On April 25, the International Data Corporation (IDC) released the latest quarterly mobile phone tracking report, which showed that in the first quarter of 2024, the overall shipment of China's smartphone market was about 69.26 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%, continuing the momentum of steady growth last year, and the market performance was higher than expected. Among them, Honor won the first place with a market share of 17.1%, a year-on-year increase of 13.2%. followed by Huawei, OPPO, Apple, and vivo, with market shares of 17.0%, 15.7%, 15.6%, and 14.6% respectively, the gap between them is not particularly large, and the competition for the top five is extremely fierce.
It is worth mentioning that since the strong return of the Huawei Mate 60 series in the second half of last year, the market's expectations for Huawei are very high, and many comments have pointed out that Huawei's return to glory will be the most affected, but this also made the market at that time not optimistic about glory. However, judging from the latest data half a year later, Huawei's return has not affected Honor, on the contrary, Honor has maintained steady growth, and will achieve the first domestic market share in Q1 2024, becoming an important force driving the market to continue to improve.
In the competition of major manufacturers and the return of the old king Huawei, how did Honor reach the top of the market share? In fact, from the past, you will find that all this can be followed, that is, Honor's industry-leading technical route insights and forward-looking predictions, the direction is right, and the practice will be far-reaching.
While many manufacturers are still crossing the river by touching AI, Honor has already clarified its AI strategy. At the spring flagship new product launch conference on March 18, Honor further clarified its strategic direction in the AI field, released an AI-enabled all-scenario strategy, and proposed a four-layer AI architecture.
Layer 1: Use AI to enable cross-system and cross-device convergence. Let different operating systems use AI to make decisions, and realize seamless connection and data sharing between mobile phones, tablets, PCs, and other devices;
Layer 2: Use AI to reconstruct the operating system of a single terminal, so that the terminal understands you more and is easier to use. For example, MagicOS 8.0 brings a human-computer interaction experience based on intent recognition based on platform-level AI capabilities;
Layer 3: The application of AI on the device side, such as application-level AI such as cutout, photo rendering, and document summarization.
Layer 4: Device-cloud AI collaboration is to realize the presentation of network-side AI such as AIGC and network large models on mobile phones on the premise of ensuring user privacy and security. For example, Honor teamed up with Baidu Intelligent Cloud to help YOYO Assistant create more professional user services with the Qianfan model, bringing intelligent functions such as text creation and knowledge Q&A.
In Honor's view, AI mobile phones can actually be divided into two major schools: tool school and intelligent body school, the former is to equip the mobile phone with AI capability package, apply single-point AI capabilities to the scene, and solve a class of problems to improve efficiency, such as translation, P map, search, generated content, etc. Although the toolkit can solve problems efficiently in the short term, its scenarios are limited and can only solve one type of problem in isolation. Honor, on the other hand, is an intelligent body, which can break down the barriers of people, environment and services like an assistant, and can decompose and orchestrate tasks around the scene journey from the user's intent, and complete complex tasks end-to-end. In the future, with the improvement of the perceptual dimension, the user journey learning will become more and more complete, and the imagination space will become larger and larger.
Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said, "Mobile AI is not the same as AI mobile phone. AI mobile phone means using AI to reconstruct and enable mobile phone applications and operating systems, as well as all aspects of consumer experience and business logic. "Unlike competitors who use the AI models of third-party application service providers on the cloud side to provide AI functions and build AI applications, the development direction of Honor AI mobile phones is to make full use of the understanding of user needs of terminal manufacturers, create "intelligent lifeforms" that serve individual users, and reconstruct the operating system with AI, thereby enabling and reconstructing all business logic and application services.
It is based on the advanced layout of AI,According to IDC analysts,Thanks to the blessing of AI functions,As well as all-round upgrades such as images and screens,GloryMagic6SeriesThe first quarter shipments of the first sales exceeded the sum of the first two quarters of the previous generation;Driven by the Honor Magic V2 equipped with platform-level AIand other folding screen family products,Since last year,The share of Honor folding screen mobile phones has increased by up to 675.4% year-on-year。 Wang Jiping, vice president of IDC China, pointed out that the rapid growth of Honor's market share is on the one hand in the high-end market in the past period of time, Honor has made relatively stable progress, especially more than 600 US dollars, and on the other hand, AI mobile phones, although many manufacturers have promoted the concept of AI in the past, but Honor is relatively early publicity.
In addition to AI, another source of power for Honor to reach the top is its leadership in communications, battery life, screens, glass, imaging and other fields, so that the product has truly entered the hearts of consumers. Taking communication as an example, when it comes to the big brother of the communication industry, Huawei will basically come to mind, and Honor is also making continuous efforts in the field of communication, Glory Hongyan communication mobile phone is directly connected to Tiantong satellite, supports real-time voice, two-way text messages, and has self-developed gold satellite antennas, customized miniaturized micro baseband modules and self-developed RF enhancement chips HONOR C1+, so that Honor's communication capabilities have reached a leading level in the industry.
Another example is the screen, the Glory Oasis eye protection screen can be said to have led a change in the industry's eye protection. At present, the Honor Magic6 series has achieved 4320Hz PWM zero-risk dimming, natural light-like eye protection, sleep aid display, natural color display and other capabilities, and has passed the German Rheinland Global Eye Care 3.0 Certification, German Rheinland Flicker-free Eye Care Certification, and the VICO A+ Visual Comfort Test of the China Bidding Institute. In addition to creating a deep technical moat at the eye protection level, Honor has also continued to drive the industry to promote the popularization of eye care technology, which can be called the industry's eye care textbook.
In addition, Wang Jiping introduced,Glory's model and overall architecture have been recognized by users,In addition to AI mobile phones,In the folding screen,From vertical folding to horizontal folding,From horizontal folding to ultra-thin horizontal folding,The market is very rolling,Especially Magic V2,To a certain extent, consumers are more in pursuit of ultra-thin in horizontal folding,This is the change in the market,Proving why Honor has a certain development in the first quarter。
Whether it is the advanced layout and in-depth innovation of AI, or the continuous rooting in the fields of communication, battery life, screen, glass, and imaging, Honor continues to illuminate the way forward for the industry, and has become a beacon for the terminal industry after Huawei. It is believed that with the return of Huawei, Honor and Huawei will continue to lead the way on the road of innovation and bring consumers a better experience, just like two twin stars.