Sales in China's mobile phone market rebounded in the first quarter, but competition intensified. On April 25, IDC released a quarterly report on mobile phones, showing that in the first quarter of 2024, China's smartphone market shipped about 69.26 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. Among them, the Android mobile phone market increased by 9.3% year-on-year, and the iOS mobile phone market decreased by 6.6% year-on-year.
The gap between the top manufacturers is also narrowing. According to the report, Honor ranked first in the mobile phone market in the first quarter with a market share of 17.1%, and Huawei only had a market share of 0.1% after a rapid recovery, followed by a market share of 17.0%, almost tied for the top spot with Honor. However, in the first quarter, Apple was eaten up part of its market share, ranking fourth, with shipments down 6.6% year-on-year.
The reporter of Nandu Bay Finance Society observed that in the first quarter of this year, it has become a trend for Chinese mobile phone manufacturers to actively embrace AI, and many manufacturers that have "rushed" last year performed well. Wang Jiping, vice president of IDC China, said in an interview with reporters from Nandu Bay Finance Society and other media that from the ranking of the domestic mobile phone market in the first quarter, the growth rate of mobile phone manufacturers with AI blessing is relatively better. "Apple has seen a decline of about 6.6%, which shows that for domestic users, there may be a certain change in demand from the continuous pursuit of mobile phone iteration in the past few years to being attracted by AI mobile phones in the high-end market today. ”
Huawei's return, whose market has it stolen?
After winning the first place in the shipment volume of the Android camp in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the whole year, Honor once again reached the top in this quarter, winning the first place in the overall domestic market share. Guo Tianxiang, a senior analyst at IDC China, said in an interview with reporters that although there is a certain gap between Honor's current high-end market share and Huawei and Apple, it is improving very fast, with an overall share of nearly 10% in Q1, and a year-on-year growth rate of almost more than 100%. It can be seen that Honor focuses on thinness and lightness through folding screens, which has become a feature that leads the development trend of the entire industry, so that consumers' experience of folding screens has been significantly improved, and the acceptance of folding screens is higher. ”
Huawei's rapid growth was also one of the highlights of the first quarter. "After Huawei's return to the Chinese market, it has reached a 17% share today, which also means that the cake of several other companies will definitely be eaten, and one of the main battlefields is the offline channel, whose competition has entered a white-hot stage. ”
In Wang Jiping's view, although OPPO and vivo also have commendable performance in AI, they are relatively inferior in a series of problems such as folding screens, further distribution of channels, management, and adjustment. "From the current point of view, Honor's offline sales are still stable and maintaining rapid year-on-year growth, indicating that the offline sales capacity in the first quarter is still relatively good. Of course, in the next few quarters, an important point to watch is also the competition between various manufacturers in offline and end-to-end sales channels. ”
Huawei's return has also eaten into Apple's market share. "Although Apple also announced at MWC that it will increase investment in the field of AI in the future, the first quarter was still slightly late compared with other domestic manufacturers, which also affected the further development of Apple as a whole to some extent. ”
From the perspective of shipment performance, IDC report shows that in the first quarter, only Honor and Huawei's market share increased year-on-year. Honor's market share increased by 13.2% year-on-year, and Huawei has recovered rapidly since its return at the end of August last year, with a year-on-year increase of 110%.
From the perspective of sales performance, Counterpoint's latest mobile phone sales report shows that in the first quarter of 2024, mainland smartphone sales increased by 1.5% year-on-year and 4.6% quarter-on-quarter, achieving positive year-on-year growth for the second consecutive quarter. Among them, Vivo topped the list with a 17.4% share, Honor ranked second with a market share of 16.1%, a year-on-year increase of 11.5%, and Apple ranked third with a market share of 15.7%, a year-on-year decrease of 19.1%. Huawei ranked fourth with a market share of 15.5%, up 69.7% year-on-year. OPPO and Xiaomi ranked fifth and sixth, respectively, with market shares of 15.3% and 14.6%, respectively.
Overall, Honor and Huawei both perform well in different types of rankings. Wang Jiping believes that taking Honor as an example, it has made relatively stable progress in the high-end market in the past period, especially in the market of more than 600 US dollars, the main reason behind it is that it has promoted the concept of AI mobile phones relatively early, and Honor's end-side AI large model and overall architecture have been recognized by users. In addition to AI mobile phones, in the extremely involuted folding screen mobile phone market, the Honor Magic V2 has also made consumers more pursuit of ultra-thin and light to a certain extent, which is also a change in the market.
Embracing AI, the market got off to a good start in the first quarter
In Wang Jiping's view, if it is the first year of AI terminals since last year, then this year is the most important year for the overall AI terminals, and it is also a year of run-in and development. "In a year like this, we see a lot of things adjusting and happening, for example, in the path of the overall domestic manufacturers, which is slightly different from the world. ”
It has become a trend for Chinese mobile phone manufacturers to embrace AI. Summarizing the AI terminals released by different manufacturers one after another, Wang Jiping said that the development ideas of domestic manufacturers in AI mobile phones mainly include three parts, "The first is the voice assistant wake-up, the second is that there must be a model on the end side, and the third is that there is a development platform in the agent." ”
Taking Glory, which topped the list in the first quarter, as an example, its AI layout time is relatively early. In the view of Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, 2016 was the first year of Honor's AI mobile phone, and at that time, Honor's value proposition and core idea were already to use AI to reconstruct future services. Eight years of paving and exploring have put Honor at the forefront of AI mobile phones, and in March this year, it officially launched an industry-leading AI-enabled all-scenario strategy.
Unlike some mobile phone manufacturers who increase their AI to improve the APP experience, in Zhao Ming's view, the core ability of mobile phone manufacturers to do AI should lie in the operating system. In this way, device-side AI can learn the user's behavior and preferences to make the user's experience more in line with the needs of the individual.
In addition, the combination of devices and clouds has also become a fundamental consensus in the global mobile phone industry. Wang Jiping pointed out that in the future, in terms of model, the architecture of "device-cloud combination + SoE" will make the overall synergy of products more stable. In fact, most mobile phone manufacturers have released their own architectures, whether it is Xiaomi, vivo, OPPO and other self-developed large models, or Honor's magic model. In particular, Honor's large model emphasizes the distinctive feature of the combination of devices and clouds.
Talking about whether AI will drive market growth, Wang Jiping said, "In terms of long-term driving force, this year we expect that the global AI mobile phone will be greater than 30tops and more than 170 million, so it will account for about 15%, which is not the biggest driving factor, but the proportion of 15% may be more and more people buying AI smartphones, which is also accelerating the process of replacing phones." And as AI moves more from high-end to mainstream values in the next few years, its market drive will be greater. ”
Guo Tianxiang pointed out that although there are factors such as a low "base" in the same period last year, China's smartphone market in the first quarter of 2024 has achieved a "good start" and is higher than expected, indicating that the entire industry is continuing to show a positive trend. The intensification of competition among leading manufacturers and the strategic differentiation of each company have made the market pattern full of uncertainties this year. At the same time, it should be noted that consumers are still cautious about the replacement and purchase of electronic products, and the national policy is more inclined to promote the purchase and replacement of new energy vehicles and major appliances. Therefore, the entire mobile phone industry still needs more innovation and breakthroughs, and promote consumers to change their phones through more attractive products, so as to continue the current good trend of China's smartphone market.
Written by: Nandu Bay Finance Agency reporter Yan Zhaoxin intern Chai Jia