On Monday, after eight years of struggle, the domestic mobile phone manufacturer Xiaomi finally listed in Hong Kong. The whole mobile phone circle and even the hottest topic in the technology industry can hardly be separated from Xiaomi. However, Huawei consumer BG CEO Yu Chengdong said before Xiaomi’s listing. He made a comment. He believes that the sign of success and greatness does not lie in the overnight richness after listing, but actually continues to make the country continue to pass longer and greater value.
Yu Chengdong wrote in a circle of friends: 'Many Chinese companies have listed themselves and the overnight rich after the listing as a sign of success and greatness. From this point of view, the two buildings that are only 50 years old are very tall, the distance is 100. The multi-layered and truly highest Shanghai center is a lot low! Business management is a marathon with no end. The real long-term value for the country to continue to cross the line should be the real country! Never proud Complacent, but never arrogant!!'
To be honest, regardless of whether Yu Chengdong’s speech responded to Xiaomi’s CEO Lei Jun, the reason why Yu Chengdong was dubbed “Yudaizui”, has he set up various well-known “targets” for Huawei mobile phones under his control? One of the most eye-catching goals is 'three years of super apples, five years of super Samsung', and Yu Chengdong has repeatedly shouted this slogan in public, and it is this slogan that has caused Huawei to fall into a lot of wars.
In fact, Yu Chengdong's slogan can even be traced back to 5 years ago. As early as 2013, Yu Chengdong has already proposed it, and it has never stopped. In the past two years, Yu Chengdong publicly believed that 'Apple tried to come up with amazing design but faced difficulties, Samsung was abandoned. The flagship mobile phone has been adversely affected. Huawei has now reached the critical point. ' Therefore, 2017 is the perfect time for Huawei to surpass it.
In fact, in the off-season of Apple's mobile phone sales before the release of iPhone 8 in 2017, according to data from the research firm Counterpoint, Huawei's June and July smartphone shipments did surpass Apple in a slight advantage, but did not last for one quarter. The length of time, the statistics of several well-known research institutions have not been reflected, and after the release of iPhone 8, Apple once again regained the status of the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer.
Then, not to mention three years, the maximum period of '5 years' in Yu Chengdong's slogan is the minimum period. In less than half a year in 2018, will Huawei still achieve a true transcendence to Apple?
In 2013, Yu Chengdong dared to propose the goal of 'Beyond Apple Samsung in three or five years', mainly due to the outbreak of P-series mobile phones in 2012. At that time, Huawei P1's global sales helped its market share increase significantly. By 2017, Huawei The global status of mobile phones has been consolidated. According to the annual report of IDC, a world-renowned research institution, Huawei ranked third in the global smartphone market (154.2 million) last year, second only to Apple (215.8 million) and Samsung. (311.4 million).
Although there is still a gap of more than 60 million shipments between the second and third gaps, after Huawei briefly surpassed Apple in the last two months, a lot of analysis is optimistic that Huawei can achieve a true transcendence in 2018. Because it suddenly appeared in August last year. A very good news for Huawei, that is, AT&T, the largest operator in the United States, has initially reached an agreement with Huawei to help Huawei sell smartphones in the United States in 2018. In short, Huawei will officially enter the US market.
However, Huawei’s ambition to expand in the United States suffered a major blow at the beginning of this year. Due to some force majeure factors in the United States, AT&T and Verizon, the two major US carriers, have terminated their cooperation with Huawei, and even Best Buy’s large-scale physical retail in the United States. Shangdu has stopped selling Huawei smartphones. Because Huawei can't reach such a large consumer group in the United States, it is equivalent to a retrogression of Huawei's international market.
Seeing that 'five years' will pass, the time left for Huawei is not much. However, before further answering whether Huawei can surpass Apple's problems, let us briefly explain what circumstances Huawei can really be. Was named the world's second-largest smartphone maker, or the world's second-largest mobile phone maker.
The scale of a mobile phone manufacturer can usually be measured by many indicators. However, since the main purpose of smartphone manufacturers is to sell mobile phones to consumers, smartphone shipments are inevitably the most direct and basic measure. In general, When a mobile phone manufacturer has the largest number of global smartphone shipments in a long period of time, then this manufacturer can be considered the world's largest smartphone manufacturer during this time.
Of course, the shipment volume is not equal to the sales volume. The shipment volume generally refers to the number of smartphones that mobile phone manufacturers ship to operators and channel distributors, while the sales volume refers to the number of mobile phones that consumers actually purchase. Considering the actual sales volume is difficult. Tracking, usually the major market research institutions and mobile phone manufacturers' own statistics are shipment data. And we often have several market research organizations that track global smartphone shipments, such as IDC, Strategy Analytics and Counterpoint. The three institutions are relatively well-known and authoritative on a global scale, and the shortest time for tracking statistical reports is usually 3 months, which is 1 quarter.
