Smartisan, which has been under fire for years, suffered a sales setback last year, with only 2 million units sold in the past five years. Although Smartisan saw an improvement in sales in 2017, the nut Pro, which was launched in May 2017, sold about 1 million units in just a few months, accounting for half of its sales in the past five years. But in the ever-changing mobile phone market, can Smartisan achieve a comeback?
Take the “feelings” route, the road before smartisan mobile phone difficult
In the era of the rise of smart phones, xiaomi, OPPO, Huawei, Vivo, Honor and other mobile phone brands quickly seized the market and became the leading brands in the current mainstream mobile phone industry, while SONY, Nokia, IUNI, Big Cola and other mobile phone manufacturers failed to resist the pressure and gradually withdrew from the mainstream mobile phone field. In 2017, the “dark horse” Smartisan mobile phone, which was favored by many people, reversed its development situation and gained a lot of “hammer fans” by virtue of its low price, main feelings and unique personalized design. However, amid the cheers, smartisan’s pain points remain.
According to relevant data, Smartisan T1 smartphone launched by Smartisan in 2014 sold only 250,000 units a year after its launch, while the highly personalized Nut phone launched in 2015 sold less than 1 million units. In 2015 and 2016, the company was still in a loss state, with a loss of 462 million yuan in 2015 and 427 million yuan in 2016. Especially in 2016, Smartisan has repeatedly encountered a financial chain dilemma. Internally, its products cannot be sold, and externally, its negotiations with Aliyun failed. What caused smartisan’s lackluster performance in 2017?
First of all, just like Luo Yonghao, founder of Smartisan, smartisan takes the route of “feelings”, and only a small number of users truly consume based on the phone itself. However, this kind of strategy that relies on “feelings” to gather users together is difficult to support the long-term development of enterprises. Just like Meizu, which focuses on “craftsman spirit”, and Nokia and blackberry, which use feelings to carry out brand premium, the gradual loss of end users also indicates that this move is not long-term after all. For Smartisan mobile phone, after having a large number of “hammer fans” through feelings, it has also separated other consumers. Is the so-called into also feelings, also feelings.
Secondly, when Smartisan was launched, it was difficult to export the product due to its high pricing due to its lack of originality and low brand effect. There is no shortage of premium products in the mobile phone market, such as Apple. But their products are original and have brand appeal. For Smartisan mobile phone, a “newcomer” in the mobile phone industry, consumers do not know much about the product, and the high price of the product at the beginning has scared off many consumers. Although the price has been adjusted later, it has already missed the best sales period. As a result, Smartisan mobile phone sales into the “winter” state.
“You don’t make money selling mobile phones, you just make friends with everyone.” This is what Luo Yonghao, founder of Smartisan Technology, often says. Compared with three or four thousand mobile phones in the market, smartisan mobile phones have changed from the high price at the beginning of the price war. But now, huawei, OPpo, Vivo, Xiaomi and other mobile phone brands either consolidate their high-end positioning, or have formed their own style and system in the mobile phone industry. In the mobile phone market, cost performance is not the only choice for consumers. In this sense, smartisan phones with affordable prices do not have much of an advantage in the mainstream mobile phone market.
Finally, data from Rising Sun shows that in the first half of 2017, Samsung’s market share was 22.7 percent, Apple’s was 13 percent, while the domestic market shares of Huawei, OPPO, Vivo and Xiaomi were 10.4 percent, 7.7 percent, 5.7 percent and 5.4 percent respectively. These six mobile phone brands alone have occupied 64.9 percent of the market share. Smartisan entered the smart phone industry late, and the remaining market share is small. In 2017, although Smartisan mobile phone had a rising trend, it was still difficult for smartisan to join the forefront of the mobile phone industry in the face of xiaomi, Huawei, OPPO and other first-tier mobile phone brands.
And now, consumers pay more attention to the functionality of mobile phone products than feelings. Although the brand effect of nut Pro series mobile phone market is far less than Xiaomi, Honor, Apple, etc. However, after experiencing many hardships, Smartisan mobile phone has also found a path suitable for its own development.
The dark side, the hammer phone desperate survival
Smartisan has been on the edge of the mobile phone industry since its launch and faced the danger of being eliminated many times during its development. Even Luo Yonghao, founder of Smartisan, said he was ready for the company to merge and be acquired. But after all that, Smartisan hit back in 2017.
