Huawei returns to the first place in domestic production: Apple or price war, who is dangerous?
Text/Wang Xinxi
A few days ago, according to the digital chat station, the sales data of mobile phones in the Chinese market in September came out, returning to the first place of domestic brands.
The news sparked heated discussions in the industry.
Obviously, Xiaomi OV is going to have a sense of crisis, because the current high-end market dispute between Huawei and Apple, the firepower is very fierce, the boss and the second fight, the injury may be the third and fourth and the fifth.
Huawei's return, how much will Honor be affected?
Huawei's return, many people predicted that the biggest impact would be Honor, and it is not necessarily Honor that is the most injured at present. First of all, from the data previously sent, Honor's weekly sales can even come and go back and forth with Huawei. Behind this is that Honor's product strength is not weak, and at the same time, it has a certain inheritance to Huawei at the brand level and the spiritual level of strugglers, and in the three years that Huawei faded out, Honor has always been another spiritual sustenance for many people to Huawei.
In addition, from a strategic point of view, Honor's products tend to focus on differentiation. For example, in the aspects of thinness, battery life, eye protection and signal, which are strong user perception, it has deeply cultivated and improved, and used high-end folding mobile phones to benchmark the straight board flagship, forming its own differentiated machine sea tactics + differentiated cost-effective main strategy. Honor seems to consciously misplace the market strategy with Huawei, and do not interfere with each other.
But from the final market impact, how much will Honor be affected, it is still difficult to judge, after all, the two have similarities in brand tonality, in the high-end market, Honor may be affected to a certain extent, according to the current news, Honor high-end mobile phone Magic5 Pro has been reducing the price to respond, and the impact of Xiaomi OV may be greater.
Huawei is strongly grabbing food, and it is not ruled out that Apple will launch a price war in the future
From the current point of view, the Mate 60 series is still in short supply, and the production capacity can not keep up at all. Now the production capacity problem has become a key bottleneck restricting the sales of mate60, according to the industry, Huawei mate60 assembly capacity is not enough, the assembly line 50 seconds out of a mobile phone, 24 hours non-stop, according to 100 production lines 170,000 units per day, which is enough to sell, depends on how many assembly lines can be produced.
An insider revealed that Huawei's supply chain factory has been recruiting people during this period and grasping output every day, but it still can't keep up with demand. Mid-Autumn Festival also continues to work overtime to catch up with production.
At present, the 90-day reservation application has also been canceled, and many offline physical stores have stopped accepting payment reservations a few days ago, and offline store reservations in some areas are scheduled for next year.
That is to say, at this stage, Huawei's main shipments, the probability is Mate60, Nova series and P series in parallel, because the production capacity of Mate60Pro is not enough, Huawei currently needs time to expand the production line, all supporting facilities must also be synchronized to expand production capacity, wait until the Mate 60 production capacity is stable, rough estimate to 2 months later, at that time the main shipment or will be the Mate60 series, early next year is expected to fully solve the production capacity problem, then sales will grow.
Therefore, from the production capacity progress, the real sales growth period of the Mate60 series is still very long, and it is expected that there will be another round of explosive growth next year.
In fact, according to Guo Mingqi's report, which roughly reflects this trend, its report pointed out that Huawei mobile phone shipments in 2023 will increase by 65% year-on-year to 38 million units, and Huawei mobile phone shipments are expected to reach at least 60 million units in 2024.
Therefore, once the production capacity of Huawei's Mate 60 series is fine, Apple's pressure on the high-end market will increase, so it is not ruled out that Apple will launch a price war to respond.
Because as we all know, the price war may be Apple's hole card, and Apple's profits far exceed Xiaomi's OV Samsung glory. There is enough capital to launch a price war, in fact, as early as the beginning of this year, Apple began a round of price cuts in the new machine release quarter (holiday season) year-on-year decline of 12.7%, then the severity of this situation is now more severe than at the beginning of the year.
A number of securities institutions lowered the expected shipments of the iPhone 15 series from 80 million to 90 million units to 78 million units, due to the impact of Huawei's new machine release.
But that's not the worst news for Apple. According to the quotation of many third-party channels in Huaqiangbei, as soon as the iPhone 15 and Plus went on sale on September 22, the price broke through, and even "one price per hour". However, from the start of sales of Huawei's Mate60 series to now, the official mall that is opened twice a day online is basically "sold out".
Therefore, in the case of Huawei's strong food grab, whether to ensure sales or profits, Apple needs to make a trade-off, as the hot sales momentum of the Mate60 series continues, Apple is likely to open a price war to respond.
