Text: Flying Snow
Source: Bowang Finance
Not long after OPPO's chief product officer and the founder of OnePlus talked about "whether AI mobile phones are gimmicks or futures" on his personal Weibo, Huawei's "high-end bureau" struck suddenly.
At 10:01 a.m. on April 18, Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Device BG, forwarded Huawei's official WeChat message and said, "The Pura 70 series that everyone has been thinking about is here!"
The upgrade of the P series to the Pura series is seen as a strong signal that Huawei has completely bid farewell to the "low-end" and ALL IN "high-end". To a certain extent, it can be regarded as a domestic mobile phone manufacturer to compete with Huawei and Apple in the high-end market, and it has become inevitable to say goodbye to stacking, hype and gimmicks.
This is also supported by institutional data. On April 19, TechInsights released a report that it is expected that Huawei Pura 70 series will ship more than 10 million units in 2024, and Huawei will ship more than 50 million smartphones in China in 2024, and its market share will increase significantly from 12% in 2023 to 19% in 2024, and regain the top position in the Chinese market.
Liu Zuohu has been "calling it AI" this year, OPPO and OnePlus's new models are all selling points with AI mobile phones, compared with Huawei's high-end Pura series, which has risen to 5 figures, and only "understated" the AI function. In "A Letter to Huawei Users", the passage "All systems support AI air control, intelligent payment, and access to the Pangu large model, bringing more intelligent applications such as AI elimination and AI cloud enhancement" are placed at the end of the text.
The reason for this is that the industry believes that AI capabilities and even mobile phone AI terminal and cloud side large model capabilities have been deeply integrated into the "basic functions" of the HarmonyOS system, and there is no need to get the "hype" on the bright side, and users have their own judgment.
And Liu Zuohu, who has returned to OPPO for three and a half years, was regarded as the "Internet mobile phone product manager" who was a fight with Lei Jun and even Jobs, but he continued to "brush the sense of existence" on AI mobile phones.
returned to OPPO for three and a half years, and it was also three and a half years when he did not be the "big parent" of OnePlus. During this period, OnePlus mobile phones may be eager to make greater "achievements" than in the era of Liu Zuohu because they have changed from an independent brand to a sub-brand of OPPO, and a series of "earth-shaking" changes have taken place in its market positioning, product strategy, benchmarking brands, and marketing methods.
This radical change has pulled the OnePlus brand, which was benchmarked against the high-end flagship at the head of the market, deeper and deeper. How to change the declining trend, although the "patriarch" Liu Zuohu will occasionally "give one or two" to OnePlus, it is no longer possible to personally focus on details, products, and innovation as a "product manager", so that the future of OnePlus is full of uncertainties.
Compared with Huawei's "high-end bureau" and the blessing of the ecological effect of driver interconnection (smart car + mobile phone), to what extent can Liu Zuohu's "AI mobile phone dream" empower OPPO, OnePlus and even the entire industry?
Liu Zuohu, who firmly believes that AI mobile phones are not gimmicks, has he bet on the right "treasure" and chosen the right "road" this time? Founder Liu Zuohu returns to OPPO, and OnePlus, the "big parent" changes its commander, can it regain its glory in the future?
01
OnePlus "lost its value", deviated from Liu Zuohu's concept, sales were sluggish, and users were disappointed
Compared to Huawei, which does not develop a new five-digit high-end phone, a month ago, on March 21, OnePlus Ace3V held a grand press conference at the Communication University of China.
However, the first AI mobile phone for young people was taken as the main selling point, but the materials used at the press conference were first "unbooked". That's because the Ace3V is made of glass. Therefore, Li Jie, who succeeded Liu Zuohu at the helm of OnePlus more than two years ago, emphasized: "Glass is glass, plastic is plastic, and ceramics are ceramics". Full of "pride" and confidence.
Source: OnePlus mobile phone press conference
As everyone knows, the Internet has a memory.
OnePlus founder Liu Zuohu has expressed the relationship between materials and flagship phones more than once.
Source: Weibo
When talking about the success of the OnePlus One mobile phone, Liu Zuohu also analyzed the media in more detail, saying, "It's not that consumers don't like plastic." What they really care about is that they want an attractive, high-quality, high-quality phone. ”
Based on practical experience, he said that consumers don't really care what material (mobile phones) are made of. "That's what you really want to see on the surface. After our product entered the market, no one complained that the back case of the OnePlus One phone was plastic. Most consumers didn't even know it was plastic, and when I told them, they were taken aback. They are satisfied with the quality and texture of the materials we have chosen. ”
Source: Internet
The founders all have this view on mobile phone materials, and have a successful experience with plastic materials. Now OnePlus coach Li Jie is "angry" that "glass is glass" and that the competing product is a "plastic machine", is this "forgetting the roots" or "brainless hype"?
