Wen 丨 壹 Observation Su Yi
After Huawei, who can become the No.1 brand in the Chinese smartphone market?
As 2021 draws to a close, this answer is becoming clearer. According to the latest data from market research institute Counterpoint, vivo ranks first in the Chinese market with a market share of 23%, leading the second and third places by 3 and 8 percentage points respectively. This is already vivo ranked first in the Chinese mobile phone market for three consecutive quarters this year, of which the growth rate in the Chinese market in the second quarter was as high as 79%, and the third quarter increased by 5 percentage points, which was also ahead of other TOP mobile phone brands, further "standing" the "top brand" position in the Chinese mobile phone market.
Several other figures are also worth noting:
In terms of global markets, Vivo ranked among the top 4 brands in the global market in the third quarter, and its market share has reached a scale growth line of 10% (Canalys data).
At $600-800 (about 4,000-5,000 yuan), an internationally recognized high-end market price segment and the most important high-end market in China (about 30 million units shipped annually), Vivo and Huawei have become the "double handles" of domestic brands, with a share of 14% (Counterpoint, July data).
Equally important in the 5G segment, vivo became the champion in 5G mobile phone shipments across the Asia-Pacific market, including China,Strategy Analytics data.
That is to say, vivo has reached the top of China' most fiercely competitive mobile phone market for three consecutive quarters, not by adopting the low-end price war impulse method commonly used by some domestic brands, but by achieving comprehensive strong growth under the three major fulcrums of technology investment, high-end brands and global markets.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" >", the "mobile phone market urgently needs a "continuous innovation leader"</h1>
The smartphone industry has been "running wild" for more than ten years, and is now entering a period of high maturity in the industry.
Canalys data shows that the replacement cycle of China's mobile phone market has reached 33.2 months, and users' expectations for the next mobile phone are constantly increasing.
The pace of innovation of mobile phones as a mature consumer electronics product category is slowing down, and the "expected gap" between mobile phones and the demand for user experience upgrades is widening. Taking imaging as an example, a survey data released by the iResearch Research Institute shows that Chinese users' attention to the mobile phone shooting experience accounts for 29.2%, leading the processor's attention by nearly 12 percentage points. However, in the same period, the overall image innovation of the mobile phone industry slowed down, especially in the perception and attractiveness of users at the hardware level such as ultra-large bottom, ultra-high pixel, and multi-camera matrix.
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of August this year, the number of domestic 5G terminal connections exceeded 400 million, accounting for more than 80% of the world, and the first round of 5G terminal popularization process was basically completed. This means that mobile phone companies have also begun to enter the "stock dispute" in the 5G stage. Users' use of mobile phone functions and scenes is becoming increasingly "concrete", and each TOP mobile phone company must achieve a significant breakthrough in the pain points + just needed areas that users are focused on, and have the innovation rhythm of "continuously taking a step ahead", in order to have the strength to compete for the new No.1 brand in the "zero-sum game" market war.
Vivo 2020 identified the "four technical long tracks" of design, imaging, system and performance for the long-term innovation and evolution of the future. Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, said in a dialogue with One Observation: From the perspective of the company's long-term development, the "long track" is the focus of vivo's layout. It is characterized by a high threshold, which can be differentiated based on the long-term iteration of consumer demand experience, which can not be achieved overnight, but must go through long-term technology accumulation and R & D investment to establish a real "moat" type of technological innovation.
To this end, vivo has established a three-tier technology and product planning system, including short-term product planning and new product rhythm within 12 months, medium-term product planning and technical implementation methods for 12-36 months, and long-term technical exploration of more than 36 months.
Among them, more than 36 months of long-term technological exploration is regarded as the company's "technology beacon", vivo set up a central research institute, mainly focusing on the need for long-term investment, short-term non-return, and even into the "technology no man's land" for active exploration, and vivo "four technical long tracks" to achieve "technical binding", and then consolidate the continuous innovation driving ability and future trend judgment.
12-36 months of medium-term product planning and technology realization, but also the main TOP mobile phone companies today focus on the field of contention. In the fierce competition in the mobile phone market, mobile phone companies are required to avoid "making mistakes" as much as possible on the one hand, and on the other hand, they must come up with differentiated new products with "continuous leadership and innovation", which undoubtedly has great challenges. Vivo strategy is to do a good job of "two handshakes": first, the handshake of brand strategy + product strategy, which helps to promote the high degree of fit between the vivo brand and product positioning, and avoid the traditional process problem of the industry where "engineers are responsible for innovation, brand department follows the interpretation"; the second is the handshake of product planning + technical planning, through the establishment of "product planning - technical planning - technical pre-research" of the "product innovation iron triangle", the user's needs and scenarios are combined with the pre-research technology list, and disassembled into specific research and development projects. So as to ensure vivo's three years of technology leadership advantages and efficient product landing rhythm.
