The current mobile phone market and the PC market has been similar, nice to say is mature, stable, not nice to say is boring, stagnant.
Driven by the OV, the mobile phone industry has started 'going to the countryside' in the past two years, and smartphones are being advertised on the walls of fourth- and fifth-tier cities and even rural roads. They succeeded and potential consumers The real customer, China no longer have the "potential" mobile phone consumer market.
There is no dazzling new technology, there is no power to change machines, even with full screen, AI and other new concepts blessing, 2017 China's mobile phone market is still in decline, and this trend will become even more apparent in 2018.
Fighting in an ever-growing market means that every single piece of meat is grabbed from the enemy's bowl.
Millet, OV, giants offensive line in the end '
'We must resolutely advance the battlefield and command headquarters at the front line.We should take the provincial as a unit, the urban unit as a unit, every county and even a community grid as a unit, always be brave and alert in every part of the battlefield, In the new year's internal letter of Xiaomi, Lei Jun said that it is necessary to regain the top spot in the domestic market in 10 quarters.
After British troops retreated from Dunkirk, Churchill used a similar tone and sentence to encourage the military and civilian counterattacks.
'County as well as community grid' has basically sunk to the nerve end of offline channels.Previously, Lei Jun also said that the millet house to open in the fall of 2020 to 1000, but the millet home self-employed, the cost High, can be used to complete the millet 'new retail' story, tell a story for the secondary market, but difficult to rapidly expand to the third and fourth tier cities.In fact, to rely on partners millet stores and authorized stores in order to truly Depth to 'fight with every county and even community grid' to increase sales for millet.
OV by BBK bring the advantage of offline sales channels, OV lined enough - 200,000 offline sales point is OV pioneer, beyond the pioneer of millet hero - to the market is no longer growing, 200,000 points of sale may become a burden.
OV in 2018, the channel may be streamlined, upgrade, at the same time, OV will also continue to strengthen their penetration in the first and second line - OPPO has been deployed in the north-Guangzhou-Shenzhen four 'super flagship store' as both rivals and brothers vivo , Should also keep up soon.
The myths of 'Internet thinking' and 'offline business nature' stand now at this point in time to have gone completely enchantment. "The war on the internet meant that we ended up the same thing.
Once a small company is mistaken, it will be fatal
Companies want to do big factories, now need to do both online and offline, brand thinking and store thinking have. They need to invest more marketing funds, but also need to re-plan the product rhythm to ensure that the store can always have products to Attractive.
Each of these means a lot of big money burning, which means that this is a strategy that small vendors can not follow.
Big companies to focus more on the line, then continue to stay online is a more sensible choice.One plus phone founder Liu Zuhu said that China's population is too scattered, the line is not cost-effective.Li Kaixin 360 mobile phone president also said that the offline Things are still under observation, but certainly not like Millet own shop, too expensive.
The universal popularization of the Internet, the increasingly developed electricity supplier and logistics mean that there is room for survival for companies that do not seek giants, but also means that they can not surpass the giant only through their own efforts, Waiting for an opponent to make mistakes.
Only the giants have room for tolerance, they have channels, more product lines and good supplier relationships, while smaller companies may completely disappear in 2018 because of the failure of one of the flagship products - the market is no longer new The opportunity to come, nor to the small company turned over the space.A brand disappears, empty out of the share will be eaten immediately.
Who will die in 2018? The industry is all about theft.
Have to sell high prices, but the technology that supports high prices (gimmicks) where?
Cell phones will undoubtedly get more expensive in 2018, BOM costs will go up, marketing expenses will not be low, and cell phone companies need higher-end machines at higher prices to get higher margins. Consumers also have the willingness to pay, and Jingdong's spending Survey data show that more than 70% of users purchase more than 2,000 yuan budget, the budget of more than 3,000 consumers accounted for 31.8%.
But let the user pay, selling where? But in 2018 the new technology, can not like the retina screen, fingerprint easily unlock the same user capture.
