According to the latest quarterly mobile phone tracking report released by market research institute IDC, shipments of China’s smartphone market in the first quarter of 2018 decreased by about 16.0% year on year, lower than the level of the same period last year, continuing the decline in the fourth quarter of 2017. The gradual saturation of the domestic smartphone market has led to a decline in smartphone shipments.
In the increasingly competitive smartphone market pattern, it is still turbulent, facing the test of the market at any time. To deal with the various tests of the market or to understand the mind of mobile phone users, even apple, Huawei these head players, may also face the crisis.
User experience is the key to reversing the decline in smartphone shipments
China’s smartphone market is becoming saturated, which is an inevitable reality, but Chinese smartphone users are changing their phones for longer periods, which is another important factor leading to the decline in smartphone shipments. According to a survey conducted by Counterpoint in October 2017 among 3,500 residents from different countries, the global average time for smartphone switching is 21 months, while the Average Time for Chinese people to switch phones is 22 months, which is higher than the global average.
In the domestic smartphone market, apple, Huawei, Honor, OV, Xiaomi and other brands occupy more than 70% of the domestic market share. Objective view, these brand mobile phone is the brand of choice for domestic mobile phone users, and the service life of these brands and quality are better, to a certain extent, the long life cycle, but the real cause user replacement cycle longer core lies in market lacks real smart phones can bring a better user experience.
At present, the iteration cycle of mobile phones of different sizes is short, the appearance and performance of mobile phones are seriously following the trend, and there is a lack of innovation. It is difficult to have new core technology explosion point to trigger the purchase intention of large-scale users. User experience has always been a sore point for many smartphone users. One mobile phone stuck, poor heat dissipation effect, fragile screen, performance defects and other common problems are still plaguing users; Secondly, mobile phones are becoming more and more homogeneous and lack of a new sense of experience, resulting in increasingly tired consumer demand for mobile phones.
In order to create a better user experience of smart phones, the major brands of mobile phones began to do their best to find a breakthrough to recover the temperature, some in the screen, some in marketing strategy, and so on. After the launch of iPhone X, Apple will continue to launch a cheap version of iPhone X, aiming to expand its brand advantage to different levels of consumer groups, further increase users and recover the market. Huawei and Honor continue to adhere to technological breakthroughs and innovations in electronic products to constantly refresh users’ mobile phone experience and stabilize their no.1 position in the domestic market. For example, Honor recently released Honor Play, which adopts Huawei’s latest GPU Turbo technology and is equipped with EMUI8.2 system for the first time. It is also equipped with a 10nm ARTIFICIAL intelligence NPU chip.
Xiaomi went left, and its price soared in exchange for a lack of technology
As for Xiaomi, in order to create a better user experience, Xiaomi also introduced a lot of dark technology on their latest flagship mi 8. Aligning with the iPhone X, for example, introduced a Face ID technology, other such as rear cover is transparent, pressure screen fingerprints, and they think “scary” dual-frequency GPS and so on, though, compared with millet previously released mobile phone still has a degree of technology upgrade, but few self-developed black science and technology, let alone technical change.
In recent years, there has been no big improvement in mi’s research and development ability, but the price does not rise by the limit. The price of Mi 8 mobile phone is also much more expensive than previous mobile phones, among which the price of low version is 2699 yuan, and the price of high configuration version is 3299 yuan. However, it also makes many users who are used to xiaomi’s low-priced phones unable to experience the user experience brought by the technological upgrade of Mi 8 due to its high price.
In fact, not only Xiaomi, the technology behind many phones will inevitably lead to a significant price increase. Take Apple’s iPhone X for example, although it adopts Face ID technology, wireless charging technology, virtual reality technology, AR technology, gesture recognition and other new technologies, iPhone X has greatly increased the already high price of iPhone, 64GB version 8,388 yuan, 256GB version 9,688 yuan. It also left many users who wanted to try out the new iPhone X technology out of the experience because of the high price tag. Despite rumors of a cheaper version, the iPhone X was never released. There have even been reports recently that the cheaper iPhone X may be delayed due to screen issues.
Because, for the majority of mobile phone users, often because of the high price and can not feel the new experience brought by the new technology, has always become a big regret…
Glory to the right, behind the technological revolution is the return of 1999 yuan price
Backed by strong research and development capabilities, Huawei has been leading the industry in innovative technologies such as AI and photography in recent years. The GPU Turbo launched this time is also a breakthrough technology based on the industry’s graphics processing demand spurt and GPU upgrade problem. As Yu said at the press conference, GPU Turbo solves the long-standing problem of Android by using software and hardware synergy, and brings unprecedented transcendent to Android system. The first phone to use the technology is Honor’s flagship Honor Play, which gives many Android phone owners hope.
