All mobile phone manufacturers have a hard time.
Responsible editor / A sea
The news that China ’s mobile phone sales are slowing down is spreading in the market.
There are two voices in the slowdown market. One is that China ’s domestic mobile phone market is oversaturated, and major manufacturers have no new innovation growth points. The other is that 5G is coming and more consumers are Waiting for cheaper and more affordable 5G phones.
Recently, market research agency IDC released the latest smartphone shipment report. Global smartphone shipments in the second quarter fell 2.3% year-on-year, with total shipments of 333.2 million units, an increase of 6.5% over the previous quarter.
Not only is mobile phone sales slowing down, but some manufacturers ’mobile phone downstream channels are also spreading prices.
“It’s very surprising that the sales volume didn’t feel any obvious change, but some of Huawei’s mobile phones have indeed risen in price.” Zhang Jun said in a slightly surprised tone. Zhang once owned three distribution channels in Beijing. With the closure of the Princess Grave mobile phone store, he had to narrow the scope to Zhongguancun and Muyiyuan.
In the past, domestic machines will not have large-scale price increases. Even Xiaomi has a premium due to lack of stock. It is the first time that Zhang Jun has encountered an increase in the price of goods with sufficient supplies. Here.
“The prices have been increased in the upstream, do we not mention them?” Meng Yang, who is also engaged in the wholesale of mobile phone channels, is also puzzled by this price increase.
The upstream mentioned by Meng is just one of his delivery channels, Shenzhen Huaqiangbei. Here, thousands of people are engaged in the distribution and wholesale of electronic products, and there are hundreds of channels.
In the middle of this year, Liu Nan, a channel distributor of domestic mobile phones in Huaqiangbei, found that the price of Huawei mobile phones has quietly increased, and many mobile phones have been out of stock. This situation occurs in Huawei Machine, that is, within the price of 1000-2000 yuan.
Liu Nan opened 18 mobile phone lines in Guangdong, Fujian and other placesUnder the exclusive store, Huawei’s mobile phone sales accounted for 55% of his overall sales, and the rest were occupied by manufacturers such as Xiaomi and OV.
Unlike Huawei’s price increase, Xiaomi and OV’s offline channels still maintain a stable level, and sometimes even reduce prices.
“It’s hard to understand. When some downstream mobile phone stores heard that Huawei’s prices had risen, they had to pick up less because they were compressing dealers’ profits.” Liu Nan told Wise Finance.
Huawei’s price increase situation occurred in the spring of 2019. Since the Meng Wanzhou incident, a number of Huawei low-end devices have increased their prices.
“High-end machines have not been affected, and the basic impact is more than 1,000 yuan.” Liu Nan found that since then, more and more people have started buying Huawei phones, and you do n’t even have to actively sell or advertise to them .
“The best-selling nova 5 is a mid-range model.” Hebei dealer Gao Dong has been busy selling and distributing nova 5. For a mid-range model, this time it can He was surprised by the unusual sales.
Although Ren Zhengfei claimed in an interview with the media, do not associate Huawei with Patriot, it is just a commodity. But in the eyes of consumers, buying a Huawei phone is equivalent to patriotism. This is a double-edged sword. As consumer enthusiasm soars, Huawei’s sales target is also rising sharply.
Liu Nan revealed to Wise Finance that Huawei is quietly increasing its market share in some regions. The original 40% is now 60% or more. This sales target has brought dealers in some regions. Some stress.
According to “Wise Finance”, Huawei’s goal in the domestic market this year is 50% market share, which is equivalent to more than 200 million mobile phone sales.
The layout of the China Mobile Circuit has already been determined. However, no one can predict what will happen in the future. When Huawei hit the domestic and international markets first in successive years, a “war” across the ocean broke the original pattern, which affected the trajectory of the Chinese mobile phone market.
So, suddenly there was a new change in this thorny track. How should major manufacturers respond to Huawei ’s U-turn?
1.Huawei sinks
Sino-US relations have directly affected the pace of Huawei ’s overseas expansion, and also affected the development of its US business. In July this year, Huawei announced that the US branch will lay off more than 1,000 people.