This is also an important reason why vivo has led the industry in recent years to build a full-price segment and full-product series "5G fleet", and has formed a "centripetal innovation + iterative leap forward" in core series such as X and S. Taking the X series as an example, from the past two years and four generations of products (X30, X50, X60, X70 series), it can be clearly seen that vivo's continuous technological breakthroughs and product positive evolution strength on the "image flagship" have been clearly seen.
In fact, in today's highly flattened smartphone industry chain, terminal enterprises have become important "innovation traction". For example, only if Chinese mobile phone companies are willing to choose not to follow Apple's "Liu Hai screen", suppliers have the motivation to promote the technical advancement of lens lifting schemes, digging screens and off-screen schemes. At the same time, after ten years of fierce competition and rapid growth of Chinese mobile phone companies, both the top 10 brands in the global and Chinese markets are ranked 8, and the collective innovation ability of Chinese mobile phone companies in the fields of imaging, games, 5G and other fields in the past few years is obvious to all.
However, with the gradual shrinking of Huawei's share due to external sanctions, there has also been another overall innovation among Chinese mobile phone brands to slow down the "inner volume" phenomenon, which is by no means good news. Whether it is the Chinese mobile phone market or domestic brands, there is an urgent need for a new "continuous innovation leader" at this stage. Vivo is now one of the leading brands running at the forefront.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="105" > "new innovation" tests user insights and unique thinking</h1>
As a mature consumer electronics category, it is difficult to see "revolutionary innovative technologies" in the next 3-5 years for smartphones. Whether we can achieve "new innovation" breakthroughs based on the core pain point functions that existing users are concerned about is crucial.
Almost all mobile phone companies emphasize "user-centricity", but the results from the implementation of thinking changes to specific product levels often vary greatly. The core variable of the so-called "easy to know is difficult to do" and "user insight" is not "to see the user's pain point needs", but the thinking logic and product innovation methodology after that are the key.
Taking the full screen "to the bangs" as an example, the earliest industry proposed the solution is the front camera "lifting" scheme, but it is found that the unlocking efficiency is low and the experience delay is obvious. In 2018, vivo and Huiding Technology jointly developed and launched the fingerprint chip technology under the screen, and the vivo X20 Plus released in the same year achieved the industry's first mass production, which affected the innovative evolution direction of almost the entire global Android mobile phone full screen unlock program. Vivo has also opened the "continuous leading innovation" mode in the field of fingerprint unlocking, and the iQOO 8 Pro released this year has once again led the industry to carry the "ultrasonic large-area fingerprint" recognition program, the recognition area is 11.1 times larger than the existing fingerprint solution, and the user can finally achieve the "touch screen unlock" experience, and the efficiency and security have also been greatly improved. According to foreign media reports, the Apple iPhone 14 series released next year is also expected to be equipped with an off-screen fingerprint unlocking solution.
In terms of mobile image innovation, many mobile phone companies are now engaged in ultra-large bottom, ultra-high pixel "parameter armament competition" on flagship products, but vivo is more inclined to the real shooting experience of the user's scene, such as backlighting, portrait shooting, sports stabilization and other fields, which are the direction of vivo's key image technology innovation for many years, and also provide a strong reputation for vivo mobile phone images in the public user cognitive layer.
The vivo X70 Pro+ released this year is a "collection of comprising" vivo imaging concepts and innovative technologies. For example, the first self-developed professional image chip V1 unlocks the "hardware-level algorithm era" of mobile imaging; the industry's first micro-gimbal + OIS "full-lens super image stabilization" scheme; the main camera for the first time adopts the low dispersion high-lens lens known as "the best lens material in the mobile phone industry" and uses low dispersion and high-lens lenses in SLR camera lenses; and the new generation of "vivo ZEISS joint imaging system" and algorithm breakthroughs including ZEISS natural colors and ZEISS portrait lens packages. Through the two-wheel advancement of optical photography + computational photography, vivo X70 series has achieved a real "full-link evolution of mobile images", once again breaking the image ceiling that the mobile phone industry has reached, so it has also been evaluated by the industry media as "the new benchmark of China's 5G image flagship in 2021".
As early as 2019, vivo R & D investment exceeded the 10 billion yuan mark, and then vivo executives repeatedly said in media interviews that "R & D investment is not capped". However, compared with many mobile phone companies claiming to be "technology-driven", vivo pays more attention to another key capability: "design-driven", as a strategic idea for the future development of vivo, more like a value, which emphasizes "user insight", which is close to the source of thinking and practical understanding behind user needs.
Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, told One Observation: "User insight" is not simply asking what users need, the key lies in "scene construction": all user needs must be put into the real scene to be converted, otherwise it is "pseudo demand". Taking the "under-screen camera" as an example, one is that its technical threshold is not high, and the ceiling is easy to see the end; the other is that even if the technology is mature, the effect will not be very good, and there is not much iteration space itself. Therefore, it does not meet vivo's mass production standards for images, nor does it meet the needs of most users for improving the front-facing shooting experience. Vivo does not intend to use this technology on its products, even if it is "more conducive to marketing communications."vivo.
Vivo and the international top optical brands set up the "vivo ZEISS Joint Imaging Laboratory", ZEISS from the vivo X series of products to participate in the project, definition and design stage, on the one hand can greatly enhance the iterative evolution of vivo X optical imaging flagship capabilities, on the other hand, also let vivo in this process, the understanding, tuning and comprehensive innovation of mobile image technology greatly improved. Compared with cyclical products, this is a more long-term core image innovation ability mastery for vivo.
In addition, vivo has an imaging team composed of professional photographers, through close communication with professional directors, photographers and industry KOLs, collected a variety of professional opinions and needs, and finally implemented them into the image technology innovation roadmap of in-depth cooperation with ZEISS. In vivo Central Research Institute, which is regarded as a "technology beacon", it also sets "human factors engineering research" as the main long-term exploration direction.
From this point of view, "design-driven" has now penetrated into every aspect of vivo's R&D team. On this basis, Vivo will focus R&D investment on four long technical tracks, each long track to form a subsystem, in each subsystem to form a consumer scene cognition team, product technology planning team, pre-research team and development team of the "four synergies", "design-driven" is also accompanied by vivo's deep technology accumulation and innovation methodology into each product practice.
"One Observation" believes that after more than ten years of evolution of the smart phone market, the user pain point demand has been very clear, and the core of "user insight" is more about the invisible needs behind the observation of explicit problems, rather than the simple and rough logic of the engineer's "straight line thinking" and "headache and foot pain". Compared with other mobile phone brands, vivo understands that there is a huge gap between user insights, technological innovation and actual user experience. User insight is not equal to technical realization, and technological innovation is not equal to the improvement of user real scene experience.
This should also be an important reason why vivo, which emphasizes "design-driven", can come out on top in the fierce battle of the new market pattern in 2021.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="106" > can not seek the first and "water to water"</h1>
In the past 40 years, the "throne" of the global mobile phone industry has been constantly changing, and the Chinese market has never lacked the "rush first" brand, but the mobile phone industry is a typical "long-distance running" competition, and it is more important for mobile phone companies to establish a long-term and sustainable healthy development model.
Although it has ranked first in the Chinese market in the past three quarters, vivo has never been "demanding sales" both internally and externally. Vivo founder Shen Wei made two points in his internal speech in early 2021 that impressed the industry: one is to emphasize that "the cause determines the effect, buries the head and plants the cause, and the effect comes from the water to the water", and the other is "adhere to the design-driven and user-oriented".
▲Vivo founder Shen Wei
"Design-driven and user-oriented", constantly creating "surprise products" that exceed user expectations, that is, "burying the head and planting causes"; "four major technology long tracks", "three-layer technology and product planning system" are the methodologies that support vivo innovation; and now "the world's top four, China's first" is more like shen Wei's pursuit of "fruit from water to water".
China's mobile phone market competition is extremely fierce, "harsh results for the cause" is not only unrealistic, often will bring huge business risks to enterprises, this phenomenon in the past decade in China's smart phones has been staged several times, each time will bring mobile phone companies, supply chain enterprises, partners and mobile phone users "more lose" results.
Hu Baishan said: "For major domestic mobile phone companies, who has a little more short-term share and who is less is not the key to the problem. The key lies in who can show the ability to compete with the top players (Apple) in the future for a period of time, which is the goal that all Chinese mobile phone brands want to pursue in the future. ”
In the new market pattern cycle, the "next Huawei" may not appear in the Chinese mobile phone market, but fortunately, we do not lack domestic brands that have the courage to invest in long-term technology and continue to lead product innovation. Today's vivo not only has the strength to stand on the first brand in the Chinese market, but also has the courage to assume the responsibility and confidence of the champion brand to lead the industry to "break through the no man's land of technology and product innovation".
The road is obstructed and long, the line is coming, the line is not quitting, and the future can be expected.
As Hu Baishan said: "We often say that doing the right thing and doing the right thing, these two abilities, I believe that in the future in the high-end market (vivo) can have the ability to compete with any opponent, but it may take a little time." 」 ”