The reason why the United States is so afraid of Huawei is not only because Huawei "beats" a number of American companies in the field of 5G communications, but also because Huawei is persistent in core technologies and strong R&D capabilities. With its annual R&D investment of over 100 billion yuan, it has also reached the level of comparing or even surpassing American companies in key areas such as chip design, smartphones, and cloud computing .
However, as the US implemented a chip ban, HiSilicon Kirin chips were forced to stay on the drawings, and Huawei's high-end chip market share was gradually widened by , Qualcomm, and . In terms of smartphone business, after Huawei faded out of the competition, , Apple, and became the biggest beneficiary, and in 2021 alone, it "gained" hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue in the domestic market, making it the only one.
Although Huawei's experience is regrettable, on the good side, the US's cut off the supply of has inspired the "fighting spirit" of other domestic manufacturers. In order to take over the "big stick" from Huawei and carry the "big banner" of domestic brands, domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi OV have shouted slogans to benchmark Apple and released a series of dazzling high-end flagships.
Unexpectedly, since entering 2022, the global smartphone market has encountered a "cold winter". Domestic mobile phone manufacturers have collectively declined sharply due to the "cold air".
According to public information, China's smartphone shipments in the third quarter were 66.9 million units, and fell 16% year-on-year compared with . Among them, the biggest declines were vivo, OPPO, Honor and Xiaomi , reaching 21.4%, 26.8%, 14.8% and 15.9% respectively.
Even worse news is that the sea of machines adopted by domestic mobile phone manufacturers to impact the high-end market has now brought severe inventory challenges.
Data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that in the first half of the year alone, the number of smartphones produced in China was about 576 million, and the latest models were as many as 168. However, the cumulative shipment volume of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is only 136 million units. Even with the export volume, the inventory of finished products in the domestic mobile phone market is at least 50 million units!
Through these data, it is not difficult to feel the inventory pressure faced by domestic mobile phones. Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that during Double 11, the prices of domestic high-end mobile phones collectively shrank, with the highest price reduction reaching about 2,000 yuan. Some mobile phones that used to be priced at 5K may now be available in 3K.
But what makes people laugh is that consumers don’t seem to “buy” about this, and many netizens even said that they can reduce it even if they wait a little longer.
For this phenomenon, domestic mobile phone manufacturers generally believe that the main reasons are external factors such as the cold-stricken smartphone market, as well as the lack of consumption capacity of young people and the reduced desire to buy new phones. But is this really the case?
Recently, CINNO has counted the latest data on the share of major brands in the domestic high-end mobile phone market. If 5K is used as the threshold for high-end mobile phones, Apple's share accounted for as high as 79.2%! However, the total number of domestic mobile phone manufacturers is only about 20%, about one-quarter of Apple's.
In addition, while domestic mobile phone sales continued to decline, Apple iPhone 's sales in September reached 4.6 million units, and increased by 26.8% year-on-year, ranking first in the domestic mobile phone market. Can this be said to be the bad market of smartphones and the lack of consumption capacity of young people?
It is not difficult to see from the above data that the "fig leaf" of domestic mobile phones has been torn off by Apple, its peer. Obviously, the fundamental reason for the cold sales of domestic mobile phones is not the market, but the fact that when comparing Apple iPhones, the brand influence is insufficient, and it is just a high-end name, but not a high-end reality.
The appeal of the central media needs to be taken seriously. When Huawei was "bottled", the central media called on our companies to increase R&D, diversify their layout, and reduce their dependence on US technology.
can be seen in domestic mobile phone brands. Although they are not stingy with costs in various configurations, they are collectively Android in terms of systems, and the CPUs are all Qualcomm Snapdragon or MediaTek Dimensity. It is difficult to form a complete ecological system, and it has no ability to resist "supply cut off".
Due to the serious homogeneity, domestic mobile phone manufacturers still have the "power of fighting" in the Android camp. However, when facing the combination of Apple's self-developed ios system and A-series chips, it seems that they can only be "beaten". Therefore, if domestic mobile phones want to truly stand firm in the high-end market, they must start from core technologies and create a unique brand image.
However, domestic mobile phones are not without surprises. Although Huawei is still facing the pain of "core breakage", the high-end mobile phone business has obvious signs of recovery. The first sale of Huawei Mate 50 series exceeded 4 million units, and the outside world's expectations are even more than 10 million units.
Although the Huawei Mate 50 series does not have 5G functions and does not have Kirin chip , it is very popular. The main reason is that Huawei has increased the domestic production rate to more than 70%, such as Hongmeng system, Beidou satellite communication, XMAGE imaging technology, domestic screens, etc. What’s more important is that
More importantly, Yu Chengdong has made many statements that Huawei’s mobile business will return to the 5G “track” in 2023. By then, Huawei will probably be able to get back what it has lost.
hope other competitors can also learn from Huawei, and do not blindly pursue configuration parameters and ignore quality experience, but insist on independent research and development, with the goal of mastering core technologies, and improve the brand's domestic production rate. Only in this way can domestic consumers consciously take the "domestic camp" and domestic mobile phones can usher in a feast of "a hundred flowers blooming" as soon as possible. What do you think about this?
