> This reflects the reality of the current mobile phone market environment: the current mobile phone manufacturers have no breakthrough major innovation, technical product iterations slow down, if there is no reason to change the machine, users will extend the life cycle of the old mobile phone. In addition, relatively high-end, users are more inclined to buy mobile phones with 2000~3000 yuan stalls.
This is based on three reasons. One of them has no obvious shortcomings under the influence of Moore’s Law. Secondly, hardware design homogenization is becoming more and more obvious. High-end mobile phones and high-end mobile phones. The gap has been shrinking. In China, due to the fierce competition in the price-performance market, many of the current flagship features have been gradually decentralized to low-end models, not to mention the performance of mobile phones in the mid-to-high-end market. The quality is basically close to the top standard. Third, the user change cycle is getting longer and longer. In the United States, consumers will upgrade their mobile phones about every three years, and the previous interval is 2 years. In China, there have been data showing that the replacement cycle has been close to four years.
As the supply, performance and quality of domestic mobile phone products have increased significantly, performance overcapacity has become widespread, resulting in changes in consumer demand elasticity.
From the perspective of demand elasticity, whether the price can cause changes in demand or sales volume depends on the attributes of goods and services. For products and services that are just needed and not just needed, are more substitutable or not strong, the public is concerned about price changes. The degree of response is different. The return to economics is that demand elasticity is different. People have to buy products that are just in need, such as basic necessities for life, medicines, drinking water, etc. Even if the price rises, people still have to buy it. The demand elasticity of such products is small or inelastic. The elasticity of demand for products that are not just needed is much greater.
We analyze the mobile phone product to the theory of demand price elasticity. We will find that if there is less substitute for a commodity, the elasticity of demand will be greater. But at present, there are more and more alternatives for medium and high-end products. For example, domestic Huawei P30 series, upcoming mate30 series, mate20X series, iPhone11, iPhoneXs series released last year, Samsung’s own S10 series, Samsung Note10 series products, are high-end market can replace each other’s competing products, consumers’ choice is not Need to be limited to the iPhone series, coupled with the domestic flagship performance and system experience has greatly improved, the demand elasticity of mobile phones such products has become more and more large.
From the perspective of cost-effective market, from the perspective of realme mobile phones and glory 9X products, even the low-end and mid-range smartphones below 2,000 yuan are good enough, and Xiaomi’s cost-effective strategy has suffered tremendous pressure in the low-end market.
Therefore, mobile phones are unable to support the continued rise in prices in today’s competitive market environment. Even with small gains, consumers tend to abandon this product and purchase more cost-effective alternatives. Cause changes in demand.
From the current 4GThe research report pointed out that it is expected that by 2020, domestic 5G can truly achieve commercial scale, and then the domestic 5G network may cover hundreds of cities.
Therefore, after the launch of Apple’s 5G mobile phone in the second half of next year, the demand for 5G mobile phones will be activated on a large scale. Because Apple is good at not being the first person to eat crabs, but as a latecomer to enter the market as an integrator, to bring out the experience of more mature and polished finished products to promote the heat of the entire market, from the previous big screen From the mobile phone to the full screen, we can all see Apple’s step-by-step time difference strategy.
Because of the wait-and-see attitude of users on 5G mobile phones, there is also a psychology that accounts for a wave of 4G mobile phones. For example, if there is a user, it means: I don’t want to be the first batch of mice. She is aiming at the trend of price cuts on 4G mobile phones and intends to “take advantage of this.” Many manufacturers actually know the user’s thoughts and needs, and the manufacturer is playing the 5G concept, which is also the name for the 4G mobile phone promotion. This round of 4G price cuts, the essence is also the manufacturers to prepare for the next big promotion, 趁 5G eve, through the price cut to earn a wave of 4G mobile phone sales.
We have seen that in addition to mobile phone manufacturers, from operators to e-commerce platforms, they are trying to push mobile phone users from the state of mind-holding to the 5G early adopters. For example, a few days ago, China Telecom has decided to release the mobile phone number of the 5G special number segment in Beijing in September this year. For 4G old users, it is basically not to change cards, not to change the number, just change the 5G mobile phone. In addition, e-commerce platforms including Suning have launched an activity of replacing 5G with 4G mobile phones. Samsung also announced that it will launch similar trade-in activities with operators after its 5G mobile phones are launched.
From the operator to release the 5G special number segment to the e-commerce platform to replace the old, the mobile phone manufacturers to reduce the price of 4G mobile phones, on the one hand is a collective marketing strategy in the same interest chain, driving the sales of 4G mobile phones, on the other hand reducing users 4G Turn to the 5G threshold, promote users to early adopters, and even turn non-changing users into target customers. This is actually an effective marketing method.
5G is coming soon, 4G price cuts, manufacturers’ helplessness and anxiety
There will be no new growth in the 5G era. This is the second half of smartphone manufacturers.
According to the Gartner report, global mobile phone shipments this year will drop by 68 million units from the previous year, a drop of 3.8%. It is estimated that by 2023, 5G mobile phones will account for 51% of total sales, higher than the 6% forecast in 2020.
5G mobile phone sales, 4G mobile phone brand premium will naturally lower accordingly, 5G mobile phone may also bring a wave of price increases, Counterpoint report pointed out that before the 5G chip begins to enter the mid-end mobile phone, it is expected to be 2019 and All 5G mobile phones in 2020 will become high-end mobile phones.
So we see that mobile phone manufacturers have targeted 4