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According to data released by market research institute Canalys, in 2022, the top five manufacturers in the global smartphone market shipments are: Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo. Among them, Samsung ranked first with a market shipment of 260 million units. It occupies 21.6% of the market share.
As soon as this data came out, many netizens were also emotional. You know, now Samsung in the Chinese market decline, the share has fallen to 1%. China's smartphone sales in 2022 reached 286 million units, accounting for about 24% of the total global sales.
It is conceivable that without the quarter of the market in China, Samsung can still dominate the top, and after defeating Nokia in 2012, it has been ranked first for ten consecutive years, and it is indeed something to make itself invincible.
So the question is, why did Samsung, which dominates the world, miss the Chinese market? Without the support of 1.4 billion people, Samsung can still win the championship among brands, what does this mean? In comparison, are domestic mobile phones going downhill?
Samsung's trade with China earlier than China and South Korea established diplomatic relations?
Speaking of the Samsung brand, it was founded in 1938 and is the largest multinational conglomerate in South Korea. It has 44 international subsidiaries including Samsung Electronics, Samsung Heavy Industries, Samsung C&C, Samsung Life Insurance, and has 230,000 employees in 429 bases in 68 countries around the world.
Among them, Samsung Electronics is the most famous. Samsung Electronics is not only a symbol of Korea's national industry, but also the only Korean company on the list of the world's top 100 trademarks.
And when it comes to Samsung's development in China, it can be traced back to the 70s of the last century. At that time, China and South Korea had not yet established diplomatic relations, but Samsung had already imported coal from China from Hong Kong, which became the first deal between a Korean company and China after the founding of New China.
Subsequently, in April 1992, Samsung Corning established its first joint venture in China in Harbin. It can be said that in the Chinese market, Samsung took the lead, and then followed the footsteps of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in August of the same year, deeply rooted in China.
- In 2002, it officially entered the Chinese market, and in 2012, with a market share of nearly 30%, it ranked first in China's smartphone market.
Shocking Samsung Note 7 exploded doors
However, what no one expected was that the Samsung Note7 explosion door incident made the brand lose credibility in China. In September 2016, the Samsung Galaxy Note7 mobile phone was just over a month old, but there were more than 30 explosions and fires around the world.
So on September 2, Samsung recalled 2.5 million Note7 phones worldwide, but that doesn't include China. The person in charge publicly declared: "The version of the Bank of China, which will be officially launched in the Chinese market from September 1, can be purchased by Chinese consumers with confidence." ”
Here, it is understandable that there is a problem with a certain batch of mobile phones, and Samsung's official decisive replacement measures are also worthy of praise. Therefore, Chinese consumers continue to buy with trust, but Samsung mobile phones have repeated the same mistakes, and there are still explosive problems, which really chills many old customers.
On the other hand, after the incident, on September 19 and September 29 of the same year, Samsung made two voices, inferring that the product damage had nothing to do with the battery, but was caused by external heating. Even the Chosun Ilbo reported that Samsung suspects that this is a vicious act by Chinese consumers to defraud them of compensation, and is discussing criminal prosecution against Chinese consumers who advocate false explosions.
But facts speak louder than words, and the report of Thiel Laboratory, one of China's most authoritative testing institutions, on mobile phones sent for inspection by consumers, clearly shows that there are no traces of thermal damage caused by external heating on the appearance of mobile phones.
On the contrary, after further analysis of the internal structure of the battery through X-ray imaging and computed tomography, it was found that the lower right corner of the battery was missing, the margin was blurred, and there were traces of aluminum melting inside the battery.
Secondly, the CT scan results also show that there is an obvious black hole in the lower right corner of the battery, there is a relatively serious metal loss, and the conclusion that the mobile phone exploded due to spontaneous combustion of the battery is ironclad. Since then, Samsung's reputation in China has plummeted, and its market share has hovered at 1% for a long time.
But even so, Samsung mobile phones still maintain the position of the leader, as if China's so-called huge market of 1.4 billion people is a joke, why?
Why Samsung has been able to win the sales championship for ten consecutive years
In fact, after years of Waterloo, Samsung has also tried to make a comeback in the Chinese market.
At the end of 2018, Kwon Guixian, president of Samsung Electronics Greater China, even directly shouted out the slogan of Samsung mobile phones returning to the Chinese battlefield, and since then Samsung mobile phones have launched new products every 2-4 months, but they have repeatedly lost battles and never broken the 1% curse. Finally, in 2019, the Korean company closed its last Huizhou factory in China, completely disappearing from the Chinese market.
However, in fact, this move is actually a restructuring of the production chain compared to a retreat. If you comprehensively look at the layout of Samsung's mobile phone business, it is not difficult to find that as early as more than ten years ago, Samsung's production chain has been transferred to India, Vietnam and other places.
