It is an extraordinary year for Chinese smartphone makers in 2017. According to IDC data, shipments of smartphones in the global market and in the Chinese market both showed a year-on-year decline this year.
vivo is one of the most affected companies.From the first quarter of 2016 the first time into the top five global smart phone shipments, from the second quarter of 2017 and due to decline in market share was classified to others; and in the Chinese market , Its shipments growth in the third quarter of 2017 and the fourth quarter consecutive year-on-year decline, but fortunately retained the top three Chinese market rankings.
The rise of vivo and OPPO in 2016 has been seen as relying on the depth of the township's intensive offline outlets and crazy celebrity endorsements, once attracted many manufacturers to follow suit.But facing the weak environment and its own growth bottleneck, vivo Also seeking change and transformation.
In the 345 cities and township markets, vivo is adjusting and optimizing the layout and efficiency of its offline outlets, while in tier-1 and tier-2 cities, vivo upgrades its experience centers to enhance its brand image, while at the same time it has always been considered as lacking in technical details vivo also began to increase the full screen, 5G, AI and other new technologies investment.
After the rapid growth of the bottleneck
According to IDC data, in the fourth quarter of 2015, vivo shipped 11.8 million units with a year-on-year increase of 33.8%, accounting for 9.4% of China's smartphone market, ranking the fifth place. In the first quarter of 2016, vivo Shipments in China grew at a year-on-year rate of 121.7% YoY, entering the top three in the Chinese market. Also in this quarter, vivo's growth in the global market reached 123.8% and reached the top five in the global market.
The smartphone market in China slowed down significantly by 2017. The first quarter rose 0.8% YoY, down 0.4% YoY in the second quarter, down 1% YoY in the third quarter and down 15.7% YoY in the fourth quarter, The overall decline in 4.9%.
In this context, vivo shipments in China and the world in both growth rate dropped sharply in the first two quarters of shipments in China have dropped to 10% growth rate, or even in the third and fourth quarter Year-on-year, while in the global market, its market share began to decline from the first quarter of 2017 and disappeared in the top five in the following quarters.
Cities and villages belly back enemies
And OPPO has 250,000 offline stores similar, vivo also has a huge offline sales system.
Aurora big data show that in vivo, the fourth quarter of 2017, vivo users are mainly distributed in the 34th five lines and below the city, in the third and fourth tier cities even ranked first in the OPPO rankings.However, the rankings in the first-tier cities are in five Bottom line in the mainstream manufacturers.
Vivo On February 14, 2017, Vivo's Shanghai Xujiahui Experience Center officially opened, marking the beginning of vivo first-tier cities vivo Unlike the traditional main pursuit of sales of different offline stores vivo experience center is defined as providing services and product experience for the Core integrated platform, and sales only as one of the functions.According to vivo planning at the time, with the opening of the Shanghai Experience Center as a symbol, this program will be vivo vivo upgrade thousands of experience center iteration.
Vivo aiming at Huawei and millet dominate the first-tier cities at the same time, Huawei put forward in the end of 2015 thousands of counties plan, the layout of the fourth-line to the sixth-tier cities of offline channels.In last July's Huawei annual results conference , Zhu Ping, vice president of consumer business and Huawei Greater China president, once said that in 2017, Huawei will cover nearly 2,000 counties and towns in China and complete the previously planned Thousand Counties.
After experiencing the low ebb in 2016, millet will resume its growth path in 2017. One of Xiaomi's strengths is to open up offline channels previously overlooked by Xiaomi's flagship stores, direct stores and specialty stores. Shops and other forms to complete the coverage of the second and third tier cities, millet's goal is to open in 2019 to 1000.
In the county and township markets, millet also has its own ambitions, proposed a new model millet shop.Can realize the direct order of individual sellers and millet official, unified procurement quotations on the official website, the official delivery, the seller can earn the difference. This reduction in the middle part of the retail model will undoubtedly pose a threat to OV's offline retail system.
Lei Jun said at the annual meeting in February this year that millet ten-year goal of returning to the domestic first, and the county and township market is one of the important part. 'We have to province as a unit, the city as a unit, every A county or even community grid as a unit, terribly contested, bloody battle in the end. "Lei Jun said.
International war
In China smartphone market slowdown or even decline in the environment, more and more domestic manufacturers began to look to overseas markets.Although the global smart phone market as a whole also showed a downward trend, but in India, Southeast Asia Emerging markets such as emerging there is still a strong demand for replacement.
vivo previously entered the overseas markets include Southeast Asia markets such as India, Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Cambodia and Bangladesh, etc. At the end of last year, vivo announced its entry into markets such as Hong Kong, China Taiwan, Singapore and Russia, Vivo in 2018 will also enter the African market.
However, under the background that a number of domestic manufacturers vigorously explore the internationalization, the competition among local manufacturers in these overseas markets is also getting fiercer and fiercer.
In India, for example, vivo started to tap into the Indian market in 2014. It has expanded into the top five in India by building factories, building offline channels and after-sales services, and sponsoring the Indian Cricket Premier League.
However, foreign media reports recently, vivo will Indian retailer sales profit cut 40%, triggering dissatisfaction with the Indian retailers.This move led vivo in the fourth quarter of last year, cell phone sales fell by about half the year, while millet in last year The third and fourth quarters of India's market first, millet 2017 return to return to the attributed to the contribution of the Indian market contributed.
Huawei and glory are rivals.
Huawei has already set itself the market in the high-end markets such as Europe and Japan. President Zhao Ming, President of Glory, also proposed the main objective of globalization in the 2018 New Year's speech, saying that the United States, Europe, Russia, Africa, Turkey, India, Indonesia, etc. As key areas, just in the market positioning with Huawei complement each other.In December last year, Ren Zhengfei issued a glory brand mobile phone single commission bonus program.The new program shows that glory brand mobile phone bonus = single commission * sales * acceleration incentive coefficient * Contribution to the amount of profit completed in the contribution of a certain amount of profit, based on any positive demand for glory to contribute to the sales volume of the intent is obvious.
2018 China's internationalization of smart phones, no doubt is a fierce battle.
Betting Technology Innovation
At Vivo's annual meeting in February this year, Vivo founder, president and CEO Shen Wei admits that 'vivo's current system, despite the rapid growth in recent years, has been struggling to cope with the entire system to support the existing scale. Already, various problems have been exposed. If we want to make our business long-lasting and healthy for a long time, we must quickly review the amendments and improve them. '
Strengthening scientific and technological innovation and R&D investment is one of the biggest changes this company has been regarded as showing to the outside world in early 2018 by the firms with offline channels and marketing expertise.
At the beginning of the CES show, vivo released the world's first mass production of screen fingerprint phones; and in February MWC, vivo also exhibited the AEPX full screen concept phone, accounting for up to 98% screen, but also so far The industry's highest proportion of screen screen mobile phone.
In addition to the comprehensive screen-related technology, 5G and AI are also the focus of vivo's announcement.
vivo said it has been in the global layout of seven research and development centers dedicated to 5G, AI and other technology research which 5G generally considered by the industry as the next to stimulate the needs of replacement users an important node.According to vivo information released, vivo 2018 start 5G prototype research and development design, commercial terminal introduced in 2019, 2020 will launch large-scale commercial aircraft.
For the smart phone market in 2018, Shen Wei's judgment is that the total domestic market will continue to shrink in single digits. However, he believes that if fewer mistakes can be made, the difficult crisis is often the best time to turn the crisis into a chance.
After undergoing rapid growth in 2016 and review and revision in 2017, can vivo in 2018 be able to break the bottleneck and turn to safety?