In recent years, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have continued to attack the high-end market, because of the higher profits. Apple, for example, although the second largest market share in the world, took 85% of the profits of the global smartphone market.
However, it is not easy to hit the high-end market, and now only Huawei has done it, because it has made a high-end mobile phone processor Qilin. Other mobile phone manufacturers can only choose chips such as Qualcomm. As a result, the Meixin giant began to cut leeks!
The reason why Apple can stabilize the high-end mobile phone market and win the high-end market share vacated by Huawei is that it has its own processor chip A series and iOS mobile phone operating system, and the two trump cards make Apple invincible.
Apple's iOS system is closed-loop for its own use, and other mobile phone manufacturers basically use Google's Android operating system, even Samsung, the world's largest sales company, and Huawei also used Android before. Therefore, the gap in terms of systems is not too large.
The focus is on the mobile phone SoC processor, which is the core chip of the mobile phone and directly affects the performance and function of the smartphone.
In terms of mobile phone SoC processor, the world's most powerful is Apple's A series, more than one generation ahead of other manufacturers, so the performance of Apple's mobile phone is very strong. The second is the Qualcomm Snapdragon series, which is constantly approaching the Apple A series.
Of course, this is in the case that Huawei Kirin chips have nowhere to manufacture. You know, before being sanctioned, the Kirin SoC processor designed by HiSilicon can be comparable to Apple's A series and Qualcomm Snapdragon, and some functions have even surpassed.
For example, Huawei's Kirin took the lead in integrating its own 5G baseband, and Apple can't now, Qualcomm is more than a year late.
However, because of US sanctions, Huawei Kirin stopped at the 9000 series, and since the second quarter of last year, the share of the global mobile phone processor market has basically returned to zero, but it is said that the Kirin design has not stopped, and HiSilicon continues to develop it.
After Huawei's Kirin absence, Apple and Qualcomm basically monopolized the high-end mobile phone processor market. MediaTek has been working hard to launch high-end series, but it has not fully kept up with the rhythm of others, and now it still relies on the low-end to maintain the world's first.
In the first quarter of this year, in the global smartphone processor market share, MediaTek first, Qualcomm second, Apple third.
Although MediaTek is still the first in the world, global mobile phone demand continues to decline, mostly low-end mobile phones, and high-end mobile phones have a relatively small decline. As a result, MediaTek's share has been declining, while Qualcomm and Apple's share remains strong.
Without the competition of Huawei Qilin, Apple and Qualcomm have indeed a much better life, will not be forced to accelerate research and development, rush to update iteration to increase competitiveness, can constantly squeeze toothpaste, but also maintain a monopoly advantage, easy to obtain high profits.
Intel was like this before, the CPU has no competitors, so it has been squeezing toothpaste, leaving a big hidden danger for later.
Not only that, Qualcomm recently reported news that the price of the new generation of flagship processor Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is $160 each, about 1134 yuan, which is much higher than before, and only a mobile phone processor began to thousands of yuan.
Apple's A16 processor, which is the same as Qualcomm's processor, also uses TSMC's 4nm process, and the price of each chip is only $110, which is $50 lower than Qualcomm's, but Apple's chip is self-use, and there is no reference at all.
If Apple's A-series processors are also sold to the outside world, in Apple's style, I am afraid it will be much higher than Qualcomm.
The problem is that the price of Qualcomm mobile phone processors is over 1,000 yuan, if domestic smartphones use Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processors, does the price have to go to a new high? Otherwise, how can domestic mobile phone manufacturers get a certain profit?
However, domestic mobile phone manufacturers seem to have no other choice, although you can also use MediaTek's chips, but if you hit the high-end mobile phone market, flagship mobile phones generally choose Qualcomm's flagship chips to compete for some advantages.
Qualcomm chip prices have risen, and domestic manufacturers have to raise prices, which makes their high-end market road more difficult!
This is the current situation, and it is quite difficult to develop a mobile phone SoC. Xiaomi has tried it before, and it has been suspended now. OPPO also wants to do it, and recently announced a full withdrawal. Huawei has the ability to design, but today there is nowhere to manufacture chips.
In this regard, some foreign media directly said: US companies have begun to cut leeks, which should be the target of US chip sanctions. However, Chinese enterprises will not always let it go, and have begun to work silently to continue to strengthen self-research and help the domestic chip industry chain break through!
Cutting leeks also has consequences, that is, let domestic mobile phone manufacturers make up their minds to get rid of dependence, and US companies gradually lose the mainland market!