To use one word to describe the mobile phone market in the past year, I think it can only be described as "small joy, big worry". Everyone's usage experience is better, and there are more and more choices in the same price range, but the overall mobile phone The market's performance is not as optimistic as we imagined.
##(Picture source: Apple official website)
according to According to the July domestic mobile phone market operation analysis report released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in July 2023, the domestic market mobile phone shipments were 18.552 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 6.8%, and the overall situation is still in decline. Obviously, almost all manufacturers have stated on Weibo that their new phones have sold out again and ranked first in sales in the same price range. However, it is obvious that the mobile phone market has not picked up due to these promotional terms from mobile phone manufacturers. Why has it taken so long? Is the mobile phone market still unable to return to its peak stage?
There has been some recovery, but it is far from enough
In fact, looking back at the mobile phones released in the past year, Xiaolei I sincerely feel that the mobile phone market is indeed getting better and better. Flagship products are doing better and better in terms of image, texture, screen, etc., allowing mobile phones to do more and more things, and mid-range products are getting closer and closer. Flagship products, it can be said that from low price to flagship price, there are one or even several products suitable for consumers to buy. But the problem is that everyone's enthusiasm for mobile phones seems to be getting lower and lower. Obviously, the product quality is getting better and better, and it is becoming more and more suitable for users. Why can’t mobile phones be sold?
(Photo source: Photographed by Lei Technology)
As a As a digital enthusiast who has witnessed the development of smartphones from scratch to excellence, Xiao Lei is very aware that today’s mobile phones are becoming less and less attractive to consumers and the market. Thinking back to Xiao Lei’s childhood, Nokia, Tianyu, Gionee, and Sony Ericsson all brought various innovations in form or function. Even if these functions are somewhat useless, users may not use this function once until the mobile phone is scrapped, but It was this idea of daring to innovate that made the mobile phone market flourish at that time.
Take Nokia as an example. At its peak, its market share reached 40%, but now the most popular iPhone has a market share of no more than 20%. It can be said that people’s mobile phones were updated quickly at that time because mobile phone functions and designs were emerging one after another.
Since mobile phones entered the era of large-screen smartphones, it is regrettable that mobile phones in the full-screen era are almost the same. They are nothing more than improving performance, improving images, and doing more The so-called professional terms are difficult to bring too much surprise and impact to consumers. In fact, people are more concerned about the practical functions of mobile phones. As long as they can make calls, send text messages and access WeChat, there is no hard need to replace their mobile phones. This has led to people to change their mobile phones to a certain extent. The frequency gradually slowed down.
(Picture source: Huawei official website)
In addition to hardware In addition to innovation, the development of mobile phone software has actually reached a bottleneck period. Most of the mainstream apps running on our mobile phones today have hardly changed their gameplay in the past ten years, and their performance requirements have not improved. Mobile phones purchased two or three years ago can run newly released games effortlessly; moreover, there are still many users who do not play games, and there is almost no need to replace their existing mobile phones if they can be used normally.
Take Xiao Lei as an example. He is still using an iPhone 13 Pro from two years ago. Apart from WeChat, Alipay, Weibo, and Bilibili, there are almost no There are no additional usage scenarios, so when faced with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro that will be released later, I don’t have any fluctuations in my heart, and I even plan to replace the battery and use it for another year and a half. You must know that Xiaolei was a user who had to buy a new phone every six months. This also proves in disguise that there is really no major improvement or change in today's mobile phone market.
(Photo source: Apple official website)
In addition, the report also There is an information point worthy of attention. Among the 18.552 million mobile phones, 5G mobile phones accounted for 15.05 million, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%, accounting for 81.2% of mobile phone shipments in the same period. From January to July 2023, the cumulative number of new models launched 238 models, a year-on-year increase of 6.7%, including 103 5G mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 14.9%, accounting for 43.3% of the number of new mobile phone models launched during the same period.
It can also be seen from this point that the product strength of mobile phones is indeed gradually increasing. Currently, most of the mobile phones that only support 4G on the market cost 500 to 600 yuan. Yuanji, and with the continuous improvement of technology, future 100yuan phones will gradually abandon the 4G network and fully embrace 5G, which can also improve the user experience.
The mobile phone market needs more new blood
Of course, it cannot be said that there is no innovation at all in the mobile phone market. The Samsung Galaxy Fold, which was born in 2019, has brought major reforms and innovations to the mobile phone market and has become an important innovation direction in the mobile phone industry.
Folding screen mobile phones have become more and more popular in recent years. Almost all mobile phone manufacturers have released their own folding screen products. According to the "2023 Folding Screen" released by JD.com According to data analysis from "Interesting Illustrated Guide to Screen Mobile Phone Trends", sales of "folding screen" mobile phones on the platform increased by more than 100% year-on-year in the first two quarters of 2023. An IDC report shows that shipments of the domestic smartphone market in the first quarter of 2023 fell by 11.8% year-on-year, while "folding screen" mobile phones increased by 52.8% year-on-year.
(Photo source: Photographed by Lei Technology)
Facing intelligence With the sales volume of the mobile phone market declining, "folding screen" has stood out from many mobile phone categories and has become a relatively mature product track through development in recent years. This shows that innovation is always an important reason for the continuous progress of a market. Even if it may be a bit tasteless and not so user-friendly, as long as you are willing to update, there will definitely be consumers willing to pay for it.
But in the final analysis, folding screen mobile phones are just a means for manufacturers to seek differentiation of mobile phones, but how to make this market grow bigger and radiate to the entire mobile phone market , is still a point that major mobile phone manufacturers need to work hard on.
In fact, looking at the mobile phone industry in the past year, mobile phone manufacturers have not "slumped". Instead, they have spent a lot of effort on innovation, and even reduced prices significantly, A series of external factors such as enhanced after-sales service are used to stimulate user consumption, but this stimulation effect is obviously not enough. With the continuous improvement of mobile phone performance and peripheral configurations, the service life of mobile phones is getting longer and longer. In this case, we want to make the mobile phone market It can be said that it is very difficult to return to the top.
Although it is unrealistic, Xiaolei really hopes that a dark horse can come out of the mobile phone market, so that it can drive and promote the development of the entire mobile phone market, so that more people can Mobile phone brands feel the pressure and throw out their "box treasures" in advance.
September can be said to be the busiest month in the mobile phone market in the past year. The release of Huawei Mate 60 series caught many consumers off guard, and the rush to buy it has been intense to this day. Still not gone, the iPhone 15 series released last week also caused a lot of panic buying among Apple users. According to Xiaolei’s observation, orders for the iPhone 15 Pro series are basically scheduled until mid-October, which shows that Apple’s popularity is still not low. So can these two mobile phones lead the mobile phone market to gradually recover, or even return to its peak? None of us know for sure, and we can only draw conclusions after subsequent relevant data comes out.
As Huawei returns and other domestic Android manufacturers establish a high-end product rhythm and brand image, the high-end mobile phone market will usher in a new reshuffle. At present, it will still take time for the smartphone industry to recover, but the industry may usher in a new pattern of "thousands of sails racing" in the future.
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