In recent years, the mobile phone industry has ushered in the darkest moment: overall shipments have continued to decline, and countless brands have been eliminated in the cruel market competition. After the market has fully shifted to stock competition, the remaining 10 or so mainstream brands are attacking higher in their own ways. From form design, game performance, to imaging systems, etc., various mobile phone manufacturers have set off one battle after another in many fields.
The highly involuted industry competition situation has led to a difficult life for most mobile phone manufacturers, but even so, there are always a small number of players who can grow against the trend and stand out in the industry. For example, vivo, which has won three consecutive championships in domestic mobile phones, has continued the momentum in 2021 and 2022, and will continue to soar all the way in 2023, with good gains in products, technology and market share.
In 2024, the mobile phone market dominated by Apple, vivo, OPPO, Honor, Xiaomi, Huawei and other leading brands will usher in more brutal competition. Will vivo be able to maintain its strong performance in the previous three years, and will it surprise us? We may be able to find the answer from vivo.
vivo has become the No. 1 domestic product for 3 consecutive years
Judging from the shipment data released by IDC and other institutions, the overall sales of mobile phones are still declining, but the downward trend has gradually stopped, and the market sales in the fourth quarter of 2023 have turned from falling to rising, and the global smartphone market in the first quarter of 2024 will increase by 10% year-on-year.
In the context of the overall recovery of the mobile phone industry, vivo has achieved steady growth. In the two annual research reports released by Counterpoint Research and Canalys, vivo continues to occupy the first place among domestic mobile phone manufacturers with a market share of 16.9% and 16% respectively. After 2021, vivo has won the first share of domestic mobile phones for three consecutive years.
Source: Canalys
In a number of lists, Apple won the first place in sales in China's smartphone market, and vivo is second only to Apple, with annual sales of more than 44.5 million units (including iQOO), while ranking second, the gap with Apple is very small. Although there are differences in the data of many institutions, it is an indisputable fact that vivo has achieved three consecutive championships in domestic mobile phones.
图源：Counterpoint Research
vivo's annual sales can achieve such results, several popular new products have contributed to it, and the stimulation of sales of mid-to-high-end products is much higher than that of impulse products such as thousand-yuan machines.
The mid-to-high-end market is the driving force for vivo's growth
Thanks to the X80 series released in 2022, vivo's sales in the high-end mobile phone market increased by 504% year-on-year, and it has become the top 2 in the domestic high-end mobile phone market.
The subsequent X90 series inherited the good momentum of the X80 series, and once again refreshed the market share of vivo's high-end mobile phones, among which the sales of X90 Pro and X90 Pro+ soared by more than 400% compared with X80 Pro.
The X100 series released in November 2023 continues the high level of vivo's annual flagship, with good performance in terms of performance, appearance, and image, especially the image strength, X100 Pro has been rated as the 2023 annual video king by many institutions and operators. In terms of specific sales volume, vivo's official data shows that the cumulative sales of vivo X100 series on the first day of sales exceeded 1 billion yuan, breaking the first sales record of all new phones in vivo's history, and the pre-sale sales increased by 740% compared with the previous generation X90 and X90 Pro.
Source: Produced by Lei Technology
In addition to the X100 series, other price points such as the S18 series and the iQOO 12 series have achieved good performance in their respective target markets. Among them, the vivo S18 series aims at the biggest growth point of the mobile phone market in 2023: portrait image, the S18 series has an excellent level of portrait shooting in a low-light atmosphere, and it also has the advantages of being thin and light compared to conventional mobile phones. With the blessing of imaging, design, thinness and other advantages, the S18 series became a hit as soon as it was launched, and the sales volume on the first day of omni-channel sales was 143% of that of the previous generation, breaking the first sales growth record in the history of the S series.
The iQOO 12 series continues the iQOO brand to focus on e-sports and performance characteristics, while making great progress in screen and image, and the all-round development is obviously more in line with the user needs of the current mobile phone market, and the iQOO 12 series has surpassed the all-day sales of the iQOO 11 series in 3 minutes, with a strong momentum.