Another proof is that OnePlus Ace3V, which takes "the first AI mobile phone for young people" as its core selling point, mentioned less than one-eighth of the content related to "AI" at the press conference. It is more about emphasizing the material, performance, design, technology, etc., and over the years, almost all manufacturers have emphasized the "old routine" in their new releases.
Is this "the first AI mobile phone for young people" just a "disguise" for OnePlus Ace3V, or is it that AI capabilities including OnePlus and OPPO, especially the collaboration ability of large models on both sides of the cloud, are not yet available?
After being "taken as a concubine" by OPPO as a sub-brand, OnePlus has actually fully transformed into the mid-range market under the current situation of OPPO's overall brand matrix, but it has "lost sales" and "lost the pattern" on the way to the benchmark brand "Redmi".
In order to open the book with "Redmi", OnePlus did not hesitate to roll out of the sky, OnePlus Li Jie and Redmi executives continued to "fight each other" on social platforms, but because they could not get the "key" to enhance their differentiated competitiveness in the mid-range market, OnePlus was lost in waves of war of words with Redmi, and failed to "play extraordinarily" in sales.
A set of data exposed a few days ago shows that the first-week sales comparison between OnePlus Ace 3V and Xiaomi Civi 4Pro is 1:1.24, and the two-week sales data comparison is 1:1.4. Considering that the starting price of the Xiaomi Civi 4 Pro is about 1000 yuan higher than that of the OnePlus Ace 3V, it is self-evident who is more attractive to consumers.
Another set of activation data may be more convincing. According to the mobile phone activation data in the domestic market from April 1 to April 7, it was revealed that vivo 18% (iQOO 4%), Xiaomi 16.2%, honor 15.8%, Apple 14.1%, Huawei 13.9%, and OPPO 13.9% (of which OnePlus is only 1.9%).
OnePlus's "self-depreciation" has continued to be "disappointed" by old OnePlus fans in recent years. The disappointment of users and the lack of competitiveness are afraid that the founder Liu Zuohu is also "powerless", and it is even difficult to reverse the decline.
Source: Weibo
"From the domestic brand with the highest average price in the past to the current mentally retarded brand, Yijia is really supported by Liu Zuohu", "I also think that OnePlus is self-descending, and it feels like Cadillac hitting Xiaomi", "At present, AI is to be developed, but can you put product power in the first place, you look at the current reputation, my O fans for more than ten years are about to support it." The price system of the product is very chaotic, the product has no advantage, and the price has no advantage. ”
"The high-end brand that asked Robert Downey Jr. to endorse back then is now pinching each other with Redmi", "There is no OnePlus after OnePlus 8. I feel like a pity", "I knew the OnePlus brand from the time of OnePlus 8T, and I had a good impression of this brand at that time, whether it is the texture of the mobile phone or the logo logo, it is very flagship and high-end feeling As a result, after taking back the green factory, OnePlus has obviously almost gained a high-end position, and has been pulled down by the green factory...... I really don't know what Green Factory is thinking......
Source: Weibo
There are even netizens who said - "The main thing is that I have lowered my price for a year, and my share is still pitiful...... It's better to keep the tonality, at least there are high-end customers", "From a grade with Apple Samsung, to Xiaomi, to Redmi, now the grade is not even as good as iQ00".
Source: Weibo
OnePlus users are affectionately called "come on" by Liu Zuohu, but what is the founder's feeling of "collective disappointment" of "come on"?
02
AI mobile phone is not a "gimmick", Liu Zuohu or "said it doesn't count"
"If there were perfect phones in the world, we wouldn't have to go out and play. I just want to prove that latecomers can do better when they stand on the shoulders of giants. Our philosophy is 'no compromise. Before the launch of OnePlus's first model, the poster of the OnePlus brand almost "satirized" Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and Blackberry, and the "arrogant" Liu Zuohu said in an interview with the media.
In the blink of an eye, 10 years have passed, and AI has accelerated its penetration into the capillaries of all walks of life. Liu Zuohu was pushed to the forefront because of AI mobile phones.
In March this year, Liu Zuoyong expressed his opinion on his Weibo on "Is AI mobile phone a gimmick or the future". He believes that this question is easy to answer, and AI must be the future.