Full screen is the clearest and foreseeable selling point, but looks more like a gimmick on the PPT than the previous generation of mobile phones, they do not have much visual advantage, but compared to other manufacturers of products, there is no visual distinguish.
With current sensor technology, there is still a long way to go before the 'real' fullscreen can be achieved, and in the transitional era, the "shaped screen" led by Apple may be the best choice for the pursuit of differentiation.According to current rumors, Huawei P20, millet MIX 2S and vivo X30 and other flagship models will use the profiled screen, and with the screen technology breakthroughs, profiled screen may further spread to the mid-range mobile phone.
Glory President Zhao Ming said in an interview, the full screen is a small outlet, '5G is a real breath' every evolution of the network, will bring the mobile phone industry to new heights. 5G may bring more than the mobile phone industry, it delayed low , High bandwidth, high speed, artificial intelligence and the development of Internet of things are inseparable from the popularity of 5G.
Although 5G will not mature in 2018 - 5G will complete the standard formulation in 2018 and communications equipment will start to build this year. In 2019, consumers can experience 5G handsets. In 2020, 5G can be officially commercialized - However, we must begin to prepare for technology by 2018. When the 5G era really came, the gap between the first camp and the second camp will be widened again.
AI not only changes the product
The goal of mobile technology is to make people think this is not a cell phone, but a human being. The next similar technology may be AI.
AI kingdom, the data is first-class citizens, the algorithm is second-class citizens, and the hardware is only the third-class technology and algorithms are difficult to widen the gap, but the data is unique, scarce, barriers.
Today's high-end phones all say they have artificial intelligence - translation is the system to take pictures better and smooth only when there is sufficient light to face the use of fluid, almost every feature can be used non-AI way .
In 2018, the most convenient way for handset companies to make a difference in AI is to work with some giant to use their technology to enhance their system experience.
However, ambitious companies will not want to work for BAT themselves, they will build their own ecology, their own data.
Hardware shipments are even more important in order to get data - hardware includes not just cell phones, but also other networked hardware.
Xiaomi is building its own IoT standard and getting data from huge hardware users. Huawei is already doing similar things. Not only has Huawei shipped over a billion mobile phones, but also has a large number of network devices, which can become its data origin of.
Only when data becomes a much-needed resource for hardware companies and software companies can not avoid the controversy, and Huawei and Tencent have already frayed on the issue, and similar friction will increase as the cooperation goes further In the process of friction, the privacy rules in the AI era will be gradually improved.
To sea is necessary, but not so easy
Huawei's defeat into the United States may happen to other companies in 2018.
In the past, when China's mobile phone companies used overseas as a supplementary market, their positions in overseas markets will gradually be flush with their domestic counterparts in 2018. Mobile phone companies will go overseas not only because the dividends brought by the domestic exchange-machine tide have subsided, and they must go overseas to find new markets, And the sea can also pull the company's exports to improve the business and government relations in 2018, overseas mobile phone manufacturers in China will become a new round of fighting field.
The good days for small companies to go overseas have come to a foretaste, and overseas rewards have made it possible for one plus to have a revenue of 10 billion in 2017, enough to support it in continuing to be a "small and beautiful" company, but one reason it does not face coming from Huawei, millet's positive competition.
In 2018, Chinese companies have already explored places that will be the first choice for other companies to go to the sea, where the river is shallower and the rocks are more and more easily touched, which means that the participants in overseas markets will become more and more like domestic .
Apple and Samsung competition, on the one hand and product marketing fight, on the one hand are patents to attack each other. Massive sea of Chinese companies might also face a similar situation. Some of the past in the country can muddle way possible in a foreign country Will make the company pay a great price.
The following is the 360 mobile phone president Li Kaixin, Meizu Senior Vice President Li Nan, a science and technology founder Liu Zuhu, glory President Zhao Ming, et al. The view of the mobile phone industry 2018 trends:
Lee opened the new 360 mobile phone president
The handset market is very poor in 2017 and may be even worse in 2018.
