In the past two years, the top brands in the domestic mobile phone industry have tried to do car-related business, including Xiaomi, which personally builds cars, Huawei, which provides technical solutions, and OPPO and Meizu, which focus on vehicle-machine interaction experience. In short, for the car this outlet, everyone does not want to, can not miss. The reason is also very simple, the ceiling of the mobile phone market has appeared, the car is a new market, but also a larger market, can bring new growth points for mobile phone brands.
Contrary to the focus of mobile phone brands on cars, NIO, as a representative of the new domestic car-making force "Wei Xiaoli", announced that it would enter the smartphone market and established NIO Mobile Technology Co., Ltd. in August last year. And according to media reports, in the second half of 2022, the size of NIO's mobile phone R&D team has exceeded 300 people, including a large number of R&D personnel from mobile phone brands such as Huawei, Meitu, and Xiaomi. It can be seen that NIO is prepared on smartphones.
At an offline event of NIO this year, Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of NIO, said: "NIO mobile phones will open internal testing in the second quarter of this year, and are expected to be officially released to the public in the third quarter of this year." Even recently, some media have exposed the real photo of this NIOPhone NIO mobile phone.
(Image source network)
The back of the machine adopts a simple design, corresponding to the square and tough body line, reminding me of the style with Sony Xperia series mobile phones, its upper left corner added three metal contacts, I don't know whether it is for engineering debugging or other uses.
Whether from the size of the R & D team or the rhythm of the product, NIO is very serious in building mobile phones, but for the domestic mobile phone market that is basically saturated, the rumored NIO mobile phone priced at about 7,000 yuan is unlikely to "kill" its own piece of the sky.
So, why did NIO make mobile phones? Can it be done?
Regarding the first question, NIO CEO Li Bin once said that NIO makes mobile phones not to compete with brands such as Huawei and Xiaomi in the current market, but for the user's experience needs. NIO mobile phone will be "the best matching mobile phone with NIO", and there may be more smart games between cars and mobile phones in the future.
(Source: NIO official website)
At this point, we may be able to refer to the current Huawei mobile phones and Qianjie models that are also based on the Hongmeng ecosystem, which can solve the pain points of "few applications, slow upgrades, and poor experience" on traditional car machines, and improve user operation and experience.
In the final analysis, NIO wants to use the linkage between mobile phones and cars to gradually form its own user experience barriers. This idea is already being done by Huawei, and Geely also wants to realize it by acquiring Meizu. As for whether NIO can do it, or when it can do it, it can only be better judged after the official launch of NIO's mobile phone.
As for NIO, can it be done? I think it mainly depends on how NIO itself judges the manufacture of mobile phones.
If measured by sales, the financial report shows that NIO sold 122,500 new vehicles in 2022, and the annual delivery exceeded 100,000 units for the first time. Even if all 122,500 car owners choose to buy NIO mobile phones, in the Chinese mobile phone market with annual sales of more than 300 million units, it is definitely not a success, and even like the current "Wei Xiaoli" car, every sale is a loss, even if the mobile phone is sold to 7,000 yuan may not make money.
(Source: NIO official website)
If the task of NIO mobile phone is to improve user experience and help NIO car sales, then I think NIO mobile phone still has the possibility of success.
According to the authoritative research agency J.D. Power report, 43% of domestic car owners will change their cars in an average of 3 years, and the proportion of changing cars within 5 years has reached more than 60%. For NIO, which began deliveries at the end of 2017, in addition to developing new users, how to retain existing users is also an important issue.
(Source: NIO official website)
The addition of NIO mobile phones may become another differentiated competition point for NIO in brand and experience after the vehicle itself, services and communities.
If NIO mobile phones can really achieve a good level in terms of function and experience, which helps to improve the stickiness between users and NIO, then NIO mobile phones are considered to be successful. Otherwise, it may become a new favorite in the "seafood market".