Text/Lu Shiming
Edit/Gale
From the birth of the first smartphone IBM Simon in 1994, to the release of the first generation of iPhone in 2007, and now the user "does not leave the machine", smart phones have made leaps and bounds in nearly three decades, and have also achieved a batch of industry players.
Today, the mobile phone industry has finally slowed down. Whether at the domestic or global level, as the user dividend gradually fades, the mobile phone market is gradually saturated, and shipments begin to show a downward trend.
Pass the era of high growth and enter the deep water area of development. Perhaps it is the embodiment of the data that makes the market's mood appear a little pessimistic, and it is even considered to enter the "darkest hour".
For any industry, "optimism" is the real medicine. Although the growth rate has slowed, the smartphone market still has huge potential. Whether it is the huge value brought by serving existing users, or the growth brought by high-end impact and independent research and development, or the continuous cross-border deep integration of mobile phones and automobiles. These are the "next step" for the mobile phone industry to obtain new amounts in the stock era, and they also confirm the "infinite" possibilities of smartphones.
Focusing on new values and focusing on the new future, the road of the mobile phone industry is far more, wider and longer than people see.
Stepping into the stock market, the mobile phone industry changes and does not change
The smartphone market has been saturated, and has long changed from an incremental market to a stock market.
IDC data shows that the total shipment of mainland smartphones in 2022 will be 286 million, down from 329 million the previous year. IDC pointed out that this is the lowest sales volume since 2013, and it is also the first time since 2013 that the annual sales of domestic smartphones have fallen below 300 million. Echoing this, from about a year and a half at the beginning, to about two years later, and now to an incredible three years, the user replacement cycle is getting longer and longer.
In fact, this is not just a phenomenon unique to China, the growth rate of global smartphones has slowed since 2018.
The reason is that, on the one hand, the service life of mobile phones is extended, product functions are becoming more and more perfect, and performance is generally "excessive" for most people. On the other hand, smart phones have entered a bottleneck period, and the overall differentiation of mobile phone manufacturers on the product side is getting smaller and smaller, and the homogenization is serious.
Under such a market trend, industry players are experiencing a "change and unchanged".
The first change is the "concept and direction", the mobile phone market is no longer dominated by rapid distribution and popularization, but to turn to how to effectively cultivate the existing user base, through better services, to obtain greater value brought by "service users".
For brands, selling a mobile phone is the beginning of the service, and then getting value from the service.
The second change is "technology and positioning", through the differentiation of the underlying technology, to show users the difference of their own products, while impacting the high-end market.
It can be seen that in the past two years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have launched and iterated their folding screen mobile phones and high-end models to demonstrate their innovation capabilities. But from the actual situation of the market, most so-called high-end mobile phones generally lack "differentiation". Stacking materials, high prices, and joint names cannot impress consumers at all. Without the support of core technology, the high-end of manufacturers will only be a castle in the air.
The last change is the "track and scene", and with the popularity of 5G technology, the connectivity of smartphones will be further improved.
As an indispensable tool in people's daily life, mobile phones will undoubtedly be the "core" terminal in the era of the Internet of Everything. In the future, it can be connected to more "scenarios", and behind these scenarios lies more possibilities in the mobile phone industry.
Ever-changing, more solid research on market segments and core consumer demands is the only constant for manufacturers. With stronger technical capabilities, the launch of corresponding products, novel and good experience can capture more market share.
Focus on user experience, self-developed high-end into a breakthrough
Counterpoint previously released a report on the global mobile phone market sales in 2022, which showed that in the case of a slight sluggish global smartphone sales in 2022, the sales of the high-end mobile phone market increased by 1%, contributing more than 55% to the global mobile phone market revenue for the first time.
Specific to China, smartphone sales above $500 shipment price (equivalent to a retail price of about 4,000 yuan) in the Chinese market accounted for more than 26% of total sales in 2022, while in 2016, when the market peaked, this part accounted for only 11%.
Source: Counterpoint
With the continuous upgrading of user spending power, and the absolute value and relative share of low-end smartphones are declining, the strategic vision of mobile phone manufacturers is no longer satisfied with the low price range, and the high-end smartphone market is becoming more and more important to the development of domestic brands.
In recent years, the homogenization problem brought about by the internal volume of the mobile phone industry has made users lose patience with "cookie-cutter" mobile phones without innovation. Therefore, the key point of high-end market competition in the next few years will undoubtedly be based on changes in user needs, and continue to carry out "differentiated" innovation around demand.
Only in this way can users get a better experience, can they be recognized by the market, and can they truly achieve high-end. Manufacturers are well aware of this, and in the past year, the domestic mobile phone market has ushered in a technological "crash". Major mobile phone manufacturers are doing their best to play new tricks, attract the attention of consumers, and strive for the high-end market.
For example, vivo announced the innovative functions and upgrade strength of the self-developed V2 chip; Huawei Mate 50 series became the world's first smartphone to support Beidou satellite messages; Xiaomi and Leica cooperated to create the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, which is known as "the first time to install a Leica camera lens on a mobile phone"; OPPO has also established the development route of "three core technologies", achieving breakthroughs in the three major fields of self-developed chips, intelligent cross-terminal systems and intelligent cloud...