Compared with the previous few years, the phone itself hardware technology brings the explosion point, I think it is difficult to see in the short term, there will be some new things out, even including fingerprints under the screen, in the small inside is a big thing , But in itself is not a big thing.In the next two or three years, or three to five years, should be more in the application, improve the software performance of the phone personalization, industrialization, differentiation.
5G also can not expect, unlike 2G, 3G, the operator's own profitability is better, in 2G, 3G is making money, but 4G up, the amount of equipment investment is very large, these two years make The money can not put money into the 4G back to say not easy to say.
This period than in 2018 is not wrong. Larger body can not make mistakes, or want to turn around and want to make up for his loss, the loss will be greater.
For smaller companies, security is higher than profit, and sometimes it's okay to make a little less money, but do not get stuck in the pit. For example, we will not be the first one to use every platform, so we will lose a portion of our revenue , But also to avoid mistakes.
Most of our handsets are focused on the price of 1000 to 2000. This is a highly competitive, but there is a benefit, this piece of the consumer's brand of tolerance will be higher, his requirements for the machine will be higher, for the platform The request will be slightly lower.
I do 2000+, 2500 machines or more than 3000, I suffer, because my brand power than first-line brand, I may need to use something better than others to impress consumers, this time is not entirely The pressure of cost.
After two or three years, consumers have accepted, think our products do well, then do the brand, with the brand with the product, so now we are still at this stage, 1000 to 2000 price is the most suitable.
We are facing the pressure of the price war is not too much pressure, because the domestic mobile phone market, 360 mobile phone is the most cost-effective mobile phone. Price war, nothing more than the price down. I seek the amount of large companies and the pursuit of the amount Is completely different, large companies want to expand 100 million units in the Chinese market, this year we only have a 50% increase on the basis of 5000000. I was talking about this when the environment is not so bad today, and now A little lower, a 30% increase, a little slower, it does not matter, we put 'steady' in front.
We will do the line, but certainly not the same with the millet, because millet is their own shop, we have to look, do is definitely do.
Li Nan Meizu senior vice president of science and technology
Last year, the two relatively fire technology, full screen and AI, in fact, are in an 'unfinished' state.
The full screen technology will continue to evolve by 2018, with full screen technology continuing to populate almost any phone at almost any price point - Apple, for example, has made the bottom border 4mm but other companies have not been able to do 6mm, Efforts to Apple chose a combination of shaped face + FaceID, but this is just an option, shaped screen, non-shaped screen, FaceID, under the fingerprints, how these technologies will lead to a better user experience? This is the 2018 mobile phone company Need to study.
The problem in the AI arena is that there are no killer application scenarios so far, and now the user has no feeling of experience with the AI, and the industry does not know when the user really needs AI - not just the cellphone company does not know, the AI other Companies do not know the link.
Unlike the previous system, AI can not rely on one company to complete, but it requires hardware, system, and cloud. In this case, the advantage of the mobile phone company is that they know the users best and know what they can do in the experience However, mobile companies need to rely on BAT for algorithm and data support. They also need chips from other companies that are far away from users and do not know where users really need it.
On the whole, can make pioneering in the field of AI, may still Apple, it can control all aspects, understand technology, but also understand the user.
In addition to full screen and AI, wireless charging is also noteworthy.Now Apple and Samsung are wireless charging cloth, which popularized the concept to the high-end users, there may be a lot of mobile phone manufacturers follow up in 2018. This will be direct A technology that changes the user's day-to-day trial experience.
The offline sales channels of mobile phones will change a lot. In the past five or six years, we have talked about online and again in 2016, offline and offline channels will converge in 2018. Offline stores no longer sell products , But probably like Apple's Apple Store - the social hub for Apple users in the region.
The offline store will come out from the mobile phone hypermarket, a street, go to the shopping mall where the rent is more expensive, but the user replacement cycle longer, which requires a shop, there are more categories of products to support the flat effect. In the meantime, the consumers who go to the shopping mall are shopping, so the design requirements for the offline shop will also be relatively high. This trend will not only occur in the first and second tier cities, but also the third and fourth tier cities.