In the context of the continuous decline in global mobile phone sales, it is urgent to improve core competitiveness, in order to optimize the supply chain and reduce production costs, areas with cheap labor have become the best choice.
- While withdrawing from the mainland, Samsung invested 4.7 billion yuan in India in 2018 to build the world's largest mobile phone factory. In April of the same year, the total investment in Vietnam reached 17.3 billion US dollars, and eight plants were established. It is also this kind of precaution that Samsung uses "cost performance" to seize the market and maintain its competitiveness in the world.
Moreover, although the strategic layout is one aspect, Samsung's good sales are actually inseparable from its own hard power. In the global high-end mobile phone market, Apple occupies a sixty-percent share. With its A-series processor, which is two years ahead of the Android processor, coupled with the IOS system, it crushes many Android mobile phones smoothly. Therefore, when it comes to software, Android phones don't have an advantage at all.
At this time, Samsung stood out by relying on hardware capabilities and threw off a number of brands. This is because Samsung is the only manufacturer in the world that controls the full supply chain of smartphones, and even some of Apple's parts are purchased from Samsung.
A mobile phone uses thousands of spare parts and hundreds of modules. Samsung has its own Orion chip, has its own DRAM memory, NAND flash memory, OLED screen, CMOS sensor and so on. As the "first brother" of the mobile phone circle and the advantages of the entire industry chain, this is undoubtedly Samsung's strength.
Secondly, in folding mobile phones, Samsung has also returned to the Chinese public's vision. Its Z flip3 and Z fold launched in August 2021 sold 35,000 units in March, successfully entering the top 10 high-end mobile phones in e-commerce.
The reason is still because of the absolute leadership of technology. Samsung is the only company in the world with a foldable glass cover and also masters the world's most mature folding OLED panel, with these two technologies, Samsung broke the price record of folding mobile phones, and achieved 93% market share in the folding mobile phone market.
In this way, Samsung's position in the mobile phone circle is still unshakable, so is there really no hope for the future of domestic mobile phones?
Can't see hope in domestic phones?
Actually, we don't need to sing about it. As early as the third quarter of 2014, Xiaomi beat Samsung in the Chinese mobile phone market. Then, in 2015, Huawei also successfully reached the top.
And in the second quarter of 2020, Huawei shipped 55.8 million smartphones worldwide, successfully surpassing Samsung, which shipped 53.7 million. This is also the first time in 9 years that a manufacturer other than Samsung or Apple has led the market.
However, in May 2019, former US President Trump issued a ban on the grounds of "technological cybersecurity", directly including Huawei and its 70 subsidiaries on the "Entity List" of export control.
Since then, the United States has begun a four-year crackdown on Huawei. Even on the fourth anniversary, in May 2023, the United States is expected to cut off Huawei from all its American suppliers through the Biden administration's ban.
- Initially, in 2020, when it was first sanctioned, Huawei's financial report showed that its consumer business revenue increased by only 3.3% over the previous year. In 2021, business revenue fell sharply by 49.6%. After March 2021, Huawei no longer has 5G chips available, from the top of the list at its peak, all the way out of the top five, and now the market share can only be classified as "other".
In addition, in terms of mobile phone shipments in 2022, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo ranked 3rd, 4th, and 5th have data of 153.1 million units, 103.3 million units, and 99 million units, respectively. It can be seen that if domestic mobile phones want to succeed, the road is difficult and difficult.
But even so, we must always remember that focusing on ourselves and doing a good job in technology is the last word!
Resources:
In 2022, global smartphone shipments will fall by 12% year-on-year Apple has become the only positive growth manufacturer - China Industrial Economic Information Network
The top 5 global mobile phone sales in 2022 - ZAKER
In 2022, domestic smartphone shipments fell by 13.2% year-on-year, the largest decline in history - China Daily Chinese Network
CCTV exposure: Samsung National Bank Note7 explosion report released! After reading it Chinese they were angry - CCTV Finance
The security version of Note7 also exploded, and Samsung completely became three fried? - Interface News
Huawei surpasses Samsung! Won the global smartphone shipment championship for the first time - Interface News
Sanctions against Huawei have been increased again! US hegemony "stumbles" on Chinese technology enterprises - Shangguan News
Samsung closed its last mobile phone factory in China, is it to abandon the Chinese market? - Beijing News
Go back to Xi'an to build a factory? Samsung may be on the right path - titanium media
Samsung, is there still a drama in China - Chinese news press
Samsung's new phone does not increase in price! Re-"bet" on the Chinese market, this time there are several percent odds of winning - China Economic Weekly
To create a more resilient supply chain, Samsung wants to engage in "parts standardization" - interface news