The top ten are all iPhones, and behind them hides the cruel truth that Huawei was sanctioned
In the current global smartphone downward environment, the downturn of domestic mobile phones is now visible to the naked eye, the focus of the technology industry has shifted from mobile phones to automobiles, and everyone is paying less and less attention to the transformation of the mobile phone industry. But a reality that cannot be ignored is that iPhone sales are still very stable, and even the market share has reached a new high.
In the 2023 Q2 second-hand mobile phone market hot selling TOP10 models, a heart-wrenching data is that the first to the 10th are iPhones. Combined with the ranking of the top 20 5G mobile phone market share in the first quarter of 2023, the top 5 are all iPhones, the top 10 have 8 iPhones, and only two Huawei, but they are the Huawei P40 series listed in 2020.
From the 618 Jingdong mobile phone ranking, the top four are iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro MAX, iPhone 13, iPhone 14 in order.
From the current point of view, there are almost no domestic mobile phones that can fight, and the only ones that can fight have been sanctioned.
The truth behind the sanctions against Huawei
From the data point of view, the Huawei P40 series (5G) released in 2020 is still the iPhone 13 series in 2022, and the competitors of the iPhone 14 series in 2023 have entered the 6th and 7th rankings. This is undoubtedly a terrifying achievement. This is in the case of Huawei's Kirin chips being completely limited and the price is high, and there is still such a big stamina after three years.
Suppose, if Huawei 5G is not restricted, Huawei normally promotes the research and development of Kirin 5G chips, and TSMC can still freely manufacture chips for Huawei, then what will be the result today, this result is unimaginable.
The author conservatively estimates that Apple's sales in the Chinese market may fall by at least one-third, or even close to half. In the European market and other overseas markets, the iPhone will also encounter great pressure. Because in 2019, Huawei has also posed a strong threat to Samsung and Apple in the European market.
Therefore, the United States sanctioned Huawei, keeping Apple's top position, so that Apple in the product iteration of squeezing toothpaste, stable and comfortable in these three years, eating most of the dividends of the entire industry.
In the past three years at Apple, Cook has obviously become much more relaxed, and innovation has slowed down, which is a state of drinking coffee, counting money, and holding glasses and not finding an opponent.
According to this state, Apple does not need to do anything, and can almost continue to steadily eat the next 10 years of replacement dividends.
Therefore, behind this, we see the truth of the US sanctions against Huawei. Apple is the benchmark and leader of American technology companies, representing the highest level of technology and synonymous with disruptive innovation, and the United States does not allow foreign companies to threaten Apple's hegemony.
Apple's supremacy almost represents the hegemony of the United States in global technology, and behind Apple is also a large amount of Wall Street capital.
But around 2019, Huawei's rise is too fast, making Apple feel a great crisis, especially Huawei has won half of China's high-end market in 2019, and Huawei's quarterly shipments in Q1 2019 continued to climb, with shipments as high as 59.1 million units, and Samsung's quarterly shipment difference shrank to 11.8 million units. According to the trend of the time, Samsung and Apple were dangerous.
The US sanctions against Huawei at this time have precisely maintained the market position of Apple and Samsung, and Samsung is also behind a large amount of American capital.
Sanctioning Huawei's fatality interrupts the positive cycle of research and development
Originally, Huawei was a manufacturer with the main business of communication business and mobile phone PC business as an auxiliary business. However, in terms of the profits contributed around 2019, Huawei's mobile phone revenue has exceeded the main business, supporting Huawei's second growth curve, and its mobile phone and PC business has grown strongly, contributing to Huawei's sustained profit growth and an important support for the continuous growth of its future R&D investment.
If this trend continues, the profits of Huawei's consumer business can provide a strong foundation for the research and development of Huawei's 5G communication business, automotive business, and chip business, and even in the automotive field, Huawei may also come to the head faster.
However, this growth of Huawei has been stifled by US sanctions. Under the extreme suppression and export sanctions of the United States, in addition to consumer businesses such as Huawei's mobile phones, notebooks, and tablet businesses, communication base station business and automotive business have been affected.
Whether it is Mate/P series smartphones, tablets, Matebook series notebooks, they all rely on advanced process semiconductor chips, TSMC's high-end chip manufacturing process, Qualcomm, Intel, AMD chip supply and other products. However, Huawei cannot buy 5G chips from suppliers such as Qualcomm, nor can TSMC manufacture its own Kirin chips for itself.
