In 2024, Huawei will challenge Apple head-on
Written by | Wild goose autumn
Edit | Lee Shin Ma
题图 | IC Photo
Not long ago, data released by IDC showed that global smartphone shipments in 2023 will decline by 3.2% year-on-year to 1.17 billion units, the lowest data in the past 10 years. In the Chinese market, mobile phone shipments also hit a 10-year low, and the overall performance was even more sluggish.
On January 25, according to the latest data released by IDC, China's smartphone market will ship about 271 million units in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 5.0%.
The reason for this is the poor economic environment in the first half of the year and the impact of the continuation of the epidemic. However, in the author's opinion, more reasons lie in the lack of innovation in mobile phone products and the inflated price, which cannot stimulate consumers' enthusiasm for new phones.
But it is reassuring that the market showed signs of recovery at the end of the year. In Q4 2023, China's mobile phone market shipments rebounded for the first time after 10 consecutive quarters of year-on-year decline, with a year-on-year increase of 1.2% to about 73.63 million units. However, IDC believes that the market performance is still significantly lower than expected.
From the perspective of manufacturers, IDC has given two shipment ranking lists:
TOP5 of the year: Apple, Honor, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi
Q4季度TOP5:苹果、荣耀、vivo、华为、OPPO
Whether it is Q4 or the whole year, Apple occupies the first place in the world, followed by Honor, and Huawei has entered the top five list of the quarter with the strong return of the Mate60 series.
It is worth mentioning that the importance of the high-end market in China's smartphone market continues to be highlighted.
As can be seen from the chart below, the market share of high-end mobile phones is growing steadily and continuously, while the market share of low-end mobile phones is declining. In 2023, the high-end market share above $600 will reach 27.4%, a year-on-year increase of 3.7 percentage points, and in the low-end price segment, only the market share below $200 will recover to 27.5%, a year-on-year increase of 5.2 percentage points.
Mobile phone shipments are declining, why are high-end phones selling better?
In this regard, IDC believes that while the original high-end consumer group maintains their purchasing power, more mid-range users have begun to upgrade and choose flagship products to extend the replacement cycle - high-end mobile phones are not unaffordable, and they are more cost-effective to use for a long time. According to TechInsight data, the global smartphone replacement rate will fall to 23.5% in 2023, and the replacement cycle will be as high as 51 months, which is at the bottom.
In the author's opinion, consumers always tend to switch from low-quality models to higher-quality models, and generally do not take the initiative to downgrade unless their income is reduced or their budgets are tightened. Therefore, the new and old consumer groups are superimposed, and the replacement frequency of high-end machines is even higher than that of low-end machines.
With the hot folding screen track this year and the return of Huawei's Mate60 series, the high-end market demand has been further released. From the perspective of sales products, flagship products of various brands such as Apple iPhone 15, Huawei Mate 60, Xiaomi 14, and vivo X100 have better sales.
What's more, high-end mobile phones are more profitable - data previously released by research firm Counterpoint showed that in the second quarter of 2021, Apple's profit accounted for 75% of the profits of all mobile phone manufacturers in the world, despite its mediocre contribution to global mobile phone shipments.
Looking at the high-end mobile phone market in 2023, the performance of Apple and Huawei is worth talking about in detail.
Recently, Apple can be said to have been frequently searched, and most of them are negative, such as #iPhone15 The price fell to the lowest in history#, #Apple refers to the evaporation of more than 1.7 trillion in 1 month#...... However, its shipments show that the market response of the iPhone 15 series has exceeded expectations to a certain extent. In addition, IDC also noted that Apple has attracted many consumers due to its deep discounts and promotions through third-party distribution channels.
Source: IC photo
During the Double 11 period in 2023, Apple, JD.com, Taobao and other channels have carried out relevant subsidies, with a maximum discount of 1,100 yuan. Recently, Apple's official website in China has also launched a limited-time event to welcome the New Year, including the latest models such as iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, which can save up to 500 yuan.
You must know that Apple's official channel price reduction for the new series of mobile phones is unusual, which reflects that Apple has realized that there is a crisis in the Chinese market. To put it another way, it is precisely because Apple is actively cutting prices that it can maintain the decline rate of -2.2%, otherwise it may fall faster.
As eye-catching as Apple is Huawei. Although Huawei will only officially enter the market in the second half of 2023, it has caused quite a lot of waves in the market. Judging from the Q4 data, Huawei became the only manufacturer to achieve positive growth, with an increase of 36.2%. The Mate 60 Pro has become the leading model driving Huawei's shipment recovery through innovative features such as its self-developed Kirin chip and satellite calling.
Guo Tianxiang, a senior analyst at IDC China, believes that Huawei's return can be said to have promoted the rebound of the domestic mobile phone market to a certain extent, but due to supply constraints, Huawei's market demand has not been fully satisfied.
Source: IC photo
Due to well-known reasons, Huawei mobile phones have been close to "stealth" in the market in the past three years, and it is during this period that other domestic brands have opened the road to height. However, it is a pity that most of the market that Huawei withdrew from was eaten by Apple, which can also be seen from the data released by IDC.
Apple's business is actually very clear, with mobile phones as the core and systems as a bridge, communicating the most valuable parts of the entire consumer electronics market and earning the most profits. At present, there is an obvious gap between the comprehensive strength of domestic mobile phone manufacturers and Apple.
Huawei's special feature is that it has strong R&D strength in the field of communication technology, especially in 5G technology, which makes Huawei's mobile phone have obvious advantages in terms of network connection speed and latency - this is precisely the shortcoming of Apple's mobile phone that is often complained about by domestic users. And the Hongmeng system, which has achieved "pure blood", has also given Huawei more confidence to challenge Apple.
It is reasonable to predict that in the high-end mobile phone market in 2024, Apple and Huawei will usher in a peak competition. Guo Tianxiang also predicts that in the case that the overall market will not grow much, Huawei's return will make the competition more intense, and the manufacturer rankings may change every quarter.
Source: IC photo
However, in Guo Tianxiang's view, Apple and Huawei both have their own shortcomings.
"A large part of Apple's good market performance in 2023 comes from earlier and larger price cuts than in previous years. However, this kind of price concession has a more obvious stimulus effect in the short term, and the impact may be smaller and smaller in the long run, and it will also cause harm to the maintenance of Apple's price system. Huawei's biggest obstacle is the supply problem, which cannot fully meet consumer demand. Guo Tianxiang told DoNews.
In the era of stock competition, except for a few brands focusing on the low-end market such as Transsion, the high-end market is a must for mobile phone manufacturers. In 2024, I hope that it will not only be Apple and Huawei playing against each other, but that mobile phone manufacturers can truly innovate in technology and functions to fundamentally promote the recovery of the industry.