Zhou Hao
The fierce competition in the mobile phone market welcomes new categories.
On November 17, Razer (01337.HK), which was listed in Hong Kong soon, officially launched Razer Phone, its first mobile phone. As a traditional game hardware peripheral manufacturer, Razer will position the mobile phone as an e-sports cell phone .
Not only that, but also sources said Asustek mobile gaming will be in 2011 as the direction of attention, but Asus mobile phone unit to the "China Business" reporter said he was not informed of the e-sports mobile phone project, but have heard the news , The specific information needs to be released before the product is online.
The traditional gaming equipment manufacturers cross-border development of e-sports mobile phone, the prospects of this segment seems to be currently unclear.And in the domestic market, such as OPPO, vivo and other manufacturers have taken with the game manufacturers to create a model of cooperation, to create a real ' Gaming mobile phone '.
Ride ride gaming
There are various types of mobile phone market segmentation, such as music phones, camera phones, business phones, and the elderly, etc. This year, the rapid development of mobile gaming has spawned a new category - some gaming hardware vendors Aim at this market and make a preliminary layout, following Razer released the first gaming phone Razer Phone, ASUS CEO Shen Zhen also stand, in 2018 will be gaming phones as the direction of attention.
In fact, the domestic related businesses have long been the action, but the first shout out similar to the concept of 'gaming mobile phone' is not a cell phone manufacturer, but rather to sell mobile phone Jingdong Mall. October 19, Jingdong hand in hand with the whole industry chain partners in Beijing Hold the 'Jingdong Game Mobile Phone Industry Alliance and Game Phone Standard Conference' and announce the formal birth of this category and standard of mobile phone level. By the second quarter of 2018, game phones that meet the standard will be listed on the large scale in Jingdong.
The emergence of e-sports mobile phone category has been related to the vigorous development of the mobile game market in recent years.According to the "China Game Industry Report from January to June 2017" released on the basis of the Gamma data, the actual sales revenue in the domestic game market was nearly 100 billion yuan in the first half of this year Yuan, an increase of 26.7% over the same period of last year, and the number of game users reached 500 million with a year-on-year increase of 3.6% and the growth rate continued to decline. In terms of breakdown, the actual revenue of traditional client games was 32 billion yuan, up 13.7% The number of game users dropped for the first time to 136 million, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%. The decline in web games remained unchanged. In the first half of the year, actual sales revenue was 8.51 billion yuan, down 15.4% year-on-year and users were 246 million, down 11.4% year-on-year. Market, sales revenue of 56.14 billion yuan in the first half, has accounted for half of the entire game market; user size also reached 435 million, an increase of 7.5%. The overall gaming market balance has begun to tilt the mobile side.
The fiery mobile game also drove the gaming market. In the first half of 2017, the gaming gaming market reported a revenue of 36.0 billion yuan, up 43.2% over the same period of last year. Among which, the revenue from online gaming was 18.34 billion yuan, up 12.3% over the same period of the previous year, 17.65 billion yuan, an increase of up to 100.5%. The rapid growth of the emerging mobile gaming market, also drove the market demand for e-sports mobile phones.As a veteran of the game hardware manufacturers, Razer and Asus smell this opportunity to become the first announced Two gaming hardware vendors to enter the gaming handset.
From the original business point of view, Razer and Asus are gaming hardware manufacturers, including Razer the main focus on the top keyboard, mouse, game headset to build, and ASUS sub-brand players are high-end game this country, the display board Cards and other DIY hardware.The two brands have a large number of users in their respective fields, its products because of the high price, excellent performance and consumers by the title of 'faith'.
However, as a subdivision category in the mobile phone market, e-sports cell phones are different from the traditional e-sports peripherals market. On the one hand, although the two companies have a large number of fans in the e-sports field, they have not been in the mobile phone market Asus which Asustek into the mobile phone industry has been about 5 years, but the product has been relatively flat echo in the market, Shen Zhenlai admits that Asus mobile phone business volume, smaller, compared with other major manufacturers do not have the cost Razer has never had a handset business before, and Razer has announced the acquisition of the Nextbit cellphone team until January 2017, while Nextbit is a cell-phone team created by former HTC design chief Scott Croyle and others Only a Robin phone.Razer Phone Razer Phone also released a number of Robin mobile phone design elements from the current market situation, Razer and Asus in the global mobile phone market share in the lower position.
On the other hand, with the e-sports equipment with their own brand strong custom style is different from the current most mobile phone configuration, the appearance has been convergence, many brands play more like the role of assembly plant in the product performance gap between the various brands Not obvious. Razer Phone released Razer Phone, for example, equipped with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, and has 4000mAh battery and 8G of large memory, the only commendable is that Razer claims for the first time desktop-level gaming The 120Hz screen used in the monitor was put on the phone, but in practice, the Snapdragon 835 processor has been applied to a variety of mobile phones, so the performance of Razer Phone is also hard to break the gap with other top mobile phones.
