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In recent years, due to technical bottlenecks and serious involvement, the mobile phone market has moved towards a "stock game". Coupled with the concentration of oligarchy shares, it is difficult for new players to gain a foothold.
In 2022, the mobile phone market is exhausted, and global shipments fell below 1.2 billion units, a decade low. It is hard to imagine that there are still people who dare to enter the mobile phone industry and start a new business in the red sea.
In July last year, a mobile phone brand called "Nothing" sprang up overseas. It set a pre-sale volume of 200,000 yuan before the official launch, and won a huge financing of $74 million in less than a year.
The brand name is "Nothing", but it threatens to "become an Apple replacement", what is the origin of this phone? Who is the founder behind it?
Resigned from OnePlus to make an Apple replacement
Nothing attracted a lot of attention before its release, when the popularity of its first model, Nothing Phone 1, exceeded 190,000 on Kuan.com, approaching the 200,000 popularity of the iPhone 14.
This is also the only Android model on Kuan.com that is not on sale in Chinese mainland, but has a very high popularity.
Its aura of "debut with its own traffic" is inseparable from the driving force behind it - Pei Yu, the co-founder of OnePlus Mobile.
Pei Yu's career resume is very beautiful. In 2011, after taking a break from Stockholm School of Economics, Pei Yu devoted himself to the Chinese mobile phone industry, successively working for Nokia, Meizu and OPPO. In 2013, Pei Yu and Liu Zuohu co-founded OnePlus Mobile.
Seven years later, just when OnePlus mobile phones exploded in overseas word-of-mouth and continued to impact sales myths. Pei Yu resigned from OnePlus, returned to his identity as an entrepreneur, and founded a new mobile phone brand Nothing in the UK.
The reason is simple, Pei Yu wants to make a mobile phone brand that can replace Apple.
For Apple, Pei Yu is both respectful and disdainful. Although he was once a fan of Apple, Pei Yu felt that Apple's innovation was getting slower and slower, and today's smartphone market is very cold, as if back to the PC market in the late 90s, everyone is making gray hosts.
Pei Yu believes that the last breakthrough in the market was when Apple first launched the iPhone 15 years ago.
Specialize in design and differentiate yourself
Although the Android system is used, Pei Yu stressed that the main design of Nothing Phone 1 is to take a differentiated route with Android competitors, not to mention conquering the Apple market.
Nothing has been clearly positioned from the beginning, targeting the target group as visionary, that is, those art practitioners and fashion brand enthusiasts, and outperforming mobile phone brands of the same magnitude with design and creativity.
The back of the phone (1) is equipped with a transparent glass cover plate, which unreservedly displays the "inner structural beauty" on the back of the fuselage. In addition, Nothing uses LED light strips (composed of more than 900 individual LED lamp beads) design, creating an industry precedent, which can realize the interaction of different scenarios such as incoming call lighting effects, customized alarm clocks, charging reminders, etc., futuristic, and at first glance very similar to the iPhone next door, which can be called the most topical product in the Android camp in recent years.
In addition to trend lovers, this technological design is also in line with the aesthetic needs of contemporary young people: personalized and niche.
It is reported that Xiaomi has also produced transparent mobile phones, but Nothing is more mature in technology. Transparent mobile phones need to be simple and stylish, and the requirements for accessories, arrangements and technology are high.
In addition, Nothing is also linked with Tesla, which can realize remote control of Tesla, such as unlocking the door, turning on the air conditioner and other functions.
In terms of price, Nothing is positioned in the mid-range, and the price is between 3200~4000 yuan. In the mid-range market dominated by OPPO and Xiaomi, Nothing adopts a more flattering product strategy, that is, specializing in design.
At present, most of the overseas reviews of Nothing are positive, especially in terms of design and cost performance.
On Flipkart, India's largest e-commerce platform, Nothing Phone (1) achieved 100,000 sales in 20 days of release. Flipkart executives also noted that the phone is Flipkart's best-selling phone in its price segment.
"Suspense marketing" sucks a lot of fruit powder and turns over
In addition to the design level, Nothing's performance in marketing is also remarkable.
At the beginning of its establishment, Nothing did not rush to launch a mobile phone, but cut in from wireless headphones, also focusing on the "transparent body concept", so that the consumer market has a basic understanding of the brand, and then extended the product line to smartphones.
Later, in order to increase brand stickiness, Nothing opened up investment opportunities to the community, allowing more people to become shareholders in small investments. The campaign raised $1.5 million in less than a minute after opening.
In the product promotion of Nothing Phone (1), Nothing chose not to publish the key information of the mobile phone at one time, but to disclose the product information little by little on the social platform to whet the appetite of consumers.
After sufficient publicity, Nothing teamed up with the trendy brand e-commerce Stock X to sell a limited edition of 100 Phone(1) models in the form of an auction, with a starting price of $156 and a final auction price of $3,000. In this way, it is the first time in the industry to complete the first sale of a new machine in the form of bidding auction, which directly fills the brand voice.
In order to further build a loyal customer base, Nothing also launched the NFT loyalty program "Black Dot NFT". Community members who purchase NFT products can enjoy exclusive community content, unlock special benefits and discounts, and have the opportunity to participate in exclusive offline events.
From the sales point of view, Nothing's domineering declaration of "suspense marketing" and "benchmarking Apple" has indeed attracted many fruit fans.
According to Nothing's survey, among Nothing Phone (1) users, the rate of switching from iOS users to Android users is very high, on average three to four times that of other brands, and the situation is most obvious in Japan and Hong Kong, China, where more than 50% of consumers who buy Nothing Phone (1) are originally iOS users.
At present, Nothing's global shipments have exceeded 1 million units, and its 22-year revenue has soared 10 times year-on-year, jumping from $20 million to $250 million.
Europe sells and attacks North America
Nothing's overseas expansion line is also quite special, boldly abandoning the two major markets of China and the United States, focusing on Europe and the Asia-Pacific region, but this does not mean that they intend to let go of mature markets with large business opportunities.
The success of the first mobile phone in the Eurasian market proves that Nothing does have an audience, and the success in sales also gives them more influence and voice in the supply chain and component manufacturers.
According to foreign media reports, Nothing has begun to quietly set its sights on the United States. Pei Yu also said in an interview that preliminary negotiations are under way with US operators for the launch of mobile phones in the United States.
If a new mobile phone brand wants to enter the United States, telecom operators are the most important and must strive for cooperation. Mobile phone brands need to work with telecom providers to certify and integrate some functions into the operating system. However, the iPhone is almost monopoly in the local area, and the advantages are very large, and it is difficult for new brands to obtain local market recognition and cooperation.
Secondly, the difference in mobile phone band limits has a great impact on the entire hardware design, and the product security specifications and feature requirements of various countries are completely different, and it takes one to two years to redesign the hardware specifications every time it enters a new national market.
However, Nothing's record revenue last year provided enough confidence and momentum.
At present, there are not many types of mobile phone options in the US mobile phone market, and consumers are tired of increasingly similar and lack of novelty and lose the desire to buy. Pei Yu believes that this will become the entry point for attacking the US market, bringing eye-catching hardware design, and at the same time providing it to the majority of American consumers at a very competitive price.
Pei Yu believes: "Apple, Samsung and other large manufacturers due to the current scale and customers, can not try too different directions, and this is where new companies like Nothing can boldly focus, this is not that we are smarter or big factories can't do it, but it is unreasonable for them." ”