2017 was a turbulent year for the global mobile phone market. The global mobile phone market is becoming saturated, and since the third quarter, the global mobile phone shipments have not increased but decreased, making the shaky international mobile phone market worse, making the major mobile phone manufacturers panic. In the context of a 6.3% decline in the global mobile phone market as a whole, the “OV Huami” four days of king can be seen in 2018.
Sailing against the current, “OV Huami” four days king performance is steady
In the “countercurrent” of the mobile phone market in 2017, the domestic mobile phone “OV Huami” new Four Days king braved the torrent and performed well. Huawei, OPPO, VIVO and Xiaomi all maintained steady growth in mobile phone shipments while the overall shipments of Chinese mobile phone market declined by 8%. “OV Huami” can swim against the current, and can swim against the current for four reasons:
First, “OV Huami” brand effect brings good news
Brand effect can effectively promote and distinguish its products, stimulate consumers’ inner desire to buy, and thus stimulate the growth of sales.
Huawei has done the best in brand building among many domestic mobile phones. Specifically, Huawei adopts the “dual brand” strategy in brand building. In the field of conventional brands, Huawei mainly establishes its high-end brand image. Its “Meat” and “P” series have successfully entered the ranks of high-end mobile phones. In the field of Internet brands, Honor focuses on the young user group and the middle market, and becomes a rising star of Internet mobile phone brands. With “Huawei” and “Glory” in hand, huawei, the giant ship, firmly ranked third in the world last year.
OPPO and VIVO set up brand image mainly through advertising and other means, and cater to the preferences of young or female consumer groups, enabling them to rapidly occupy the mid-end mobile phone market from 2015 to 2016, and become the leader in domestic mobile phones. Even in the midst of a “headwind” in the mobile market in 2017, the company achieved 12 percent year-on-year growth.
Xiaomi has many fans for its slogan of “born for fever”, but its brand image has been difficult to shake off the labels of “high with low price” and “low-end mobile phone”, which has been synonymous with low-end phones and cost performance for a long time. However, Xiaomi slowly shed its low-end phone title in 2017, mainly due to the epochal launch of the Mi MIX series, which successfully helped establish its brand image as a “dark technology” and enabled Xiaomi to deliver an impressive 74.5% year-on-year growth in 2017.
2. Small innovations play a big role
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a short step; “Ovhuami” in 2017 mobile phone market in the “upstream”, can not be separated from the accumulation of small innovations in recent years.
Huawei has been at the forefront of the domestic mobile phone industry in terms of small innovations. Whether it was the launch of 3D Touch on Meat S in 2015, or the introduction of tri-camera on Huawei’s P20 this year and the GPU Turbo graphics processing technology that followed, small innovations have helped the company go against the current.
OPPO, VIVO can be so popular, a big reason also lies in its good at small innovation. When users are worried about battery life, OPPO took the lead in developing VOOC flash charging technology to greatly improve charging efficiency; As users become more interested in taking selfies, OPPO and VIVO have pioneered the use of front-facing fill lights and improved the pixel size of front-facing cameras to match that of rear-facing ones. This series of small innovations may seem trivial, but they actually solve users’ pain points.
Xiaomi is a leader in small innovations in domestic phones. The most influential innovation is the launch of the “all-screen” mobile phone. Nowadays, all-screen mobile phone has become a general trend, but it is not Apple or Samsung that brings all-screen into our lives, but a Chinese company named Xiaomi. It was this “small” innovation that made Xiaomi the biggest dark horse in the mobile phone industry in 2017.
Third, the sales channel is increasingly perfect
“Even a clever housewife cannot make bricks without rice”, so is mobile phone sales. In the context of the global mobile phone market shrinking in 2017, the improvement of sales channels has largely become an important reason for “OV Huami” four Days king upstream.
Huawei has done a good job in sales channels, not only a wide range of sales channels, but also many sales channels. Huawei’s sales channels are divided into online and offline, and the proportion of the two sales channels is balanced. The online channel focuses on Honor series, while the offline channel focuses on Huawei brand. Online sales are mainly huawei Mall, JINGdong, Tmall, etc. Offline sales channels include operators, mobile phone chain stores, mall counters, distributors and a series of complete sales channels.
OPPO and VIVO rely more on offline sales channels in terms of sales channels, but online sales channels are becoming increasingly perfect. Its offline sales channel is the most perfect manufacturer in China, forming a complete offline sales channel of provincial generation — local generation — chain stores & mall counters, operators and distributors; Online sales channels also include JINGdong, Tmall, own mall and other channels, and are constantly improving their online sales channels.