For the US market, Ren Zhengfei said in an interview with the media: “I do n’t know what the motivation of the United States is. It does n’t matter if we do n’t do it in the United States for the time being. As for whether it is possible for us to enter the US market, it does n’t matter to us. It ’s important because I do n’t have the U.S. market, and I ’m also the world ’s number one. We do n’t urgently need the concept of the U.S. market. ”
It is reported that Huawei has laid off more than 1,000 peopleThey have been allocated to the third and fourth tier cities and rural areas to supplement Huawei’s shortcomings in these sinking markets. At the same time, some of Huawei’s overseas mobile phones were also shipped back to China.
“This time their decision was very surprising.” Gao Dong told us that Huawei usually ignores third- and fourth-tier cities because these sites are occupied by OV. Now even Huawei is coming for fun. .
In the current market where mobile phone sales are extremely saturated, Huawei has been hovering in the mid-to-high-end phone series, while its lower-end machine is the responsibility of its brother brand Glory.
“Play Xiaomi with Xiaomi.” Zhou Yu said, “In the past, the Honor brand has been playing against Xiaomi, and even learning Xiaomi’s play, and now Honor has started to sink offline.” , Honor’s first official offline store officially opened in Chengdu.
Today, the territory of Glory is also quietly expanding. Spin-off from Huawei’s traditional model and separate its own Internet mobile phone brand, Glory has gone through six years of ups and downs.
And just six years later, Huawei will also be able to attack the city on a low-end machine. In the first step, it chose to capture the offline market. According to Zhou Yu, Huawei will set up its own offline retail stores and after-sales outlets in cities and counties by the end of this year.
“Huawei wants to sink as fast as possible to replace the OV market.” Zhou Yu said. Obviously, this is difficult. Qianglong can’t beat the ground snake, but driven by the brand effect and interests, the ground snake is surging secretly.
The red chrysanthemum logo gradually replaced the blue-green logo in these areas. OV has always been a model of the policy of surrounding the city in the countryside, and it is also the nail of the eye and the benchmark for learning for all mobile phone manufacturers. However, now the army of Huawei must also participate in predatory with OV.
More and more copycat shops and mom-and-pop shops began to be compiled by Huawei. They became regular troops overnight. It was in this kind of environment that Huawei authorized shops popped up from the ground.
The sinking market pattern is suddenly changing.
“Gather more people and more merchants to come to Mi OV, but now seeing some effects, but still can not resist the strong camp of OV.” Zhou Yu felt, “people touch people,” “people rob people.” The time has come.
Huawei ’s attack barely had some effect. Liu Nan and Gao Dong closed several Xiaomi experience stores in Guangzhou and Hebei, respectively, while shrinking part of their OV business in their stores to sell Huawei all. Guan Mi OV, Kai Huawei has gradually appeared in sinking cities on the third and fourth lines.
More dealers feel that Huawei is not worried about sales volume at present, as long as any products with Huawei can sell well, it can also guarantee their due profits.
Huawei is even more urgent in this year’s mobile phone layout. Liu Nan was informed that there will be several blockbuster models at the end of this year, including the blockbuster Mate 30, which will also be listed half a month in advance.
Zhou Yu revealed that Huawei is already doingThe release also brought Meitu customized version of the phone, which completely transplanted Meitu’s algorithm in the photo algorithm, but the appearance of the phone did not follow the appearance of the Meitu phone, but the Xiaomi series. Appearance. This also caused some female consumers to recognize only the appearance of Meitu, but not the appearance of Xiaomi.
Meitu’s fiasco in the mobile phone business still stems from the pinch of head manufacturers, but at present, the pressure from head manufacturers is still huge. Huawei withdrew from overseas, while Xiaomi OV increased domestic demand to attack overseas.
4. “Battle” to the second battlefield
A Tao, who came to Thailand in 2014. Before that, he has worked hard in the mobile phone industry for nearly ten years, and he has witnessed the changing situation of domestic mobile phones.
“There are also millet stores in Thailand, but not many, and millet is mainly sold well in Indonesia.” Compared with the Indonesian market that is most valued by Xiaomi, the Thai market is much more deserted. But there is OV in Xiaomi’s deserted place.