Although the statistics of the three organizations are not very different, here we mainly use the IDC data frequently quoted by domestic mobile phone manufacturers as a reference. As shown in the following figure, in the fourth quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2017, Apple is the world's largest smartphone. Manufacturers, because Apple's iPhone shipments in these two quarters exceeded Samsung, the market share is the highest. However, in the first, second and third quarter of last year, Samsung's smartphone shipment market share is the global leader. .
As you can see from the chart below, IDC released the first quarter of 2018 global smartphone shipment statistics, Samsung once again won the world's number one, Apple ranked second, Huawei ranked third. However, if nothing unexpected In the second quarter of this year, Huawei's smartphone shipments will be closer to Apple. This is the second quarter of last year. Back to the above chart, Huawei's shipments in the second quarter of 2017 accounted for the quarter. At 11.1%, Apple's market share is 11.8%, which is the closest Huawei has ever surpassed Apple.
At present, the second quarter of 2018 has ended. In a few weeks, IDC will release the second quarter shipment report for 2018. Can Huawei's second quarter shipments be expected? Can it be. Apple Every year, iPhone shipments are only in the second quarter (April to June) and the third quarter (July to September). I believe this year will not be much different. Considering the third in each year. In the quarter, Samsung and the second Apple in the industry all have new flagship listings, so the second quarter is Huawei's best opportunity.
In the second quarter, Huawei is narrowing the gap with Apple every year. The following is IDC's smartphone shipment report for the second quarter of 2017. It can be seen that Huawei's shipments in 2016 were 32.2 million. The market share was 9.3%, and Apple had a market share of 11.7% with 40.4 million. The difference in shipments was 8.2 million, and the share gap was 2.4%. In the second quarter of 2017, the gap in shipments was reduced to 2.5 million, and the gap was reduced to 0.7. %.
Obviously, the progress of Huawei's mobile phone shipments in the second quarter has been obvious to all in the past few years, so this year's hopes are great, but it must be based on a stable growth rate. It can be confirmed that Huawei and Apple's shipments are growing. Among them, from the second quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2017, Huawei grew by 19.6%. From the first quarter of 2017 to the first quarter of 2018, Huawei grew by 13.8%. Apple's growth is much slower than that of Huawei. From the second quarter of 2016 to the second quarter of 2017, Apple's market share increased by 1.5%, from 2.8% in the first quarter of 2017 to the first quarter of 2018.
This shows that in the second quarter of 2018, if Huawei can maintain at least 13.8% year-on-year growth, and Apple still only grows by 2.8%, Huawei can surpass Apple in this quarter. Because of these two growth figures, Huawei's shipments in the second quarter can grow to 43.8 million units, while Apple can only reach 42.1 million units. Digitally, Huawei has surpassed Apple to become the world's second largest smartphone manufacturer.
However, in the end, in the case of Huawei's most ideal assumptions, Huawei can only surpass Apple in the second quarter of 2018. This second position in the world is not stable. Because Huawei's flagship P20 series was released at the end of March. It is listed in the second quarter, and there are many new products in its own glory. It is not surprising that the sales of the 618 shopping festival and the summer swap are up, but in the third quarter of this year, Huawei will face the competition of Apple's three new generation iPhones. In the second half of the year, it is difficult to compete with the Mate series flagship shipments.
So in general, Huawei's long-term realization of Apple's long-term surpassing is still not difficult. The second quarter is only the most promising quarter. It is difficult to even two quarters, let alone the whole year.
In theory, Huawei's high growth rate is fast, Apple's growth rate is slow or it is still in place. According to this rhythm, Huawei is not empty talker. But as we all know, in the past three or four years, Huawei smartphones have been growing at home and abroad, mainly Thanks to its continuous investment in R&D and manufacturing, and the expansion of active global marketing and sales channels. However, Huawei is unable to enter the US market, and new growth points are bound to be hindered, still relying mainly on China, Europe and Latin America. .
In any case, Yu Chengdong’s earliest proposal of 'Huawei’s Three-Five-Year Super Apple' is obviously difficult to achieve, and Ren Zhengfei, the real power of Huawei, does not like Yu Chengdong’s slogan. Last year, Ren Zhengfei said, 'In three years, Huawei’s service level has caught up with Apple. The profit rate catches up with OPPO/VIVO, so we are very satisfied. 'For the practice of Yu Chengdong's good slogan, he believes that Apple Huawei Samsung should be harmonious, win-win, competition, cooperation, 'destroy Samsung, destroy the apple' and the like. No matter whether it is public or private, it can't be said once, and whoever speaks once will be fined 100 yuan.