Xiaomi is not comprehensive in sales channels, but its speed of improvement is commendable. Xiaomi has gradually changed from a single online sales model to a combination of online and offline sales model. Before, the offline sales channels were mainly Mi Home, but now they also include distributors, chain stores and other channels. Online sales channels include Mi Mall, jingdong, Tmall and other third-party platforms.
Fourth, strong capital into the mainstay, help “OV Huami” upstream
“OV Huami” has a huge group to do the financial support, so that it can make a series of favorable measures to stimulate sales growth in the mobile phone market downturn, solid capital can be said to be the biggest guarantee for “Four Days king” to rush forward.
Huawei phones are financially supported by Huawei Group. In 2017, Huawei entered the list of the world’s top 50 companies for the first time, with a total revenue of 603.6 billion YUAN. With huge capital leverage, Huawei mobile phone can solve problems without worries even when facing the risk of mobile phone market decline.
OPPO, VIVO two behind the BBK group figure. Better Life Group is one of China’s top 500 companies, and its revenue is expected to reach 100 billion in 2018. Even if the growth rate drops in 2017, it cannot prevent the growth of OV brothers’ shipments. Behind better Life’s capital output is indispensable.
Xiaomi phone behind the whole Xiaomi group as a backer, in the peer growth slowed last year, using its huge capital to quickly make a series of measures, was able to seize the market downturn and successfully upstream.
Swimming upstream is no easy task, and it takes skill to steer
In 2017, although there are “OV Huami” torrent brave feat, but most domestic mobile phone manufacturers due to a variety of reasons, in the face of the mobile phone market this “countercurrent”, appear at a loss. What skills should they learn to swim upstream?
First: establish brand image, form brand effect. In front of the analysis of “OV Huami” said the importance of brand image, brand effect brings inestimable value. Meizu, for example, which could compete with Xiaomi a few years ago, is now left in the dust. An important reason for Meizu’s difficulty in the mobile phone market is its low brand awareness and lack of brand effect.
Second: pay attention to innovation, create product differentiation. In the era of similar performance of mobile phones, people not only look at the performance of mobile phones so simple, but also pay more attention to product differentiation. In other words, at the same performance and price, users are more willing to buy mobile phones with their own product characteristics. At present, mobile phones on the market are “bangs”, “double shots”, “flat UI” and so on, which is seriously homogenized, which provides some manufacturers with an opportunity to swim upstream, so how should they innovate and create product differentiation?
In terms of system, the most serious problem of homogenization is the monotonous flat UI, which causes the aesthetic fatigue of users. If you want to go upstream, you can make differentiation on the SYSTEM UI to meet the aesthetic needs of users. For example, HOS with a minimalist style, in the user is widely praised.
At the hardware level, the biggest impact on the phone is the battery. At present, including Apple, Samsung and other first-class large factories are using lithium battery, due to the limitation of battery material mobile phone battery life is generally short, according to apple official documents, iPhone charging times of 300-500 times, not only short battery life, but also small battery capacity and insufficient battery capacity. For example, 360 N6 Pro focuses on battery life. Although there is still no breakthrough in battery materials, it achieves an exaggerated 5000 mah in battery capacity, and the phone is only 8.7mm thin. 360 N6 Pro won the title of top seller in the Super Brand Day event held by JD in December 2017.
Third: broaden sales channels to escort mobile phone sales. Except for the current “Four Days king”, other mobile phone manufacturers have very single sales channels, either offline sales mode or online sales mode, which has not formed a complete sales channel ecology. For example, why did the sales volume of OnePlus mobile phone, which has always enjoyed a good reputation, only reach 4 million units in 2017 in the four years since its establishment in 2013? An important reason is the single sales channel, its main sales channel for online sales model, offline sales blank. It is essential for OnePlus to expand its distribution channels if it is to swim upstream in the current of the mobile market.
In short, in the face of the overall weak mobile phone market “upstream”, such as “OV Huami” industry giants as long as reasonable use of their own advantages, and make some countermeasures, the upstream is not very difficult. But for other domestic handset makers, the adverse effect of the current mobile phone market is fatal. If you do not advance, you will fall back. The law of survival is immutable. Only by taking technology as the boat, innovation as the paddle, and expanding channels as the sail, can you advance in the torrent, find your own survival and development space in the mobile phone market in 2018, and create your own future.
Article/Liu Kuang public account, ID: Liukuang110