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For every 7 phones sold, 1 is a 5G phone.

Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “Yiou” (ID: i- yiou) , author: Xia Yizhe, editor: Tang Yu-ting.

5G and ecology are undoubtedly the main theme of competition in the mobile phone industry in 2020. And small and medium-sized manufacturers may face a fierce battle.

On December 12, Meizu Technology threw out the topic “How to experience Meizu 17 for the first time?” on Weibo. Although the “Revealed” event the following day was the “Annual Image Contest”, the gimmick of the official proof photographer for Meizu 17, the first 5G mobile phone of his own, is undoubtedly building momentum for the 5G era.

No matter whether 5G can bring market shuffling opportunities to small and medium-sized manufacturers, at least a huge increase will be released. In the first year of 5G, the demand for 4G mobile phones has gradually weakened, and the number of 5G base stations has not reached the point where users’ “waiting and watching” sentiment has completely disappeared.

Mobile phone manufacturers have not been idle. While tentatively releasing 5G mobile phones to keep up with the trend, the competition for the IoT ecological scene has also intensified.

5G and ecology are undoubtedly the main theme of competition in the mobile phone industry in 2020. And small and medium-sized manufacturers may face a fierce battle.

Mobile phone market in 2020

In November, it is no longer appropriate to describe the Chinese 5G mobile phone market with “throwing stones to ask for directions”.

According to the statistics of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the domestic shipments of 5G mobile phones reached 5.074 million in November, which has exceeded the total shipments of the previous 10 months. In the same month, the sluggish 4G mobile phone shipments were 28.299 million units.

This means that for every seven phones sold, one is a 5G phone.

November 2019 mobile phone shipments by different network standards and their proportion

Behind the shipments of more than 5 million units are consumers who have crossed the two gaps of limited coverage and higher mobile unit prices.

Due to the higher input cost of base stations and the fixed construction period, the scope of 5G services is still limited. rootAccording to the statistics of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, currently there are about 126,000 5G base stations in China. According to preliminary estimated data, 680,000 5G base stations will be built in 2020, and then we will strive to cover all prefecture-level cities across the country.

In addition to coverage, price is also a major “pain point” for 5G products. The earliest 5G mobile phone released in China, ZTE AXON 10 Pro, is priced at 4,999 yuan. New phones for Huawei Mate and vivo NEX are around 6,000 yuan, and the relatively cheap Xiaomi and vivo iQOO are also above 3500 yuan.

Considering that Redmi launched the 1999 K30 5G which will be officially launched in January, the release of low- and medium-priced 5G mobile phones will allow demand to be released soon.

The tide of changing machines has made manufacturers salivating, but how to eat this piece of cake undoubtedly needs to be carefully considered. After all, as the upstream supply chain becomes more mature, selling points are hard to find, and differentiated competition is becoming increasingly difficult.

The competition among mobile phone manufacturers shows the characteristics of more and more intense selling points and more and more sub-brands.

Selling points need to be “grabbed”. One is because the upstream supply chain is becoming more centralized, the hardware is becoming more homogeneous, and the right to speak is becoming heavier. The second is because the domestic market is indeed fiercely competitive and the response is slow. .

Many key components of mobile phones have been concentrated in the hands of one or two manufacturers on the head.

Taking mobile phone chips as an example, since MediaTek has left behind, only Apple, Huawei, and Samsung have the ability to develop their own processors. Among them, Samsung often mixes Qualcomm processors on its flagships.

This led to the three major Android manufacturers, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo, all subject to the development and supply of Qualcomm Snapdragon. The X50 5G baseband originally released by Qualcomm only supported NSA (non-independent networking), which undoubtedly slowed down the layout of the Android camp, and Huawei seized the opportunity with the Baron 5000.

The concentration of mobile phone screens is also quite representative. Except that Huawei only uses BOE screens, other mobile phone manufacturers’ flagship models will basically choose Samsung’s screens. The gap between them mainly lies in adjustment.

In particular, AMOLED screens in mid-to-high-end mobile phones, Samsung has accounted for more than 90% of the AMOLED market for a long time, and BOE has gained a place with the strong support of Huawei. As the technology of AMOLED becomes more and more mature, it is replacing LCD. Relying on its deep technology accumulation, Samsung will have a stronger say in the supply chain.