In fact, only the price war is likely to slow down Huawei's erosion of Apple's market share to a certain extent, to keep the market share of the iPhone 15 will not lose too much, securities institutions to the iPhone 15 shipments down only 2 million, in fact, Apple to complete 78 million sales, according to the current situation, without a price war, it may be difficult to complete this shipment expectation.
In the cognition of some consumers, the perception of Apple's product stability, quality and brand tonality is difficult to change in a short time. After all, Huawei's return to the first place in domestic production means that it has not surpassed the iPhone for the time being. It can be seen that the iPhone has been affected by negative hot searches, but sales are still not weak.
For many consumers, whether to choose the iPhone, in fact, a tangled core threshold is the price. In fact, Apple knows this well, it lies in whether the apple is used or not, and how to use it. In this year and next, the probability of use may be relatively large.
If Apple launches a price war, more pressure will come to Xiaomi OV.
The gap in technical cognition has widened, and it is becoming more and more difficult for other manufacturers to compete for high-end cakes
Now that Huawei has returned to the first domestic mobile phone, the real pressure is represented by Xiaomi OV, they have underestimated consumers' expectations for domestic independent chip breakthroughs, and even we see that Huawei Mate60 Pro is hot in Hong Kong, some Hong Kong customers said that many people feel that in addition to raising their eyebrows, they want to try what kind of level of domestic technology is. Everyone's support for Huawei is actually people's recognition of technology, especially chip technology, which is something that people really recognize and a source of brand premium.
In addition to the return of Kirin chips and 5G, Huawei is developing its own CMOS image sensor and releasing the Atlas 900 Supercluster to build an independent solid computing power base, and the smoothness and stability of the Harmony system are also recognized.
Needless to say, automatic driving is also the first echelon, and chip design is also the strongest in China. In general, in everyone's cognition, Huawei is no longer at the same level as Xiaomi OV.
Huawei's high-end flagship return is bound to steal some Apple users. But we also need to note that Xiaomi OV began to take the high-end route as early as 3 years ago, and when Huawei faded out, it used to think that it would eat the market vacated by Huawei, but it was taught by reality.
In the high-end market, it is already difficult for them to grab food from between Apple's teeth, and now Huawei Mate60 series returns with Kirin chips, making Xiaomi OV feel weaker. The premium of high-end brands is brought about by technology, and without the support of independent core technology, it is difficult for high-end brands to stand. Consumers do not necessarily pay for Qualcomm Snapdragon, but they will pay for Kirin .
Under this understanding, it has recently been revealed that OPPO has restarted its chip business, and manufacturers such as Honor have also begun to develop their own chips, because they also need to strengthen their own technical understanding.
The market is so realistic, the smartphone market has been 12 years since 2011, so many years, many domestic mobile phones are still the game of the solution integrator, this kind of play in today's market environment, if there is no core thing, no unique competitiveness, it is difficult to be bought by consumers.
Why? Because under the four-year sanctions and suppression of the United States, in fact, many consumers are holding their breath in their hearts, hoping to break the blockade, truly not be suppressed technologically, and build self-esteem and confidence in domestic production. In the past three years, in the mobile phone industry, in fact, for consumers, it has been three years of suffocation, Apple squeezed toothpaste, eating almost all of Huawei's high-end market share.
As some insiders pointed out: In the context of a century of changes and Sino-US confrontation, whoever can make a breakthrough and lead in technology and bring the people a substantial fact of self-confidence, the people will return to whom to the greatest extent. This is true of Huawei, and so is the rise of BYD. When Huawei broke through the chip blockade, the people also repaid Huawei with a huge gift, that is, the right to define high technology.
Huawei returned strongly, competing with Apple for the high-end market, it is inevitable that there will be a vicious battle, shopping malls like battlefields, immortals fight, eating the fourth, fifth and sixth markets.
Therefore, with Huawei's further efforts, Xiaomi OV may become more and more difficult in the high-end market, and if a company cannot obtain enough profits, it is difficult to support the labor costs of a large number of high-end technicians. Huawei has the support of other businesses and an artificial intelligence team, which has a natural advantage in the second half. If other manufacturers are unable to sprint at the high-end, the competition for the middle and low end may be more involuted.
According to this trend, in the next 2~3 years, Huawei is likely to win more than 40% of the market share in the Chinese market. In this case, it is difficult to say how the Xiaomi OV glory should break the game and how much time and share are left for them, but from the current point of view, it is undoubtedly necessary to prepare early.
Author: Wang Xinxi TMT Senior Reviewer This article is not reprinted without permission