"Why am I so sure, first of all, the current AI has given you very clear application scenarios, no need to guess or guess, its usefulness is innate. Finally, the current AI has been able to surprise users in vertical fields such as learning, education, and creation, which is not available in many previous technologies, and AI is the future. ”
Source: Weibo
As for the chemical reaction of the combination of AI and mobile phones, Liu Zuohu predicted, "First of all, AI needs a carrier, which needs to meet four conditions: 1. High penetration rate, 2. Strong computing power, 3. Interactive, 4. Rich application scenarios. There is no doubt that mobile phones are currently the most suitable carrier for AI technology, and this kind of chemistry fills us with imagination, just like I said in my internal sharing: 'In the past, applications gave mobile phones the name of intelligence, and in the future, AI will make mobile phones have the soul of intelligence'."
In this regard, we might as well take a look at the current experience of the AI mobile phone led by Liu Zuohu according to OPPO and OnePlus mobile phone users:
Liu Zuohu said that AI "practicality is innate." But some users immediately left a comment below, saying, "Let's distinguish between Xiaobu Xiaobu and Xiaodu Xiaodu first, and call Xiaodu Lao out on a business trip."
Source: Weibo
Another OnePlus and OPPO users said, "This AI is really good, either I'm sorry I can't answer, or I jump directly to Baidu", "I said that Lei Feng copied the newspaper and jumped directly to Baidu Gallery". Even, even asking an AI phone to draw a "colorful Xiaomi car" is not satisfactory.
Source: Weibo
In addition, there are also users who feel that AI phones are "not AI enough" or even "mentally retarded" - "especially dialogue and computing".
The feedback from users on the topic of Liu Zuohu's AI may reflect a different experience from the AI capabilities it officially claims. After all, users are the most real testers to test the technical capabilities of manufacturers, and user feedback also shows that there are still shortcomings in the AI mobile phones led by Liu Zuohu.
However, in the Cloud Next keynote held by Google this month, it announced that it will cooperate with OPPO and OnePlus to provide Gemini AI model support for its 2024 mobile phone products.
However, at the Google Cloud Next 2024 event held in April, Google announced that it will cooperate with OPPO and OnePlus to introduce support for the latter's mobile phones, including Gemini 1.0 and Gemini 1.5 AI models. A new machine using this AI model will be launched within this year.
This is another application of the Gemini model on the mobile side, in addition to the Google Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy S24 series and even Apple's upcoming iPhone 16.
However, unlike OPPO and OnePlus, which deploy AndesGPT devices for their mobile phones in China, mobile phones using their Gemini AI models can only be used by users in the international market.
There are Samsung in the past, Apple in the back, and there are various signs of cooperation between the international market and Google, the mainland market and Baidu Wenxin Yiyan. AI mobile phones have really entered the stage of large-scale landing.
Therefore, blindly saying that AI phones are "gimmicks" is obviously not rigorous. However, from a broader perspective, the empowerment of AI smart terminals by AI large models such as ChatGPT may be from another perspective, indicating that AI mobile phones may not be the only AI hardware carrier in the future.
After all, since CES last year, there have been more groundbreaking AI smart terminals that are trying to subvert the status of smartphones, or at least, to a certain extent, bring real changes to how users use smartphones and how long they use them.
Under this trend, Liu Zuohu, who is all in AI mobile phone, may not be able to resist the potential impact of the changes of the times on smartphone shipments and market position.
And this is not "good news" for OPPO as the chief product officer of Liu Zuohu and the future of OnePlus mobile phones.
03
Pointing out that OnePlus uses AI to break the game, Liu Zuohu really got the real trend of AI in the future?
For OnePlus, although he is no longer a "big parent", Liu Zuohu has not forgotten to "point out" to OnePlus to get out of the maze.
At a recent OnePlus 2024 internal exchange meeting, as the founder, Liu Zuohu put forward a series of suggestions for OnePlus. He took Apple's abandonment of even building cars to show that AI is not a gimmick but a general trend as an example, and suggested that OnePlus should fight the strategy of "AI mobile phone popularizer" to the end.
Source: Weibo
Of course, his other suggestion may poke directly at the weakness of the OnePlus brand that is currently lost, that is, in Liu Zuohu's view, OnePlus's core strategy is to make good products, which is OnePlus's only weapon.
However, only taking the OnePlus 12, which was pinned on by Liu Zuohu and many "refueling" as an example, it suffered a "rollover" immediately after its release due to quality control problems.
Before the OnePlus 12 was launched, Liu Zuohu publicly said "OnePlus 12, I like it very much". But this wave of rhythm, but because the lens module was exposed, it surprised the industry, and now OnePlus can't even hold basic quality control?
Some netizens bluntly said on Liu Zuohu's Weibo, "12 is indeed cost-effective, but no one is willing to buy the gap, especially when he returns to the factory to glue, doesn't it clearly say that there is a problem with the design?"