In fact, in the mobile phone industry, upgrades and downgrades are one and the same.Consumers seek to upgrade their experience design and seek to downgrade themselves in terms of brand aura and channel costs. Willing to spend more money on cell phones, but his expectations are also rising.He can spend more for the experience, performance, but will not pay too much premium for the brand to bring the vanity.Especially in the low-end market , The brand halo will be getting weaker and weaker.
2018 mobile phone market is still more difficult, regardless of the size of the company, have their own problems .In this stage, the most important thing .In the past, you pay attention to profits, continue to pursue profits, attention to scale, continue to expand the scale, in short, do not take risks, the first Have a chance to survive
But also to see that the decline in the mobile phone market is not a cliff-style, and no other new products to replace the phone, it is still not out of date.
Liu Zuhu a Canadian science and technology founder, CEO
Many brands have disappeared by the end of last year and may disappear in 2018. However, the size of the mobile phone market is so large that the second industry can not be found anymore. With such a large market capacity, you can find yourself in the industry A positioning, no matter how big the positioning, in fact, opportunities are very large, is to make the product well, the market is not a problem. The cost increases, we will raise prices, but still selling well.
A good product to understand the needs of users. My understanding of user needs is very simple: let me use it smoothly OK. In fact, this concept has been talking about long ago, today, we feel that consumers still have this aspect Demand. Performance is on the rise, but software load is growing, so I'm going to keep the system running smoothly.
For the moment, most new technologies are immature, such as unlocking the fingerprint on the screen, adding one plus experience, and poor experience. Under outdoor glare, it will affect your sense of light and will be disturbed by the outside world. Under low temperature environment There will be some problems.
AI is a big trend, and now we use some of the AI technology to make the phone more power-saving I think AI to achieve the effect is that the phone can understand your thoughts, know what you need to walk, when sitting What is needed, but not a single one to do this, but I think through the AI can be solved.
5G we are also doing, but in 3 years, 5G is not really useful.With 4G ratio, 5G will be faster, but the promotion is not so obvious - 3G is too slow, 4G all of a sudden very fast, but 5G I think there is nothing speed, and its revolutionary thing is the entire ecological environment, this need to accumulate, will change in 35 years.
One plus or do the Internet, do high-end machines, China has 1.4 billion people, I can sell 10 million units, it is already high sales. And, to do high-end machines, we have a better supply chain relationship Processing, each order is relatively large.
Many years ago there were cases, so many no-name brands, I want to lower the price, with them dry, the result did not do the death of others, put himself to death, It is a profound lesson that a price war will never be suitable for a fight, and no need to attend.
Zhao Ming Rong Yao president
In 2018, the inventories of the smart phone industry will continue to increase in volume and consumer spending will continue to escalate. Under the T-pattern, head brand agglomeration will intensify and the living space for small labels will be further narrowed. The overall growth of the mobile phone market is likely to decline further, This is probably the norm before 5G came true.
Now that there is no need to distinguish between online and offline, the channel boundaries have been broken, the integration trend is clear, and there is no single battleground in the future, and the cell phone brands are facing full confrontation. In 2018, the offline market of smartphones is tempted to the previously focused online manufacturers Is still being enhanced.The disappearance of the offline boundary line, so that the trend of integration of channels become more apparent.In the future, for the smart phone manufacturers, there is no single battlefield, cross-channel confrontation will become the norm.
In addition, the arrival of the 'new retail' era, the face of user demand for experience and service upgrade, the layout of offline channels for Internet phone brands, the same imperative, but we need to note that, when laying the line , To be from the simple 'store thinking' to 'experience thinking, brand resonance thinking' conversion.
Some of the currently anticipated technological innovations on cell phones include the folding screen, structured light 3D modeling, AI artificial intelligence, and more.