The more in-depth self-research and differentiated application of technologies and products, the more consumers can favor and market cheers.
It is understood that Honor, driven by its high-end Magic series, has led to a significant increase of 110% in its sales in the global high-end smartphone market in 2022. At the 2023 Xiaomi Rice Flour Festival, Lei Jun also said that the most important strategy of Xiaomi in the past three years is the high-end strategy, and the last three waves of new products, the user's praise rate has reached 99% and 98%.
But if you say who has the most outstanding performance in the high-end market in 2022, it must be vivo.
Counterpoint report shows that vivo mobile phones maintain the first position in the domestic market in 2022 with a market share of 19.2%, followed by Apple, OPPO, Honor, Xiaomi, Huawei and other brands, and Chinese mobile phone brands have entered the "VO Rongmi" era. Specific to products, vivo X90 series with eye-catching design and peak image and performance strength, sales far exceed the past, creating a new record high of the X series, and has achieved very good results in the market.
Why was vivo able to achieve such a breakthrough in the high-end market? In fact, the reason is not complicated, it is the inevitable result of adhering to the long-term layout of "user-oriented differentiation".
Source: Weibo blogger Shu Lay Sister
The user's experience is satisfied, and sales naturally "fall into place". For the new vivo X Fold2 and vivo X Flip that will be released on April 20, it also puts user experience first, becoming the culmination of vivo's comprehensive technological innovation, so that the folding screen also has a flagship experience.
With the continuous breakthroughs of domestic mobile phone manufacturers in technology and paying more attention to user experience, it is believed that China's high-end smartphone market will usher in further development.
Counterpoint has always been optimistic about the development of China's high-end smartphone market, and in 2023, the overall market shipments will return to more than 280 million units, and the high-end segment is expected to perform better than the market average: a year-on-year increase of nearly 5%. By 2035, the proportion of sales of both ASP and high-end smartphones will rise to a higher level, of which more than $500 is expected to reach 40%.
Accelerate cross-border integration and move towards the center of the Internet of Everything
The market and consumers are full of expectations for mobile phone product innovation, and hope that epoch-making new terminals with more novel interaction methods and higher experience quality will appear. These can not be achieved by a single point of effort, but need to jointly promote technological breakthroughs and industrial innovation through industrial collaboration.
In recent years, as the new energy vehicle market moves towards the second half - intelligence, many car companies have proposed to build mobile phones to connect the cockpit ecology, and the linkage between cars and mobile phones has become a trend.
For example, in July 2022, Geely's Xingji Times signed a strategic investment agreement with Meizu, officially announcing that Xingji Times holds a 79.09% controlling stake in Meizu Technology and obtains sole control of Meizu Technology. By March 30 this year, Geely demonstrated its first achievement after the acquisition of Meizu - the FlymeAuto vehicle system led by the Meizu team was officially unveiled and was first installed on the new model Lynk & Co 08.
Source: Meizu
For example, NIO CEO Li Bin also revealed in July last year that he was promoting the mobile phone business, and at the recent Electric Vehicle 100 Forum held, Li Bin revealed that NIO's mobile phone will be released in the third quarter of this year and delivered.
Not only Geely, NIO, there are countless "ambiguous" stories in the market between car companies and mobile phone manufacturers, Tesla is rumored to launch a mobile phone Model Phone, Xpeng Motors announced official cooperation with vivo, Xiaomi makes cars...
The reason why car companies "enter" mobile phones is to use mobile phones as an entrance and medium, and eventually improve the human-vehicle interaction experience of their own cars to a height, that is, they hope to improve the interactive experience of their own vehicle-machine system by making mobile phones.
Li Shufu once said: "The mobile phone is a rapid iteration portable mobile terminal, an application carrier for electronic product market verification and software innovation, which not only allows users to share innovative achievements as soon as possible, but also transfers a safe and reliable part of the results to the application of the car, so as to realize the close interaction between the vehicle and mobile phone software technology." ”
For car companies, as the most important equipment linking new energy vehicles, mobile phones are undoubtedly a crucial point. This also proves that it reflects the irreplaceability of smart phones as the most important personal terminal equipment, and confirms that smart phones are optimistic about "cross-industry".
Counterpoint also believes that "for a long time in the future, smart phones will remain the most important carrier of personal entertainment, consumption and social networking, and their light productivity attributes are also constantly strengthening, and there is no new technology terminal that can truly replace smart phones." ”
Not only limited to the automotive intelligent cockpit, in the era of the Internet of Everything, mobile phones will also become the core entrance of users' various life scenarios, and become the core hub for controlling smart homes and 5G devices. This will further strengthen the "second organ" attribute of mobile phone terminals and become the control center of people's life and entertainment.
Serve the benefits that existing users can obtain; "Differentiation" based on self-developed technology is beneficial; The core position of cross-border integration, and the needs of more scenarios in the future...
No matter from what point of view, the growth and long-term value of the mobile phone industry should be more recognized by the market than the appearance of decline.