How many doors do you have to go through to go to the high end?Manual labor / animal sister
Edited by hand / Uncle Angle
Produced / Unicorn Excavator
After several rounds of market battles, the surviving domestic mobile phone manufacturers are collectively entering the high-end market. This is the most important strategic layout of domestic mobile phone manufacturers in the past one or two years and in the future.
In the coming 2022, Xiaomi 13, vivo X90, OPPO Find X5, OPPO Reno9, Meizu 19, OnePlus 10, Huawei Mate X2, Huawei P50, Honor V40 Light Luxury Edition, Honor Magic Vs… Various high-end models continue to Entering the market is dizzying.
Standing at the end of 2022, mainstream mobile phone manufacturers have announced their entry into the high-end market for some time. Judging from the current market share, no one can challenge Apple’s monopoly position, and the performance has not broken the lead of Apple’s A-series chips. Jue Chen.
However, it can be clearly seen from the efforts of the manufacturers that more and more brands have realized that, unlike the price-performance ratio in the “thousand yuan phone” market, the fight in the high-end market is not about shouting slogans, nor is it about advanced components. It is more about the mastery of “core technology”, which is a threshold that high-end players have to cross.
Just like Huawei Yu Chengdong said: “Building a high-end brand depends on leading and innovative design and innovative experience, so simply stacking up, the so-called specifications of a certain indicator, cannot create a real high-end brand.”
It can be seen that the word “high-end” puts forward higher requirements for R&D, channels, and brands. Although different mobile phone manufacturers have differences in functions and strategies, the goal of each is to achieve the same goal – to do their best to stabilize the high-end. This is not only a possible path to open up incremental space under stock competition, but also an inevitable choice for the domestic mobile phone industry chain to climb upwards.
01
High-end is not “stacking material”
At the moment when major mobile phone manufacturers must mention “high-end” when they make their appearances, it is undeniable that Apple is still a peak in front of them, especially after the second quarter of 2021, Apple’s share of the market above US$600 in China It even reached its peak.
According to the market monitoring report released by IDC, a third-party research organization, Apple reached a peak of 76.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021 in the comparison of the share trends of Android and IOS in the mobile phone market above US$600 in China. Although it has since retreated, Apple’s position in the high-end market remains rock-solid.
Even though the road ahead is long and difficult, for many domestic mobile phone manufacturers, the expansion of territory in the high-end market has reached the stage of “has to launch”.
On the one hand, in the past, the homogenization of the supply chain of low- and medium-priced models has become increasingly serious. Under the brutal competition, the gross profit margin in the middle has also been squeezed thinner and thinner. If you want to get out of the “swamp” of price wars, To get rid of the vicious circle, the high-end market is naturally the “chosen road”;
On the other hand, although high-end brands such as Samsung and Apple have seized market opportunities, the arrival of 5G replacements and the rise of folding screen mobile phones still bring great opportunities to domestic brands. This is also the real reason behind Huawei, Honor, OPPO, Xiaomi and other mobile phone manufacturers who regard folding screens as an important means to participate in high-end market competition.
Or eager for success, many mobile phone manufacturers try to seize the high-end market by “stacking materials”. It seems that as long as they are willing to pay the cost, they can effectively improve the mobile phone experience. In this atmosphere, in the PK of many mainstream flagship models, it often becomes a comparison of parts.
For example, Xiaomi once boasted that it will fully benchmark the iPhone, and said that it will take the first place in the market share of domestic high-end mobile phones within three years. Although some high-end models released by Xiaomi have achieved micro-innovations in camera, performance, fast charging, etc., they have been criticized in terms of battery life and system stability.
Another example is that OPPO and vivo focus on imaging against the iPhone. Although the imaging capabilities of the two brands have improved, the reality is that Apple has maintained a high level of photography by relying on computational photography capabilities, especially in In terms of video shooting function, it still surpasses many Android phones.
In recent years, the criticism of the iPhone has been endless. Firstly, it is reflected in the function. Signal and fast charging are always the two major pain points that cannot be perfectly solved; secondly, it is reflected in the speed of innovation. Since 2019, its The new functions introduced at the new product conference are relatively limited, so it is called “squeezing toothpaste” by the market.
However, this does not prevent the sales of the iPhone from hitting new highs. On the whole, there is no mobile phone that can really shake Apple’s position. What’s more, it is rumored that the Apple 15 series will also increase the purchase of parts. By next year, fruit fans may get Apple’s A17 with 3nm process, titanium alloy frame, Type C interface, periscope telephoto, etc. 15.
02
Self-developed core technology
Judging from the recent flagship new phones of domestic mobile phone manufacturers, the one-inch outsole camera sensor, high-frequency PWM dimming OLED screen, etc. have become a standard configuration. , also began to return across the board.
Overnight, in terms of imaging hardware, almost all domestic mobile phone manufacturers have reached the same level. It is not surprising that domestic mobile phones like to pile up “stacking materials”, but it can be said that it is the first time that the hardware selection has been greatly improved in a unified way.
