2023 smartphone market: a more difficult year, but also the first year of the rise of domestic high-end

Text: Adjacent Chapter

For the smartphone market, 2023 is a more difficult year, but it is also a year worth remembering, from a certain point of view, it can be called the first year of the rise of domestic high-end smartphones.

First, an even more difficult year

Judging from the overall data, smartphone sales are still in decline, and it is still the worst year in recent years.

Global sales data, the latest data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that global smartphone shipments in 2023 will fall by 3.2% year-on-year to 1.17 billion units, which is the worst level in nearly a decade.

The Chinese market, the world's largest smartphone market, has not yet emerged from the independent market - statistics from CBI show that the number of activations in China's smartphone market in 2023 will be 270 million.

As a comparison, in 2022, which is known as the most difficult year for smartphones, there will be 285.8 million domestic smartphone sales.

Although the foldable smartphone that is regarded by major Android manufacturers as impacting the high-end, catching up with and surpassing the iPhone, and becoming the new sales driving potential, although the product quality and price reduction will be achieved in 2023, and the entry threshold will be further reduced to the 5000 yuan price segment, but from the overall sales point of view, it still has not become the excitement of the market.

Research data shows that in 2023, the global folding screen mobile phone market will sell about 18 million units, a year-on-year increase of 27%, of which the sales of folding screen mobile phones in the Chinese market will reach 6.8 million units, a year-on-year increase of 140%.

However, foldable smartphones will still account for only 1.6% of the overall smartphone market in 2023, and limited by the reality that its overall base in the smartphone market is still too small, so this also creates another embarrassing fact - even if the growth rate of foldable smartphones themselves is gratifying, it is also a drop in the bucket in terms of the smartphone market. The winners of the foldable market are still Samsung and Huawei - the global market is still firmly controlled by Samsung, and the domestic market is dominated by Huawei.

It can be said that foldable smartphones still have a long way to go, and they still need to further accumulate strength, and of course, they may need foldable iPhones to really stimulate the market.

Second, after 90 days of agitation, write a footnote to the rise of domestic high-end

Of course, looking back at the domestic smartphone market in 2023, if the first half of the year is better than nothing, then the second half of the year can be said to be magnificent, especially in the 90 days since the return of the Huawei Mate 60 series, the domestic smartphone market can be said to be agitated.

This is in 90 calendar days, we have seen that Huawei has broken through the chip blockade, Xiaomi and vivo have come up with their own self-developed surging and blue heart operating systems, OPPO has helped Apple Android achieve cross-ecological interconnection, and continue to improve interconnection, OnePlus has joined hands with BOE to create a domestic top screen, and the boom of large models has become a common trend for all manufacturers.

All this happened in a short period of 90 days after Huawei's return, and these 90 days can be said to have allowed domestic smartphones to bid farewell to the embarrassment of lack of core and soul, and realized the "gathering of core souls".

At the same time as the domestic realization of "core soul gathering", domestic smartphones have also achieved an overall jump in the high-end market, and have made further breakthroughs, writing a footnote for the real rise of all domestic manufacturers in the high-end market.

The Huawei Mate 60 series has triggered a user purchase boom, and has even been purchased by users at a higher price for a long time, becoming the fastest growing brand in the Chinese market in 2023.

The Xiaomi 14 series has received a strong response from users, with sales exceeding one million units in the first week, and sales soaring by 38% in the fourth quarter, becoming the most successful product of Xiaomi in the high-end market in recent years.

According to the data released by vivo, on the day of sale, the cumulative omni-channel sales of vivo X100 series have exceeded 1 billion yuan (as of 15:00 on November 21), breaking the sales record of all new phones in vivo's history.

Although OPPO's flagship Find X7 series failed to debut in 2023 due to product time, as the first flagship product in 2024, the overall sales of its products have also increased significantly - the data shows that the omni-channel sales of OPPO Find X7 on the first day of sale are 317% of the previous generation.

It can be said that the flagship products of major domestic brands have made great progress in 2023, which is reflected in the changes in the high-end smartphone market:

On the one hand, the share of the high-end smart market has further expanded, becoming "a very prominent growth area" in the overall weak smartphone market - the high-end market with a wholesale price of more than $600 may account for nearly a quarter of the global smartphone market sales and 60% of revenue.

On the other hand, Apple and Samsung's share in the high-end market has been further eroded by domestic manufacturers - the data shows that Apple's market share in high-end smartphones has fallen from 75% in 2022 to 71%, and Samsung's market share in high-end has also fallen by 1%. At the same time, Huawei's market share in the high-end market increased by 2%, and Xiaomi's market share in the high-end market also increased by 1%.

Third, the pressure on iPhone goes further

As far as the domestic market is concerned, the current major smartphone brands have shown a relatively balanced market share as a whole, with no so-called "one super and many strong", only a small share and a relatively leading position.

Data from CBI based on the number of activations is the data showing that iPhone has become the No. 1 seller in China's smartphone market in 2023, followed by vivo and OPPO, Honor, Xiaomi, and Huawei ranked fourth, fifth and sixth, and the six major smartphone brands together occupy 91.7% of the overall domestic smartphone market.

In this market share, if you take into account the high average price of iPhone, then it can be said that iPhone is still the well-deserved king of this market.

However, the reputation of the iPhone in the domestic market seems to have a declining trend.

Of course, there are many artificially created noises, but it is undeniable that the relative advantage of the iPhone has indeed weakened under the reality of Huawei's return, the comprehensive competitiveness of domestic high-end smartphones, and the two-way improvement of user acceptance.

The pressure on the iPhone from domestic smartphones is indeed increasing day by day - it can be glimpsed that compared with the past, the iPhone seems to have started exchanging price for volume in the domestic market earlier.

So in the next 2024, as Huawei and other manufacturers continue to focus on smartphone imaging functions, battery life experience, and system experience, and further promote the implementation of large models on smartphones, how will the iPhone respond, and whether it can still sit in the position of the leader of the high-end market in the domestic market, we will wait and see.

Write at the end:

The smartphone market in 2023 can be said to be full of fragmentation.

So how to define the smartphone market in 2023, is it a difficult market under the overall market decline, or a spark of hope for the general rise of the domestic high-end smartphone market after 90 days?

Personally, I prefer to define 2023 as the dawn before the night, the accumulation of strength before the spring shoots up.

According to various data, the decline of the overall smartphone market has been further narrowed, and the domestic smartphone market has also regained growth under the stimulus of many new phones in the fourth quarter, which may also add confidence to the return of smartphones to the growth track in 2024.