Is it willing to pay for domestic mobile phones with high -end breakouts?

Zhongxin Jingwei, September 24th (Chang Tao) In the past for a long time, high -end is the "heart disease" of domestic mobile phones.

This "anxiety" has been more obvious in the past two years. For example, the hardware, functions, and design of mobile phones are becoming more and more "inner rolls". Manufacturers try to show their innovation and establish a high -end signboard, but it is inevitable to fall into the trap of "stacking".

Users are also very confused. Why is domestic mobile phones selling more and more expensive, but differentiation is becoming more and less obvious? Should we pay for high -end domestic mobile phones?

Temptation

At different stages, the definition of high -end mobile phones is also different. Insiders believe that at this stage, a high -end mobile phone should have strong hardware configuration, excellent software experience, unique core technology, and brand influence. If you measure it at the price, it is generally considered that the price of 5,000 yuan is high -end mobile phone.

From the era of functional phones to the era of smartphones, for a long time, the high -end mobile phone market has been firmly controlled by foreign brands. This is also the "heart disease" of many domestic brands. However, in recent years, as domestic mobile phones have gradually led the trend of mobile phone markets in terms of functions, design, etc., in the high -end mobile phone market, domestic brands have gradually increased.

According to the Sino -Singapore Jingwei reporter, there are two significant time points for domestic mobile phones to make high -end markets.

The first time is 2018. At that time, domestic mobile phone manufacturers began to avoid the "cost -effectiveness" market, and launched high -end flagship machines of about 4,000 yuan or above. For example, Huawei Mate20 Pro released prices from 5,399 yuan, VivoneX released prices from 3898 yuan, OPPO FindX released for sale Starting from 4999 yuan, Honor Magic2 is priced at 3799 yuan.

At that time, Xiaomi, a firm pursuit of "cost -effective" strategy, tried to open up the high -end machine market and released Xiaomi MIX 2S, which starts at 3299 yuan. However, compared with competitors such as Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi has a slightly late start and a relatively radical play. Today, it is still climbing on the high -end road.

According to the financial report, the average price of Xiaomi smartphone in the first quarter of 2022 was 1189 yuan. Although it was increased from 1098 yuan in 2021, it can also be seen that Xiaomi's comfort zone is still in the thousand yuan gear.

Another time point for domestic mobile phones for high -end markets is around 2021. In 2020, Huawei mobile phones suffered a "earthquake". In 2021, due to the exhaustion of chip inventory, Huawei domestic market shipments fell out of the first camp. Huawei released a certain high -end mobile phone market share after "falling", which made other domestic brands see opportunities, and it also strengthened its determination to impact the high -end market. This wave of high -end strategies has continued to this day.

According to incomplete statistics, in the first half of 2022, major manufacturers including Huawei, OPPO, VIVO, Xiaomi and other major manufacturers released a total of 51 new products, and a number of flagship stores started to sell for more than 4,000 yuan.

Why is domestic mobile phones obsessed with high -end? Profit is the first temptation.

In the mobile phone industry, the profit of high -end machines is much higher than the low -end mobile phones. Taking Apple as an example, the new products launched every year have good sales in the world. More importantly, these new products have harvested most of the industries in the mobile phone industry.

According to the Canalys report, global smartphone shipments in 2021 reached 1.35 billion units, of which 44%of the global mobile phone market revenue was taken away by Apple with 17%of shipments.

Independent telecommunications analyst Fu Liang said in an interview with China Xinwei reporters that when a mobile phone company's product shipments are large enough, they will not be limited to the low -end market. Instead, they must go to the high -end market. Increase the performance and price of the product, or add some concepts, and then increase the price to obtain more profits.

A domestic mobile phone brand market person who does not want to be named said that in the past few years, domestic mobile phones have infinite scenery, but in fact, they have undergone a lot of pressure from profit. The best way to make more money is to make high -priced mobile phones.

Taking a listed mobile phone manufacturer as an example, Anxin Securities analysis believes that its high -end smartphone shipments account for increased from 7%in 2020 to 13%in 2021, and the gross profit margin of smartphone business increases by 3.2 percentage points to 11.9%, and The proportion of smartphone revenue increased by 1.7 percentage points to 63.6%, and the overall revenue of the group increased by 33.5%year -on -year.

Under the epidemic, high -end products for domestic mobile phones have stronger practical significance -high -end mobile phone sales are less affected.

For example, according to the data of the third -party research institution, in the second quarter of 2022, the sales of high -end smartphones fell by 10%in the second quarter of 2022, and the sales volume of high -end smartphones fell by 10%. For another example, the latest report of the market research agency Strategy Analytics shows that the sales volume of online smartphones in 2022 was 14 million units, a year -on -year decrease of 25%. However, on a certain e -commerce platform, the shipments of mobile phones of 5,000 yuan or above have not increased year -on -year.