More importantly, the face of the rapid development of the domestic mobile gaming market, Razer and ASUS cell phone business center of gravity are not here.At present, the Razer Phone has been listed for sale in Europe and the United States, the reporter once wrote a letter on this issue Razer, However, no reply was received as of press release, and Asus mobile phone business is also under the domestic competitive market with year-to-year market share attributed to other markets. At present, the overall market focus of products is also in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Taiwan of China. Respond to reporters said that while Shen Zhenlai's position has been heard, but the mobile phone sector has yet to be informed of the e-sports mobile phone project, so do not understand the specific product details, planning.
APP Annie data analysis agency recently released a report on the mobile gaming market shows that to the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, the Asian gaming gaming market is rapidly developing, according to the corresponding mobile gaming applications store revenue Look, this area's market share has accounted for 66% of the world, while the Mainland is the top priority.For the intention of the development of gaming phones Razer and Asus, if not in the largest Chinese market to accomplish something, The development of its gaming phone is bound to face many challenges.
China Mobile Alliance Secretary Wang Yanhui told reporters that manufacturers choose to develop subdivision categories market, the key foothold is to seize the core consumer groups in this area, such as the United States and 8848 titanium mobile phone handsets, although the overall shipments Lower, but they all seize the core consumer point of their own field, so the future survival, profit there is no problem.But subdivision category is different from the staking field, such as the elderly machine this market, many brands enter this A field, but the elderly market did not produce a similar segment giant.Electronic gaming handsets as a new category, manufacturers should still focus on the core user base to grasp the pain points in order to ensure basic survival, expectations rely on gaming Gimmicks soar unrealistic, and this category of e-sports mobile phone will have much market space, but also the need for long-term observation.
Fengeng game market
Although never shouted the 'e-sports mobile phone' slogan, but some manufacturers have already taken practical action which OPPO has become the forerunner of the industry layout, followed by vivo will have to rapidly expand this area trend.
Mobile gaming market naturally can not bypass this year's most popular "king of glory." Since the start of 2016, "King Glory" Professional League (KPL) has become the most popular mobile gaming event, the 2017 KPL Spring Festival Finals The number of single-day viewers exceeds 38 million and the total number of spring plays is as high as 2.68 billion.It can be said that at present, the domestic mobile gaming market is almost propped up by the KPL, and the "King of Glory" naturally becomes a mobile gaming The focus of the field, and OPPO and vivo around the "king of glory," a series of operations have become inadvertently move.
As early as December 2016, OPPO backstage will monitor the user feedback on the game, which is mainly focused on the "king glory." OPPO told reporters that in accordance with the earlier model, OPPO team to solve the optimization problem Need to first reflect the situation to the "king glory" team analysis, received feedback and then make upgrades on the phone, this method is very inefficient until March 2017, OPPO and Qualcomm technical team directly visited the "king glory "R & D headquarters, game manufacturers, handset manufacturers, platform vendors for the first time the three parties work together to eventually solve the game player cares about a series of issues such as optimization. OPPO internal survey data show that the use of OPPO mobile phone to play" king glory " 2541.5 million in January rose to 32.967 million in June, of which R11 / R11 Plus two phones, the "king of glory" users accounted for the highest proportion of products. OPPO subsequently launched the R11 "King glory" custom phone, it is After the listing will be swept away by consumers.
vivo based on this one step further.In April 2017, vivo and KPL reached a strategic cooperation and successfully obtained the title of the KPL league, followed by the release of vivo x20 full screen mobile phone is even more KPL race special machine. With long-term exposure in the arena and KPL's cooperation certification, vivo reached the TOP3, "king of glory" users Android mobile phone brand distribution in the phone model standings with OPPO TOP10. November 29, vivo also officially announced x20 "King glory" customized version of the phone.
Around the "king of honor," the super-IP, the two companies though never called the 'mobile phone' this name, but at least at this stage, with a large user base OPPO, vivo has created their own 'electricity Competing mobile phone '.
In the industry view, this idea is also worth Razer, Asus and other companies intend to enter the Android gaming handset.Compared with the smaller mobile phone manufacturers, with a large user base brand more easily through cooperation with the game company Optimization, to develop a suitable mobile phone platform for gaming operations.Electronic gaming handset concerns not only exist in the pile of hardware, software optimization as indispensable.
At present, the mobile games market has set off a 'eating chicken' hot, Tencent and PUBG 'Jedi survival' companies to develop genuine 'eat chicken' mobile games also officially on the line in the December 1 "Jedi survival" conference, Tencent officially started around the "Jedi survival" of the big ecological strategy, and gaming as an important part is even more essential.
OPPO and vivo revealed to reporters that now has a series of 'eat chicken' hand travel optimization work will be the future of this optimization model to more games to promote .For the next step will continue to title 'eat chicken race ', vivo said that at present for the' eat chicken 'market is still under observation, pending determination of related issues.