Source: Produced by Lei Technology
Attentive friends must have discovered that vivo's three representative series of products have all broken the first sales record of the previous generation of products and achieved substantial growth. Although vivo has not announced the sales volume of the latest single product, its market share in the mid-to-high-end market can be said to be increasing year by year. This is also related to vivo's insistence on self-developed innovative technologies, such as image chips, operating systems, and blue heart models, which cover key technical areas of mobile phones and directly determine the mobile phone experience.
The mid-to-high-end market is the source of vivo's mobile phone sales growth, and it is also a must for all mobile phone manufacturers.
Apple, the market leader in 2023, has sold out the iPhone 15 series despite a series of price cuts. Many people may think that compared with the ever-changing Android phone market, this generation of iPhone is still too conservative in terms of feature updates. Considering that Apple is fully committed to artificial intelligence, 2024 may be a big year for Apple, and the competitiveness of the next generation of iPhones should not be underestimated.
The same is true for other mobile phone manufacturers, after the Huawei Mate series announced its return, it has been the top of the domestic mobile phone market, and the subsequent release of nova 12 series, Pocket 2 series and the new Pura 70 series has not decreased but increased in popularity; The flagship models of Xiaomi, Honor, and OPPO are also very competitive in the mid-to-high-end market, and vivo has not formed much advantage.
In 2024, can vivo achieve four consecutive championships?
Only five months have passed in 2024, and the domestic mobile phone market has once again received good news. According to the latest report released by data agency IDC, in the first quarter of 2024, China's smartphone market shipped about 69.26 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%. Similar to the situation in the global mobile phone market, the domestic mobile phone market has continued its recovery momentum at the end of 2023, and the competition between leading manufacturers has become more intense, and the ranking has undergone considerable changes.
Honor, Huawei, and OPPO are the top three, with market shares of 17.1%, 17.0%, and 15.7% in the first quarter of 2024, respectively; Apple is facing increasing challenges and pressure from its competitors, with its market share falling to 15.6%, and Vivo dropping to fifth.
Source: IDC
Perhaps there is a difference in statistical dimensions, at the vivo new product launch conference held last night, Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, said in an interview that in the first quarter of 2024, vivo ranked first in the Chinese smartphone market with 17.01% sales. Let's not discuss the data for the time being, at least from the current situation of the domestic mobile phone market, it is not easy for vivo to achieve four consecutive championships in domestic mobile phone sales.
Entering 2024, major brands have successively released their own "super cup" flagships, and vivo is the latest, until last night it officially released vivo X100 Ultra, as well as vivo X100s and vivo X100s Pro, which also means that the battle for flagship mobile phones in the first half of 2024 is finally coming to an end.
Compared with last year, vivo delayed the release of the flagship "super cup" to the second quarter, and the adjustment of the release strategy can be said to be mixed. The delay in the launch has allowed it to gain a high level of attention and avoid being distracted by other brands' "mega-cup" flagships. Similarly, the delayed release means that users have a comparison goal, and the performance, screen, image, price, etc. of the vivo X100 Ultra will be compared item by item. Some of the more anxious users may have already bought other flagship products, which is also one of the disadvantages of the vivo X100 Ultra.
Source: vivo
Since vivo has made a decision, it means that it has absolute confidence in its own products. 200 million pixels, LYT-900 one-inch ultra-large bottom sensor, 20x telephoto, self-developed V3+ chip, blueprint image algorithm and other piles of materials in the camera support vivo X100 Ultra's position in the field of mobile imaging, which is indeed a good choice for users with top-level shooting needs.
The prominence of a single field is difficult to fundamentally affect the user's purchase choice. In addition to self-developed image chips and algorithm systems to make the image long board longer, vivo also has to strive to catch up with the long board in key technical fields such as system, battery, performance, communication, and AI large model, which will also become the basis for vivo to stand out in the new round of competition.
In 2023, vivo will lead domestic mobile phones and successfully achieve three consecutive championships. In the face of a more competitive but promising mobile phone market in 2024, vivo's four consecutive championships may really have the possibility of success.