Unspeakable

In fact, in the moment when the smartphone market is declining, high -end machines are indeed one of the few highlights.

The report released by the Counterpoint shows that in the second quarter of 2022, China's high -end (wholesale price is 400 US dollars and above) smartphone sales accounted for 31%in the same period last year to 33%. In the quarter, the brand with the number one in China's high -end smartphone market share was Apple, accounting for 46%; the second to sixths were vivo, Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi and OPPO, respectively. 9%, 8%and 8%. Does this mean that the high -end domestic mobile phone has succeeded? Will consumers pay for it?

In the opinion of Liu Yushi, a senior analyst at Cinno Research, I am afraid it is difficult to make an optimistic conclusion for consumers to pay for domestic high -end machines. High -end domestic brands are still difficult.

"If the line is drawn at 5,000 yuan, according to Cinno Research data, from the perspective of shipments, the price of more than 5,000 yuan in Apple in the second quarter of 2021 was 9.28 million units, and the second quarter of 2022 increased to 9.72 million units. From 2.4 million units in the second quarter of 2021 to 1.21 million units in the second quarter of 2022, other brands were reduced from 1.78 million units to 1.33 million units in the same period. The price of Apple accounted for 79.2%, and the second quarter of 2021 was 69.0%. "Liu Yushi said in an interview with China New Jingwei reporter.

According to Cinno Research data, in the Chinese market in China in July 2022, models selling prices above 5,000 yuan accounted for 19.9%.

What are the challenges and shortcomings facing domestic brands in high -end machine circuit?

Liu Yushi believes that of the four key conditions of high -end machines, unique core technologies are the largest shortcomings of domestic brands to break through high -end high -end.

"A series processors and iOS systems relying on the advantages of exclusive system to obtain competitive advantages are obtained. Huawei has also rely on Hisilicon Kirin chip to achieve good results, and has won brand reputation. Other brands have rare achievements in this regard, hardware, hardware, hardware, hardware, and hardware. The configuration is subject to the product's product strategy, and the software development is limited by hardware configuration, which is difficult to establish a high -end brand. "Liu Yushi said.

Way of breakthrough

In fact, in recent years, on the road of high -end breakout, domestic mobile phones have also made a lot of efforts, of which the chip has to be mentioned. The self -developed chip is regarded as one of the necessary paths for mobile phone manufacturers.

At present, the "core" strategy of mobile phone manufacturers mainly includes the following: First, all models use self -developed SOC (system -level chips), represented by Apple; second, some models use self -developed SOCs, and some models use Qualcomm General Universal use. The chip is represented by Samsung and Huawei; 3. Special chips for self -developed self -developed special functions, but SOC relies on Qualcomm, etc., represented by vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO;

At present, high -end players in the industry in the industry have self -developed chips, and even self -developed SOCs. SOC is currently the most difficult -to -use chip, which generally contains multiple processors such as CPU, GPU, ISP, DSP.

Why is self -developed chip so important? According to the analysis of the operator, the most obvious advantage of the self -developed chip is that it can achieve hard and hard integrated, the chip can be designed and developed on demand, and the software can give full play to the performance of the chip. The integration can produce "1+1#_ FORMAT_GT_# The effect of #2 "brings an excellent experience. Based on this, self -developed chips are necessary conditions for domestic brands to participate in high -end competition.

At present, in addition to Huawei, domestic mobile phone manufacturers do not have the ability to develop SOCs, so they choose to develop special chips for specific functions. In 2021, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo all released self -developed chips, and they were closely related to images, which was considered to make up some shortcomings.

However, self -developed chips, especially SOCs, are by no means easy. Not only do you have difficulty developing difficulties and investment in funds, but also often encounter bottlenecks in the research and development process, making it difficult for the project to advance.

Liu Yushi said that self -developed chips are important breakthroughs for mobile phone manufacturers to obtain core technologies, but they are extremely difficult, and choice should be cautious.

Liu Yushi said, "The Huawei incident shows that the key supply chain is affected by people and will face great risks. Therefore, domestic mobile phone manufacturers choose to start with some small chips, but these self -developed functional chips have been short of time, and it is difficult to accumulate sufficient market identity. The high -end domestic mobile phone will still depend on the establishment and improvement of domestic high -end supply chains in the future. "

However, it turns out that for specific functions of self -developed special chips, specialized chips have a limited role in establishing a brand high -end image and opening a high -end market. Self -developed chips are by no means the only condition for high -end.

In December 2021, OPPO released the first self -developed chip Marina Marisilicon X, which was applied in the field of imaging to increase the high -end. According to the analysis of the Counterpoint Research, in the second quarter of 2022, Huawei and OPPO lost nearly 16%of the high -end mobile phone market share. The Counterpoint research analyst Ivan Lam said, "OPPO is affected by the epidemic, especially the offline sales in the offer. It was seriously affected this quarter. "

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