However, many senior technology fans believe that, from a certain perspective, this may be related to the fact that domestic mobile phone manufacturers’ impact on the high-end market is not as expected.
It is not easy to make a high-end phone that is “anti-war”. The melee and reshuffle of the domestic mobile phone market in the past ten years has continuously conveyed such a constant message to the outside world: innovation is the foundation for a product and even a brand to survive.
The reason why high-end mobile phones are called “high-end” is more in terms of functions, services, and product collaboration. These technological innovations can bring users a better experience.
For example, Apple’s self-developed A-series chips can realize interconnection with multiple devices through iOS. The shallow level is naturally due to the consideration of product rhythm and the right to speak in the industry chain; the deep level is that Apple hopes to get through iPhone, iPad, Mac and A grand unification among other wearable hardware.
There is also Huawei supported by Kirin chips and Hongmeng OS. At the beginning, Huawei was able to compete with Apple. The biggest bargaining chip was its self-developed Kirin chip. The Kirin chip is an SOC integrating GPU and NPU and a 5G baseband processing chip. It is far ahead of the core chip of Apple’s A-series processors. At that time, the world’s most advanced mobile phone CPU processing chip.
Another example of glory. Not long ago, Honor released the new MagicOS 7.0 system at the annual conference. The biggest feature of this system is that it breaks the ecological closure between iOS, Hongmeng and Android systems, and realizes the integration of all platforms, all scenarios and all products. circulation.
Qualcomm and MediaTek also brought their latest flagship processors – Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 (such as the Meizu 20 series equipped with this processor) and Dimensity 9200 (such as the vivo X90 series equipped with this processor).
In terms of performance, MediaTek and Qualcomm, which have been under the pressure of Apple’s A-series processors, now surpass Apple’s latest A16 chip in the release of GPU extreme performance.
The energy consumption ratio and heat generation performance are also good. Although the CPU is limited by ARM’s public version architecture, it is still crushed by Apple’s A-series at present, but in terms of consumer experience, at least there will be no more “pull out generals” in the first half of 2022. The Android phone is too hot and there is no way to solve the problem.
At the current stage, in order to achieve a substantial upgrade of user experience on a certain function, the previous “bringing doctrine” is completely unfeasible, and terminal manufacturers and supply chain companies must make huge investments. Although the threshold for innovation is getting higher and higher, for mobile phone manufacturers, it is still an unavoidable path to insist on self-research at the core technology layer.
03
What other variables?
Counterpoint analysts believe that domestic mobile phone manufacturers are accelerating their competition for the high-end market. Under the influence of new products and new factors such as folding screens and chips, the market may usher in a new inflection point in 2023. In the high-end competition that cannot be missed, what dimensions do domestic manufacturers still need to improve?
The first is that domestic mobile phones lack their own unique personality characteristics.
On the whole, Apple relies on the A-series chips and iOS system to gain enough confidence to take the lead in the high-end machine market; Stand out from many manufacturers.
But to this day, the industry is more or less introverted in its pursuit of high-end. Once a manufacturer breaks through a certain bottleneck, other manufacturers will follow suit, making what could have become The “advantage” part has become everyone’s standard configuration, the difference is only that the degree of optimization and tuning of manufacturers is different.
The second is that the speed of new releases is too high, and mobile phones are considered to be worthless.
In the context of the ever-increasing replacement cycle, the update frequency of domestic mobile phones may be too fast, and most of them follow the “nose” of the processor. It is updated twice a year. Many consumers bought the flagship phone for the first time, but it became an old model within a few months, and then the price plummeted. This is a very poor experience for consumers.
The major forums and complaint platforms are full of complaints from consumers: when changing mobile phones, the price of the first high-end phone will be the price of the high-end phone, and the price of the mid-range phone will be the price after the price reduction. The psychology of users has gradually determined that the price of domestic mobile phones will be reduced, and they are no longer willing to spend the price of flagship phones to start domestic mobile phones.
The third is the lack of market awareness of high-end mobile phones as product sub-brands.
A high-end brand image refers to the impression the brand leaves on consumers. In other words, the brand’s “head-covering research and development” is only the first step in its pursuit of high-end, and then it needs to use appropriate timing and effective marketing strategies to promote products and brand packaging.
It is not difficult to understand why mobile phone manufacturers such as OPPO, vivo, and Honor invest a large amount of money every year in the selection of product spokespersons, variety shows, competitions, and drama titles and implants. Because building an independent and high-end brand “mind” is also a weight to drive sales.
In the new business context, making high-end models and entering the high-end market has become the top priority of domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
In the face of the upcoming “turning point” predicted by the research organization, those “used” and “temporarily cramped” methods are doomed to fail. The most simple way for domestic mobile phone manufacturers to achieve cornering overtaking is to stand in the long-term vision , Constantly consolidate technical strength, product strength and brand strength. Only with enough accumulation can we carry the banner of the rise of domestic high-end mobile phones. (Finish)
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