Nokia, SONY, Lenovo and other mobile phone mainstream manufacturers have stepped down, at present, the mainstream mobile phone brands on the market are Xiaomi, Apple, Vivo, Huawei, OPPO, honor. In 2017, Smartisan launched the Nut Pro series of mobile phones, which aroused the interest of consumers and won a lot of “hammer fans” with its unique design style.
2017 is an important year for Smartisan mobile phone, because in this year, Smartisan mobile phone, which has repeatedly failed in the mobile phone industry, finally ushered in its spring.
According to JD.com’s 3C data last year, Smartisan Mobile Nut Pro won the title of single product sales champion for nearly three months. Compared with 2016, sales of Smartisan mobile phones on JD increased by more than 2,700% year on year in 2017. In August 2017, Smartisan obtained about 1 billion yuan of financing, which provided sufficient food and ammunition for launching the new Smartisan mobile phone and relieved the pressure of smartisan’s capital chain.
Compared with Smartisan, which almost “died” in 2016, Smartisan began to expand the layout of smartisan mobile phones after making progress in 2017. After received around $1 billion of financing, the hammer technology CEO Mr Luo said that in 2017 will launch 5 to 6 new products, and in May 2017, released a hammer nuts Pro phones will direction from the application layer to layer of the system, the product positioning, meet the demand of the mobile phone market will promote the high three low grade of products, Mobile phone manufacturers to regularize.
Moreover, in 2017, jingdong financial and hammer technology cooperation agreement, to provide full industrial chain of financial services to the hammer mobile phone, through the jingdong enterprise data provided by the financial industry chain, analysis the hammer mobile phone in the purchase, production, sales, transportation link condition to predict the risk of lower hammer mobile phones meet risk, reduce the production cost, improve efficiency. The strategic cooperation between JD Finance and Smartisan has brought many advantages to Smartisan. On the one hand, it can reduce the shortcomings that Smartisan cannot efficiently promote products due to supply chain and other problems. On the other hand, it can also help Smartisan resist the pressure of corporate financing, and improve the healthy development of Smartisan in business to a certain extent.
After going through the “dark period” in 2016, Smartisan has made a major reform in 2017, and recently won the Dark Horse award of the mobile phone industry issued by West China Metropolis Daily Cover News. Now Smartisan firstly adjusts its product pricing, which greatly improves its competitiveness in the mobile phone market with the same price. The second is to start product innovation, enhance product diversification function.
Luo yonghao has said that smartisan aims to sell 4 million to 6 million smartphones in 2017. Among mobile phone brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei and Samsung, whose sales volume reaches 10 million is the norm, Smartisan’s target is not big, but it is still difficult for smartisan to achieve this target given that the smartphone market is nearly saturated.
With rapid iteration, who can survive in the mobile market
China’s mobile phone market after more than ten years of development, a batch of dead mobile phone manufacturers, and constantly new mobile phone manufacturers into the bureau. Nowadays, the development of the mobile phone market has gradually approached the ceiling, which means that the mobile phone industry will enter a period of survival of the fittest in today’s diversified mobile phone market.
Smart phones have gradually become homogenous, with products basically similar in appearance and function. Full screen, fingerprint identification, high-definition photography and so on, these are not the only criteria for consumers to choose products. At present, the premise of attracting consumers to consume products is product quality and innovation, creating personalized products and distinguishing products from other products. Just like the iPhonex’s first facial recognition system, there is a wave of “facial recognition” in smart technology as well as providing hot spots. How to solve the basic similar functions and other problems is the market challenge smartisan will face.
With the development of science and technology and the increasing functions of mobile phones, people are becoming more and more dependent on mobile phones. Nowadays, people can handle a lot of work and life problems through mobile phones, which means that mobile phones need to have a large enough memory storage. In addition to the large storage space, smartisan also faces the challenge of making the mobile phone more lightweight and portable. Smartisan mobile phone has always followed its own style in appearance design. Its appearance is relatively tough and will bring freshness to consumers in the short term, but when the freshness is exhausted, people will choose more lightweight and portable mobile phone styles.
All in all, the mobile phone industry has developed so far, and every new product launch marks the beginning of another technological innovation. At a time when mobile phone iteration is so frequent, if mobile phone manufacturers want to continue to develop in the market and not be eliminated, they should not only improve the user experience, but also solve the existing problems such as technology, sales channels and functions. Always pay attention to market demand, launch new products in line with the development of The Times and consumer demand.
Liu Kuang, meditation on the Internet, wechat official account: Liukuang110