2020 is the beginning of the collective impact of domestic mobile phone manufacturers on the high-end market, at that time, Huawei's chips were limited, and it quickly retreated in the mobile phone market, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo rushed to try to seize the vacancy left by Huawei.
For "OV Mi", the past four years have been their best chance to hit the top end.
According to IDC data, Huawei's share of China's high-end market fell from 44.1% in the first half of 2020 to 15.6% in the first half of 2023, giving up nearly 30% of the market space.
However, at the end of August last year, the Huawei Mate 60 series suddenly returned without warning, and the market is in short supply to this day.
On January 8, OPPO released the Find X7 series. So far, the new flagship models of "OV Mi" have been released, and they will compete against the unprecedented popularity of Huawei Mate 60. Facing the old rival 4 years ago again, this time, can they win the "return of the king" Huawei?
1. The palmares of "OV Rice".
According to IDC data, in the first half of 2020, Huawei ranked first with a share of 44.1% in China's smartphone market share of more than US$600 (about 4,200 yuan), followed by Apple with a 44% share, and the two together accounted for 88.1% of the high-end machine market share. Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo ranked third, fifth, and sixth at 4%, 2.6%, and 2.5%, respectively.
At that time, China's high-end mobile phone market showed a pattern of "two heroes competing for hegemony", Huawei and Apple occupied the absolute main force of the market, nearly 9 of the 10 high-end mobile phones were either Huawei or Apple.
It is precisely because Huawei's share in the high-end market was large enough at that time, so under the later chip restrictions, it left a very large market gap in the high-end market, and this is also the direct reason why "OV Mi" coincidentally hit the high-end market.
In the first quarter of 2023, Huawei's share of the high-end market fell from 44.1% to 15.6%, giving up nearly 30% of the market space. In this case, the "OV rice" has its own ability, and the results are joyful and sad:
OPPO is the fastest-growing brand among domestic mobile phone manufacturers, with its high-end market share increasing from 2.6% to 4.2%, an increase of 38% compared with three years ago, and ranking third in terms of share after Apple and Huawei.
vivo grew by 20%, and its market share increased from 2.5% to 3%, but it only ranked sixth;
Xiaomi's market share fell from 4% three years ago to 3.7%, a decline of nearly 7.5%, and its ranking also fell from third to fourth;
Post-independence Glory has a market share of 3.2%, ranking fifth.
Generally speaking, after three years of competition, the domestic high-end market has presented a pattern of "one superpower and many strong," with Apple eating up Huawei's largest share; although Xiaomi has been discussed a lot in the field of public opinion, its actual market share has declined; OPPO, vivo, and Honor have all grown to a certain extent, and there is a feeling of "making a fortune in a muffled voice."
A major sub-category of the high-end market-folding screen mobile phones are also one of the main battlefields of competition, in addition to their own high prices, but also because Apple has not yet touched this market, Android manufacturers have more room to play.
In 2020, only two major manufacturers in the domestic market, Samsung and Huawei, competed, and now the five major mobile phone manufacturers have launched their folding screen mobile phones.
According to IDC data, the top three market shares of China's folding screen mobile phones in Q1-Q3 2023 are Huawei, OPPO and Samsung, with market shares of 31.7%, 17.9% and 15.4% respectively.
Huawei has made efforts in the field of folding screens earlier, and its technology and brand strength are relatively strong, and its Mate X series folding screen is still one of the folding screens with the highest price at present.
OPPO, on the other hand, is behind and performs well on vertically foldable phones. According to IDC data, OPPO ranked first in the vertical fold product market in 2023 (31.4%) and the quarter (25.0%). The folding screen is also the main driving force for OPPO to become the third largest market share in the high-end market, and its folding screen share is much higher than the share of the overall high-end market, which also reflects the success of OPPO's market strategy from the side - when ordinary straight mobile phones are deeply homogenized, they will focus on the nascent folding screen and impact the high-end market with dislocation competition.
From this point of view, in the future, if "OV meter" wants to gain a firm foothold in the high-end market, the folding screen is still an important support that cannot be given up.
On the whole, "OV Mi" has made certain achievements in the high-end market in the past three years, and has made a lot of breakthroughs in the field of folding screens, but from the perspective of absolute market share, the high-end road of "OV Mi" is long and difficult.
However, the good news is that despite the relatively limited share, the overall growth of the domestic high-end market in recent years has still allowed each company to achieve a great increase in sales.
2. The opportunities in the high-end market are not limited to Huawei's vacancies
According to data from market research agency GfK China, the average price of China's mobile phone market in the third quarter of 2023 has reached 3,480 yuan, while in 2019 this figure was 2,685 yuan, an increase of nearly 800 yuan in four years, an increase of nearly 30%.
According to Canalys data, as of November 2023, while the overall mobile phone market fell by 4.5% year-on-year, China's high-end smartphone market (more than 3,500 yuan) grew against the trend, with sales increasing by 12.3% year-on-year. In the third quarter of 2023, high-end mobile phones accounted for 33% of the total market sales, which is the highest price point in terms of sales volume at present.