In Thailand, Xiaomi’s storefront is basically an authorized franchise, and the form is almost the same as the domestic authorized experience store. In terms of international layout, Xiaomi also seems to value the construction of the ecological chain more. “When my store opened, I didn’t buy much mobile phones. I still ran around with some gadgets.” A Tao recalled to “Wise Finance” that the sales of peripheral products were indeed hot, mainly using bracelets and mobile power. Mainly.
It is also Thailand. The layout of OV is ahead of Xiaomi, and the scale is also larger than Xiaomi.
According to market research firm Canalys, in the fourth quarter of 2018, in the ranking of Thai mobile phone market share, OPPO reached the top with a market share of 22.2%, a year-on-year increase of 69.8%. Followed by Samsung, Huawei, vivo.
OPPO launched its overseas market layout in 2009, and Southeast Asia has been the focus of OPPO’s efforts as its first stop in exploring overseas markets. “My store is also doing Huawei OV, to be honest, the best sales in Thailand is OV, Huawei is worse, Xiaomi has few models.” A Tao added to “Wise Finance”.
In the international market, the four major brands of Huami OV are equivalent to the four major mobile phone families from China, and the areas under the control of these “four major families” are also different.
For example, OV has a high market share in Thailand.Xiaomi has a higher market share in India, and Huawei has a higher market share in Europe. Each family siege in different areas.
It is reported that Huawei has also begun to enter India. At the beginning of this year, it announced that it would take 10% of the market share in 2019.At the same time, Huawei also invested $ 100 million in India for local production and opened 1,000 in the next three years. Yujia stores.
Xiaomi ’s smartphone market share in India is still steadily increasing, and it has ranked first for the seventh consecutive quarter. In addition, Xiaomi has entered the top five in the mobile phone market in more than 40 countries and regions around the world.
Redmi President Lu Weibing said in an interview with the media that the overseas market still uses Redmi as the main force. Although it remains first in India, it still needs to explore more international markets, such as focusing on the European market this year. Currently, Redmi is ranked fourth and will continue to catch up.
According to Counterpoint data, in Q2 2019, in the Indian high-end smart phone market, OPPO’s sibling OnePlus phone ranked first with 43% of the market, surpassing Xiaomi in one fell swoop.
Whether it is domestic or international, the market pattern has been surging undercurrents, constantly changing positions. When the pace of the market gradually slowed down, the strategic approaches of various manufacturers also began to converge, and they were also opening their own second battlefields.
On August 9th last year, Huawei Hongmeng System was officially unveiled. According to the official definition, this is a microkernel-based distributed operating system for all scenarios. The system has been developed as early as 2017, and the direction is the Internet of Things. The next day, Huawei released a smart-screen TV equipped with the Hongmeng system. In this regard, Yu Chengdong said that Huawei supports Glory, to build Huawei’s dual brand strategy of Glory, and to make a smart life full scene.
It can be seen that this system is a system developed specifically for the Internet of Things, mainly for the next generation of IOT devices, but now it seems to more people that this is a sword against the Android system.
But Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei’s consumer business, expressed an uncertain tone at the conference. “If Google Android is not developed for Huawei, we can enable the Hongmeng system at any time.” But then he explained that Huawei still insisted on using Android first.
This shows that Android has formed a completed ecological industry chain, and EMUI is also based on Android system for research and development, while Hongmeng System has just gone through 2 years of research and development process, although it has reached the commercial level, but want to perfect the system Ecology still has a long way to go. Therefore, for a long time, improving the ecology will be the biggest challenge facing Hongmeng.
And Zhao Ming, President of Honor, added that Honor does not do traditional TV, but uses the spirit of mobile phones, and uses innovative technology to accelerate the evolution of the traditional TV industry.
This may be one of Huawei’s strategic layouts. In the context of facing both internal and external attacks,At the same time, he is also doing his own internal work.
Huawei, which has just sunk in the domestic market, is facing a strategic adjustment of MiOV, and it will be eaten by Samsung in the European market share. At present, MiOV’s international perspective has not touched Europe. Not only Huawei, MiOV is also facing severe tests. No matter in terms of channel or terminal innovation and layout, it will face resistance from Huawei.
In 2019, the Chinese mobile phone industry is “staging” on the second battlefield while stabilizing the first battlefield.
Note: Respondents have requested pseudonyms in the text.