's Snapdragon 778.
From the perspective of core configuration, compared with the Snapdragon 778G, the Snapdragon 7Gen1 is indeed an iterative upgrade product. The CPU architecture has been fully upgraded from ARM V8 to ARM V9, the clock frequency of the three A710s has also been increased from 2.2GHz to 2.36GHz, and the process has also been upgraded to 4nm. However, due to the pull-span performance of Samsung's 4nm process, its comprehensive performance and energy consumption performance are not as expected. In the test of some terminal models, the performance of the Snapdragon 7 platform is sometimes even inferior to the previous Snapdragon 778G. The Snapdragon 778G can't beat, let alone benchmark with the Snapdragon 870, which is absolutely stronger.
According to the previous practice, decentralizing last year's flagship product and making a new "sub-flagship" seems to be a replicable method. However, the performance and power consumption of the Snapdragon 888 in 2021 are not ideal, and there is not much room for its subsequent "small upgrades". The Snapdragon 8 released in the first half of the year is also a product in the spring of 2022. Before the new Snapdragon 8 Gen2 hits the market, it is unlikely to be quickly decentralized to the mid-range market.
Also not to be ignored is the MediaTek camp. In the first half of the year, when the Snapdragon 8 faced power consumption and heating problems, MediaTek launched a well-received sub-flagship product such as the Dimensity 8100. However, Dimensity chips still have a certain gap with the Snapdragon mobile platform in terms of market appeal and product acceptance. For manufacturers, the various new software and hardware adjustment problems that come with changing the platform are also a big challenge.
So in the second half of 2022, with the discontinuation of the Snapdragon 870. To make a "sub-flagship" positioning of the mid-range product, manufacturers seem to only have last year's Snapdragon 888 to choose from for a while. The Honor X40 GT should be based on this consideration. What's more, it is said that the main flagship of a certain company will even use the older Snapdragon 778G back in the future.
This is actually the problem of product distribution "fault" in the mid-range mobile phone market caused by the lack of sub-flagship chips.
At the same time, there is a situation of weak consumer demand in the consumer electronics market this year, and the current entire mobile phone market is almost facing the pressure of high inventory. After experiencing the supply chain cut at the beginning of the year, the biggest challenge in the mobile phone market is: on the one hand, to stimulate new consumer demand through new products, on the other hand, to find a way to digest its own high inventory in as short a time as possible.
Under such conditions, the iteration speed of this year's flagship new products has accelerated a lot. The new Snapdragon 8+ products that have just been launched in the second half of the year will also usher in an upgrade in November after a quarter of market cycle. The new Snapdragon 8 Gen2 terminal is expected to be one to two months earlier than last year. The rapid iteration of flagship products and the rapid price reduction of old products have further squeezed the market space of the original mid-range machine.
Under the influence of various factors, the mid-range machine market in 2022 is a bit embarrassing to "more than enough", especially the products equipped with the so-called new mid-range platform have lost the cost-effective advantage on which they originally depended, and the market response is average. Consumers either go for some more affordable, older products, or they can choose to do and so on....... Sit back and wait for the new flagship to drop in price.
The situation will not last long
So how long will this continue? At the moment, it may not be too long.
It must be admitted that the 2000 yuan gear is still the main market of the current Chinese mobile phone market. After experiencing the success of the Snapdragon 870 product, both consumers and the market see the potential of an "old processor". In the current market environment with low demand, a cost-effective mid-range product is more conducive to market expansion.
From the perspective of performance in all aspects, the real successor to the Snapdragon 870 should be the absolute main force of the current flagship market - Snapdragon 8+. After this platform adopts the new TSMC 4nm process, it has been widely praised for the most critical performance and power consumption. At the same time, this product will soon enter the cycle of rapid iterative upgrade, and it also has enough upgrade potential in the future.
According to the current rumors, the Snapdragon 8+ will enter the 2500 yuan price market next year. I estimate that by the third and fourth quarters of next year, it is not impossible for Snapdragon 8+ products to enter the 2000 yuan range. This means that the competition in the mid-range flagship market next year will be more intense.
The follow-up Snapdragon 8 Gen2 flagship, if you want to get rid of the situation of competition with the same door, may need to be fully upgraded in other aspects. The decentralization of Snapdragon 8+ will also give terminal manufacturers higher requirements in terms of product and market positioning. The games of the manufacturers' permutations will also be more diversified and rich in gameplay in the future.
In any case, a high degree of market competition is also beneficial to our consumers in a sense. The dividends of rapid upgrade of product experience brought about by rapid upgrade iteration allow many users in the mid-range market to enjoy in a short time. For mid-range consumers who pay attention to the 2,000 yuan price market, the follow-up involution of the mid-range market will obviously be good news.