Author |
Text | Ring says
"It was the best of times and it was the worst of times."
Under the influence of uncertain factors such as world trade relations and the international environment, the whole world has cast a shadow. The theme of the 2023 Boao Forum for Asia held not long ago is "Exploring Certainty in an Uncertain World". Simply put, the current society is entering the "Uka Era".
The so-called "Uka Age" means that we are in a world of variability, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Especially under the superposition of many factors, 2023, which was originally regarded as the year of economic recovery, has also been marked with a big question mark. The reason is that many industries have not escaped the downward cycle, such as home appliances, smartphones, automobiles, real estate and other consumer industries, and the market performance is still severe.
Especially after the smartphone industry has been declining year after year, some people have begun to call it the "darkest moment" of the smartphone industry, but from the perspective of Ringing, perhaps there is no need to be too pessimistic. opportunity.
The irreplaceability of smartphones is still clear
Not long ago, DIGITIMES Research, a market research agency, predicted that global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2023 will drop by 13% year-on-year, and the annual shipments in 2023 are expected to be revised down to 1.124 billion units.
If this prediction is true, then this will be the "seventh consecutive quarter of decline" in global smartphone shipments, and the expression "darkest moment" is not alarmist. In addition, the latest data shows that the current average replacement cycle for domestic users is close to 36 months, and the average replacement cycle for American smartphone users is even closer to 48 months, all of which indicate that the business of smartphones is not easy to do.
However, when we go deeper through performance, we can also discover something different.
First of all, smartphone shipments in 2022 will decrease by 41.5% compared to the peak in 2016, but sales will only decrease by 11.7%. According to Counterpoint's data, since 2014, the ASP of Chinese smartphones, that is, the average annual shipment price, has maintained a year-on-year growth.
This shows that even though the frequency of replacements in the consumer market is increasing, consumers' demand for high-quality smartphone products has not weakened.
In recent years, with the continuous change of industry technology, from 4G to 5G, core elements such as processors, images and displays have been continuously upgraded, which have pushed up the manufacturing cost of smartphones and made smartphone products more "durable". Domestic smartphone brands bid farewell to the embarrassment of selling dozens or hundreds of mobile phones in the past, which cannot match the embarrassment of Samsung and Apple's profits from a single mobile phone, and domestic consumers can also obtain more satisfactory smartphone products. This is true for the industry and the consumer market. It's a win-win.
Only due to the impact of the epidemic in the past three years and the large gap between the current market data and the peak in 2016, the anxiety of slowing down smartphone consumption has been infinitely magnified.
Secondly, it is true that the smartphone industry has entered the era of stocks, but its value to users has not diminished, and is even increasing. Smartphones are the bridge connecting people and the digital world, and are the most widely portable mobile terminals. People increasingly rely on mobile phones for daily life and work.
Whether it is the current communications, games, Internet of Everything, or the future metaverse and artificial intelligence, smartphones are one of the core intelligent terminal carriers. It is impossible to give up smartphones or use other devices to replace them, at least at this stage.
For example, ChatGPT, which exploded this year, has to admit that it is an important product of the development of the times, but it is not subversive. For another example, the XR technology that has been rendered before will replace smartphones and become the main terminal in the next stage. However, judging from the current situation, XR is still far from entering a mature and healthy industrial stage. There are also huge uncertainties.
Finally, smart phone products still have huge potential energy that has not been fully developed.
On the one hand, it is internal. The smartphone industry itself is a long-chain industry, which is related to several hundreds of billions or even trillions of industries, involving upstream and downstream manufacturing, accessories, chips, software development, or operators, distribution and retail, and maintenance. After-sales, or mobile games and APP operations, mobile social networking and mobile payment, etc.
These industries are deeply dependent on smartphones themselves. The rapid development of smartphones drives other industries forward, and innovations in other industries are also feeding back smartphones. This closed loop cannot be easily broken.
On the other hand, it is external. The meaning of the current smart phone is no longer simply accessing the Internet and communicating with each other. In many other fields, the smart phone is also becoming a key to industry innovation.
For example, smart cars and smartphones, Geely's acquisition of Meizu", "Nio announced the development of mobile phones", "Tesla plans to launch mobile phones on the Internet", Apple Carplay, Xiaomi's car manufacturing, etc., all reflect the smartphone's Important. In addition, industries including home appliances are trying to break the limitation of scene space, and smartphones are the only bridge and cannot be replaced.
Therefore, although the current industry environment is full of uncertainties, the general direction of smartphone advancement still exists, but for smartphone players, this has become another challenge.
Looking for certainty in uncertainty, the end of the smartphone industry has not yet arrived
So how should industry players respond to this challenge? "Stability" may be the best weapon to deal with the current market environment.
1. Stand firm in the face of the high-end market
According to the latest data from Counterpoint, overall global smartphone sales in 2022 will drop by 12% year-on-year, but global high-end (wholesale price greater than or equal to $600) smartphone sales will increase by 1% year-on-year, making high-end phones account for 55% of global smartphone revenue for the first time . And the growth rate of the high-end market has been leading the global smartphone market.
From these data, it can be seen that in an uncertain environment, what is certain is that the high-end market will definitely be the breakthrough point of the current domestic smartphones. Especially in the post-Huawei era, the gap in the domestic high-end market has not been fully filled.
Looking at Apple and Samsung, the two brands occupy more than 90% of the global high-end market, and the profit of a single mobile phone is several times or even dozens of times that of domestic mobile phones. Facing the market decline, they can make up for it in the high-end market.