In addition, we have noticed that Huawei has applied many of the latest cutting-edge technologies to honor Play phones for the first time, making the user experience similar to “flying in the sky” and “running on the ground” compared to ordinary phones.
It is equipped with Huawei’s newly developed GPU Turbo technology, which upgrades software and hardware coordination and greatly improves graphics processing efficiency, especially in game experience, ensuring a balance between high performance and low power consumption. Equipped with 10nm ARTIFICIAL intelligence NPU chip, the power consumption of the mobile phone can be reduced by 20%. Users can not only play games and watch videos for a longer time, but also keep the mobile phone at a constant temperature, without worrying about the high heat emitted by mobile phone games. EMUI8.2 system for the first time improves the phone’s quick response and operating system fluency.
But what really makes users feel deeply is that Honor Play can realize the affordable price of 1999 yuan despite such a huge technological change. Honor Play, as an Internet flagship mobile phone, carries many core technologies and returns to the price of 1999 yuan. Its original intention is to let more users feel the changes brought by technology to smart phones, and let more users feel the “flying” mobile phone experience brought by technology.
For the whole smart phone industry, behind the price of glory Play1999 yuan, will bring a scientific and technological inclusive performance revolution to the whole mobile phone industry.
In the future, the performance revolution brought by technological upgrading will become the main theme of smart phones
Means the demand response to the user, or price war means of dealing with the instant effect of is just take temporary solution not effect a permanent cure, can really set off buy demand is the key point of mobile phone users, and return to the user experience is the fundamental way to return to the user experience is to let the root or the performance of the mobile phone disadvantages have qualitative leap in general.
Whether it’s the new technology upgrades brought about by Apple’s iPhone X or the technological revolution brought about by Honor Play, they all aim to improve the performance of their phones so as to improve the user experience. So, for many smart phone brands, in the end from what aspects to improve the performance of the phone?
Mobile users are still growing, and so is the amount of time they spend on their phones. The number of mobile Internet users in China reached 753 million as of December 2017, 57.34 million more than at the end of 2016, according to a report by the China Internet Network Information Center. The proportion of Internet users who use mobile phones to access the Internet increased from 95.1% in 2016 to 97.5%, and the proportion of Internet users who use mobile phones to access the Internet continued to increase.
“2018 Q1 Mobile Internet Industry Data Research Report” shows that Chinese mobile Internet users spend an average of 3.9 hours on mobile apps every day. There are more and more mobile phone users, and users spend more and more time on mobile phones, which is enough to see that this kind of rigid product still has sufficient market demand. Games, live broadcasts and videos are the main time consumption points of mobile users, which are most directly related to users’ visual sense and tactile sense. The visual sense and tactile sense of mobile phones directly affect users’ sense of experience.
Then king glory, travel the frog, the fifth personality these long-term hot style loved by the player or instant hot style or differentiation hot style mobile game challenges players to stay, confident to make the game manufacturers, continuously improve the quality of the interior and the exterior of game products, and but when playing games on mobile phone itself lead to the engine, caton phenomenon, there is always can’t improve the gap in technology. Therefore, both players and mobile game manufacturers are looking forward to further breakthroughs in mobile gaming experience. According to Atomico, mobile games in China are worth $24.4 billion, backed by 600 million mobile gamers.
Second, Kuaishou, Douyin and other live streaming industry with fire, various kinds of content emerge in endlessly, visitors to the road network red brush out of the gift list also constantly impact people’s eyes, virtual consumption potential is infinite. Online entertainment applications saw the highest annual growth in the number of users of live streaming, reaching 22.6 percent, the data showed. Similarly, mobile phone users reported a higher visual experience when watching live and short videos.
Therefore, the most fundamental experience demand of mobile phone users is the visual and tactile experience that mobile phones can bring, that is to say, the continuous upgrading of these mobile phone performance is the best way to improve user experience. Honor Play is equipped with GPU Turbo, artificial intelligence NPU chip, EMUI8.2 system and other latest technologies to comprehensively improve users’ visual and tactile experience, and will surely lead a new round of smartphone performance revolution. In particular, GPU Turbo, which is called “scary technology”, will have more breakthroughs in graphics processing in the future, such as professionally designed mobile phones, 3D video mobile phone visibility, etc.
In general, when the growth of the smartphone market is sluggish or even declining, users will be more impressed by the perfect combination of price and experience. The performance revolution brought by technological upgrading will become the main melody of the smartphone market in the future.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110