In our opinion, for the mobile phone industry, artificial intelligence is an opportunity to leapfrog development and seize the opportunity to lead the trend and eliminate it when it is eliminated. There will surely be a major reshuffle in 2018, In this respect, glory and confidence to continue to lead the industry's technology development direction 5G is the key to competition in the future now replacement cycle 22 months, the industry's new round of growth in the future or around 2019, 5G Times will come simultaneously, but prior to the 5G landing and will become the 5G development accelerator artificial intelligence technology, has now appeared in the field of smart phones.
After the first year of 2017 AI, the smart phone industry will compete around the stock of artificial intelligence in 2018, and the trend of upgrading consumption will continue.
In the aspect of price competition, the average unit price in the Chinese market is on the rise no matter under the pressure of supply chain cost pressure or the upward trend of consumption upgrade. In 2017, the average single selling price of China's smart phone market has risen to around RMB2,090 (US $ 332.6) Therefore, the dispute over the stock market in the domestic market will focus on the high-end market.
Cheap is itself a false proposition. Without revolutionary material, technology, productivity support, beauty and cheap is a pair of irreconcilable conflicts, which is common sense. To enhance product quality and innovation strength, requires a huge investment, the need for a few Ten years of profound knowledge
Today's young people live smarter than we are and are less sensitive to price, so the market for less than 1,000 mobile phones today is shrinking, and users are looking forward to breakthrough products that truly address the pain points.
Consumer escalation era, consumers are willing to pay a premium for high-quality mobile phones, the product, brand, experience and service concerns over the simple price of the concern gradually, from this perspective, the high-end mobile phone market is vast .As long as the real consumer To create value and bring consumers products and experiences that exceed expectations, consumers pay even for high-priced handsets.
In addition, the future industry competition will be more reflected in the global market, with the domestic mobile phone manufacturers collective sea, once in the Chinese market staged a fierce competitive situation, will be staged again on a global stage.
Unlike the previous 'made in China', this mobile phone will not only be cost effective, but also have to demonstrate its brand building capabilities. This will be a process of 'eliminating oneself and rebuilding the capability'.
Taylor is a cellphone channel executive
In the second half of 2017 I went to Shandong and Northeast several times and looked at the situation of selling mobile phones over there. Many people think that there is OPPO and vivo home, but I think the future focus of the blue-green factory is no longer here .
OV channel from the step by step, from the beginning can be infiltrated to the 34 lines or even the rural market where there is also believe that seeing is believing, Internet word of mouth marketing may not be as TV ads, celebrities, TV commercials, offline marketing, OV these means In fact, with fast consumer goods like.
OV in the operating channels, but also with the same FMCG 'joint venture' model, that is, manufacturers and agents holding each other, the interests of the bond market along the time, this model is conducive to expansion, but the market is not smooth When expensive channel costs can become a burden.
This model has made OV a success, but because of the high channel costs, OV sometimes reduces the materials and costs of some components, such as locating chips, so the OV can only be said to be "expensive and low-energy" Impact on the Internet word of mouth, and now we all want to do high-end, OV high-end poorly done, with the reputation also has a relationship.
OV success of this model, there are two premises, one is about six months to launch new products to attract consumers, and the other is the Internet can not cover many corners of the line.
Now the situation is that more and more people in the third and fourth tier cities will access the Internet, for them, more and more ways to get cell phone product information, there is no need to just listen to the salesman .Online channels are also in the offensive line Under the express delivery more and more convenient, Internet companies are also investing in offline stores, is the new retail - in 2018 this trend will certainly continue - less and less information between online and offline.
Now OV need to go back to the line. 2017 mobile phone, in fact, more and more focus on 'cost performance', followed by some 34,000 high-end machines, but these phones are not suitable for sale in the original channel, or else OV loss, or loss of channel business now point of view, OV county-level shop has been closed, which may affect the performance of OV this year, an important variable.
However, overall, the pain is not as good as short-sore, counter-offensive line, the offensive line is OV must do, there is a higher profit and brand premium, otherwise it can only go overseas and Apple, Samsung fight.