Vivo achieved the first growth rate in the domestic high-end market last year, and its high-end market share is second only to Apple. However, there is still a long way to go for Chinese mobile phone brands, including vivo, to establish a stable dominance from a staged lead. This also shows that the high-end market is still a big "gap" for domestic brands, and the high-end market will inevitably become the source of new smartphone market in the future.
2. Facing the future market, go steadily
In addition, smartphone products are not only a combination of past product functions, but also a reflection of future product capabilities.
When the ecology of smart phones continues to improve and gradually penetrates into the infrastructure of social operations, the efficiency of life and work for ordinary people will become more and more obvious. At this time, various social services and social behaviors will be embedded in the Internet. Smartphone passed to the user.
As mentioned earlier, smartphone products have become a "bridge" for the extension of various industries and an insurmountable "springboard". For example, although there are currently elderly phones specifically targeting the "silver-haired market", they are still different from traditional smartphones. When users in their 70s and 80s gradually get old, smartphones will be like "water, electricity, gas, and electricity" to them. "General existence.
The boundary between online and offline has disappeared for this group of elderly people, because of habit or necessity, many "functions" in life need to be attached to run on smartphones. The attractiveness of smartphones to the silver-haired population has increased exponentially. Smartphones are no longer optional consumer goods, but have become necessities for the elderly in China.
Of course, this is only one direction, and there are more directions waiting to be discovered for the future of the smartphone industry.
3. Sticking to user needs
The last point of grasping the certainty of the smartphone industry is to grasp user needs more accurately, which has also become a manifestation of the ability of industry players to compete for differentiation.
As Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, said at the previous Boao Forum, "High-quality development is the persistence of long-termism. If you want high-quality development, you must avoid involution. Only return to users and adopt differentiation Only by developing a unique product strategy and creating new markets can we avoid involution. The key to differentiation is the support of capabilities, not only thinking about it, but also doing it.
Now let's analyze why vivo can become the industry leader, and you can clearly see the part about differentiated user needs.
Many years ago, vivo determined the four long tracks of "design, image, system, and performance", and gradually created the differentiation of vivo through continuous investment and accumulation. For example, in terms of imaging, vivo and Zeiss have established the "vivo-Zeiss Joint Imaging Laboratory" through self-developed imaging chips. Through artificial intelligence and other underlying technologies, they have continuously broken through the limits in terms of computing power and algorithms, creating the best photography flagship in China.
Rapid product iterations, the X80 and X90 series have gained excellent user reputation, and the first-generation folding screen product X Fold made vivo enter the top three in the domestic folding screen market share, and these are the results of vivo’s differentiation. It has achieved the market performance of vivo.
In short, even in the current uncertain environment, smartphones still have a lot of certainty of their own.
"Subversion" is no longer, who can lead the "normalization of stock competition"?
From the perspective of the general environment, a new round of technological change is quietly starting. Artificial intelligence represented by ChatGPT is revolutionizing everyone's life, work and social collaborative production methods. The new generation of communication technology is laying the groundwork for the upcoming Internet of Everything. Foreshadowing.
During the period, different terminal products may appear again, or newer interaction methods may appear, but smartphones will become the bearing point that cannot be bypassed.
As I said before, "It may be a major technological innovation, but it is not disruptive." At least not in ten to twenty years.
This is just like the current industry structure. After three major changes, the smartphone industry has entered a stage of high-quality development, forming the latest "VO Rongmi" pattern, which will be difficult to shake in the short term.
Just like Hu Baishan’s interpretation of the high-quality development of smartphones during his stay in Boao, “First, the concept of high-quality development is actually a concept of sustainable development. An enterprise with an everlasting business must be an enterprise that pursues sustainable development; second, high-quality development. Quality development is an adherence to long-termism, a gradual process, and cannot be achieved overnight; third, the high-quality development of an enterprise must first oppose low-quality competition and involution, and the key to avoiding involution lies in the upgrading of capabilities. "
So the next development of the smartphone industry may enter a slow but steady stage.
Just like vivo's current leadership is not achieved overnight. On the one hand, the aforementioned vivo has opened up some key links through years of layout, and its brand value has begun to be recognized; In terms of layout or strategic extension, vivo is the most stable and has formed the ability to fight a protracted war.
All in all, no one can accurately predict where the smartphone industry will go in the future, but what is certain is that the industry that is at a low point is bound to usher in a rebound. Finally, in the words of Hu Baishan, "the smartphone industry is an industry with long slopes and heavy snows. , although there are many challenges in the future, there is still a lot to do.”
*The pictures in this article are all from the Internet
*This content is original by 【铃铃说】, without authorization, anyone may not use it in any way, including reprinting, excerpting, duplicating or mirroring.
【over】
had rang the bell
1Top 10 authors of the year for venture capital and technology websites such as Titanium Media, Pintu, and Everyone is a product manager;
2 Tiger Roar Award judges;
3 Authors: Authors of best-selling books such as [Mobile Internet + Business Opportunities under the New Normal];
4 Special commentator for nearly ten newspapers and magazines such as "China Business News", "Business Circle", "Business Circle Review", "Sales and Market";
5 Nearly 80 columnists including Titanium Media, 36kr, Tiger Sniff, Jiemian, The Paper;
6. The creator of the concept of "brain artist" (brain craftsman), which has evolved into "We Media" and has become an industry;
7 Honorary Mentor of Tencent All-Media School, Communication Consultant of Several Technology Intelligence Companies.