OnePlus 12 "Gap Door" was exposed, because in a large-scale offline flash mob event on December 9 last year, a user changed three OnePlus 12 in a row, but there were quality problems: there were gaps on the top of the first lens module, gaps under the second lens module, and gaps on the top and bottom of the third one.
Source: Weibo
At the end of the blog post, the user asked the OnePlus brand official, "Is this a design problem or a quality control problem?Why didn't the design problem change?Why did the quality control problem let the machine take it out?" Subsequently, #一加12缝隙#甚至一度冲上热搜, a number of users posted pictures to say "I won the lottery".
Source: Weibo
To a certain extent, it shows that in the OnePlus era when Liu Zuohu as the founder personally focused on details, technology, and quality control, he is not in the position of "big parent", and it may be difficult for Liu Zuohu to interfere too much in OnePlus's "internal affairs". And if OnePlus's existing management can't do the "three eyes on the unremitting" that Liu Zuohu and even Lei Jun will insist on, it is not impossible for this brand, which only made high-end flagship phones a few years ago, to encounter Waterloo and even be abandoned by consumers due to quality control and other problems.
It's no wonder that OnePlus loyal fans left a message for Liu Zuohu, "Come back, Brother Tiger......".
Source: Weibo
It doesn't matter if you turn from the high-end to the mid-end, and the quality control problem can also be quickly solved through comprehensive rectification, but OnePlus faces the "proud" mid-range Redmi, where to build differentiated core competitiveness, or whether it can get out of the astray and usher in a benign development.
In view of the fact that Liu Zuohu has been ALL in AI, there is a high probability that he will build "AI popularizer" as the core competitiveness of the OnePlus brand, as he said.
However, AI adopters are not simply "devolving" AI phones to the mid-range market. After all, AI functions such as AI elimination, call summarization, etc., have long been homogenized in most mobile phones with AI capabilities on the market, and they are not even as "perfect" as those of competitors.
Source: Weibo
The pressure on OnePlus is actually a huge challenge and variable faced by Liu Zuohu and the entire OPPO in the context of using AI as a group strategy.
In terms of the strategic proposition of AI terminal innovation and transformation, if only peer manufacturers are used as benchmarks to "improve", it may be difficult to create a real circle-breaking combat effectiveness.
On the contrary, it is necessary to maintain a high degree of "same frequency" with the new progress of international AI terminals in order to be inspired, and then it is possible to let OPPO led by Liu Zuohu and its "raised" OnePlus in the AI era gain greater imagination.
One path is to explore the innovation of comprehensive solutions from form to interaction to intelligent landing, and even to achieve subversion throughout the overall situation, learn from the experience of advanced cases in the international market, gain inspiration, learn from each other's strengths, and then combine the usage habits of domestic users, so that it is possible to solve the dilemma of declining smartphone shipments and longer replacement cycles.
For example, the AI personal assistant "AI Pin", which is known as the "ChatGPT smart terminal", is positioned as a replacement for smartphones. Based on the ability of the built-in ChatGPT large model, users can answer all questions, make calls like a mobile phone, send and receive text messages, record recordings, and translate in real time without pairing with a smartphone or downloading an APP.
Source: Internet
The bigger innovation is that this AI terminal device, equipped with a camera, microphone, speaker, a variety of sensors and a laser projector, completely abandons the screen, but allows users to easily use various gestures or voice interactions, take pictures, translate, calorie recognition and other functions, and project the screen on the palm of the hand for various information interactions.
Source: Internet
It is worth noting that after the advent of this "new species" of AI terminals, Rewind, another company focusing on the research and development of personalized AI intelligent terminals, also launched its first similar device, Rewind Pendant. The device also runs on GPT-4. But compared to the Ai Pin, the Rewind Pendant is priced at a lower price of just $59.
In fact, even OpenAI founder Sam Altman is in discussions with Jony Ive, Apple's former executive and well-known iPhone designer, to build a new AI hardware device. "There was a lot of interest in the concept of AI-based consumer hardware, but not sure what such a device would look like," Altman said. However, he also said that the device will not be what the current smartphone will look like.
In foreign countries, there are more and more similar AI terminal innovations, and I will not list them one by one here. However, can Liu Zuohu's OPPO, OnePlus, and even more domestic mobile phone manufacturers get positive inspiration from this, and then make efforts to break the circle of innovation and form subversive and differentiated changes?
After all, the trends and trends have arrived, but the domestic market is almost blank for the time being. Whoever can dominate may be the first to embrace the "iPhone moment" in the AI era.
I wonder if Liu Zuohu, the "product manager" of OnePlus, who has publicly stated that he is "very ambitious", can become "the strength to impact the king" in the AI era?