Together, these two sets of data point to the fact that mobile phones are becoming more expensive and more people are buying them.
For "OV Mi", this means that the opportunities in the high-end market are not only from the vacancy of Huawei's exit, but also from the growing incremental space of the high-end market itself.
Therefore, although the overall high-end market share of "OV rice" is still not high, its sales have increased significantly.
For example, the sales volume of the Xiaomi 14 series exceeded one million in the first sales period, the sales of OPPO's previous-generation flagship model Find X6 increased by 18% year-on-year, and the sales of folding screen mobile phones increased by 483% year-on-year, while the sales of the vivo X100 series reached 69% in one month, and the sales of X100 Pro increased by 4.5 times compared with the previous generation.
According to IDC, the share of the high-end market (priced above $600) of the Chinese mainland smartphone market will increase by 0.5% year-on-year in 2024; the folding screen mobile phone market will still maintain a rapid growth momentum, and it is expected that the shipment volume of the folding screen mobile phone market in Chinese mainland will be close to 10 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 53.2%, and the compound growth rate will reach 37.5% in 2027.
For "OV rice", although China's mobile phone market has entered the stock game stage as a whole, the industry competition is fierce, but the high-end market is still growing, which is undoubtedly the "oasis" that everyone desires.
3. Advantages and disadvantages of "OV rice".
Although the Huawei Mate 60 market continues to be hot, the "OV Mi" has not stood still in the past few years, and everyone is trying to establish their own advantageous range.
Xiaomi's main focus is "time difference", Xiaomi is usually the first manufacturer of Qualcomm's latest flagship chip every year, striving to seize the first wave of public opinion and market vacancy before other manufacturers release. This generation of the Xiaomi 14 series has put this strategy to the fullest - Xiaomi released the Xiaomi 14 series at the end of October ahead of the 2023 "Double 11" promotion season, when the Xiaomi 14 series became the only model on the market to be equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. Under the double stimulation of the promotion season and Qualcomm's new chips, the Xiaomi 14 series has also achieved sales of more than one million in the first sales period.
Vivo also focuses on differentiation, but in a slightly different way. The vivo X100 series, released in November last year, is not equipped with the popular Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, but with the MediaTek Dimensity 9300. For a long time in the past, MediaTek was considered to be the main force in the low-end market, and its performance in the high-end market was not as good as Qualcomm's flagship chips in the same period, so the market recognition was not high.
However, the last two generations of Dimensity flagship chips have "turned over", especially the Dimensity 9300 performance and energy efficiency are better than Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, achieving a word-of-mouth reversal. Therefore, this is why vivo's sword has gone sideways, and the vivo X100 series has a lot of attention in the market.
OPPO's flagship model arrived the latest, with the OPPO Find X7 series not officially released until January 8, more than two months after the Xiaomi Mi 14 was released. The late-arrived OPPO Find X7 series obviously does not have the public opinion advantage of the Xiaomi 14 and vivo X100 first chips, but on the other hand, it also has a late-mover advantage - in the case that competitors have already made moves, OPPO has bought more time and can have greater autonomy in product features and price positioning.
In other words, it can not only make more differentiations with Xiaomi and vivo in terms of functions, but also "sneak attack" the first two in terms of price.
As it turns out, OPPO did.
In terms of function, the OPPO Find X7 Ultra is equipped with two periscope telephoto lenses, 3X and 5X, with both a 65mm portrait focal length and a 135mm close-up focal length, making it the first mobile phone in the world to be equipped with dual periscope lenses.
In addition, in terms of AI functions, the OPPO Find X7 series also has a more practical application scenario than the previous AI large model voice assistant: during the call, the AI assistant can automatically identify the agenda in the conversation, and generate a schedule to automatically remind the user, such as communicating with the doctor about life precautions and the time to take medicine.
Although there is no gimmick for the debut, the Oppo Find X7 series gives the choice to users, with the Dimensity 9300 for the Pro version and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for the Ultra version. In addition, the Oppo Find X7 Ultra also has a satellite calling version, which is the first smartphone to support handset/hands-free dual-mode satellite calling compared to Huawei.
In terms of price, the OPPO Find X7 series canceled the standard version, starting with the Pro version, and set its starting price at 3999 yuan, which is 2000 yuan lower than the previous generation's 5999 yuan, and 1000 yuan lower than the same version of Xiaomi 14 Pro and vivo X100 Pro.
In terms of product differentiation features and pricing, the OPPOFind X7 series does make a certain difference from the previous two.
Of course, the competition of a single product is only temporary, and the innovation at the company level is fundamental. The competitor of "OV Mi" is both Huawei and the other party.
The high-end market requires long-term accumulation of brands and technologies, which is the reason for the success of Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, and is also the goal of OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Honor, which need to spend more time and investment to build. In this sense, "OV rice" still has a long way to go.