This restriction on Huawei's 5G chip manufacturing capabilities directly interrupted Huawei's growth curve in mobile phones, tablets, PCs and other fields, and Huawei's consumer business suffered heavy setbacks, and the biggest beneficiary was Apple, thus maintaining Apple's growth curve.
But despite this, Huawei's high R&D investment continues.
According to the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 2022, in this list, Alphabet ranks first, META (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) ranks second, Microsoft ranks third, Huawei ranks fourth, and its investment and holding companies invest up to 19 billion euros (about 140.98 billion yuan) in research and development.
However, the scale of R&D investment needs to be supported by the revenue of Huawei's consumer business, which has also effectively fed back R&D in chip design and communications, operating systems, and automotive businesses.
Including but not limited to HiSilicon Semiconductor, Ascend AI series products; 5G base stations, communication technologies represented by 5G, optical transmission products, Lingqu bus technology, Kunpeng CPU series products, Hongmeng systems, automotive assisted driving, etc., these businesses involve Huawei's core communication business and the future competition for global technology industry dominance, which is Huawei's future.
Restrictions on Huawei have limited Huawei's future business R&D investment, especially in the automotive field, and Huawei's layout can only exist as an industry supplier and solution provider.
In the absence of consumer business revenue and profits, how long Huawei's high R&D investment can last may not be optimistic. Simply put, the fatal point of sanctioning Huawei is to interrupt Huawei's research and development cycle.
Apple is both the apple of the United States and the apple of China
Sanctioning Huawei, the United States just hit the seven inches of the domestic mobile phone industry, other mobile phone manufacturers are unable to replace Huawei's position, and China cannot sanction Apple.
The domestic smartphone industry is obviously in a state of disconnection, Xiaomi OV is good, but there is still a distance from challenging Apple, reality is here, Huawei has no replacement.
Second, China can't sanction Apple. If sanctions against Apple, not to mention Apple's losses, for China, it will directly affect the employment of millions of people.
Among Apple's 200 major suppliers, there are more than 140 in China, more than half of Apple's mobile phone supply chain manufacturers are in China, and most of Apple's foundries are also in China. Apple in China not only affects a large number of employees of upstream and downstream supply chain manufacturers, but also involves the livelihoods of countless software and hardware developers.
Apple is designed by American companies but made in China, half of the supply chain is in China, one-third of the market is in the Asia-Pacific region, nearly half of the jobs generated by the fruit chain are in China, and one-third of the tax revenue is in China.
The relationship between Chinese supply chain manufacturers and Apple is a win-win relationship, Apple needs China's market and supply chain support, and China's fruit chain manufacturers should also rely on Apple's orders at the performance level.
Therefore, if China bans Apple, it is a two-way damage matter, and China will never make decisions that hurt others and hurt itself at the strategic level.
The relationship between the United States and Huawei is a relationship of competition over cooperation, and Huawei does not have a huge supply chain similar to Apple's in the Chinese market in the United States and Europe.
In the European and American markets do not provide enough jobs, Huawei in the global market is getting bigger and bigger, from communication base stations to terminal equipment, to provide a complete set of products and solutions, it is essentially to grab the jobs of Qualcomm, Microsoft, Apple and other manufacturers.
In addition, the United States has the ability to continuously amplify China's suppression of foreign companies through its global influence and public opinion power, so that overseas capital does not dare to bet on China and turn more to invest in the United States, so if China sanctions Apple, this may be exactly in line with the strategic intention of the United States.
For decades, China has created a good business environment and investment environment, and has been constantly attracting foreign investment, and if there is no reason to sanction Apple, it is equivalent to undermining the market rules that it has established for decades of open, fair and legal system.
Since Apple entered the Chinese market, it has always operated legally and compliantly in China, and has always strictly abided by the laws and regulations of the mainland, whether it is in posture or investment landing, it is refocusing on the Chinese market.
China Fudong Apple is actually telling the world that China not only has a broad market, but also has a more stable, fair, open and legal business environment than the United States.
From a practical point of view, Apple is both the apple of the United States and the apple of China. The United States sanctions Huawei, and China cannot sanction Apple equally. The sanctions against Huawei have obtained an unprecedentedly good, greenhouse global competitive environment for Apple, in this greenhouse environment, Apple can still lie down in the next 10 years to make money, but if Huawei once the future once the turnaround, or break through the shortcomings of the chip, Apple's good days will come to an end.
Of course, sanctioning Huawei is not only to protect Apple, but also one of the purposes of the US sanctions against Huawei, to protect Apple, in fact, is to protect the future of US technology hegemony, which is the tip of the iceberg behind the truth and purpose of US sanctions against Huawei.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission