China's strategic emerging industries financial reporter Bu Wenjuan
Approaching the end of the year, it is time for mobile phone manufacturers to "sprint".
Following the launch of Xiaomi 14 units in November, Xiaomi's flagship model equipped with the third-generation Snapdragon 8 chip,Each is coming up with its latest flagship at the end of the year, such as Realme GT5 Pro, OnePlus 12, Meizu 21, and mid-range phones are not to be outdone, and manufacturers have launched their own killer features, iQOO Neo9, OnePlus Ace 3 and Vivo S18.
As the main force of sales in the mobile phone market, mid-range mobile phones have naturally become a "battleground" for mobile phone manufacturers, and both mobile phone manufacturers and mobile phone chip manufacturers have begun to focus more on the mid-range market. Whether these mid-range phones can occupy a place in the mid-range market is a test for various mobile phone manufacturers.
Strive for the mid-range machine market
From the perspective of the entire market, the mobile phone market has signs of recovery.
According to TrendForce research, the total global smartphone production in the third quarter was about 30.8 billion, an increase of 13% month-on-month, although it is not as high as the pre-epidemic level, but compared with the same period in 2022, an annual increase of about 64%, ending an eight-quarter annual recession cycle.
For the domestic market, recent data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology shows that in October 2023, mobile phone shipments in the domestic market will be 291620,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 197%, of which, 5G mobile phones 264350,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 355%, accounting for 90% of mobile phone shipments in the same period6%。From January to October 2023, the overall shipment of mobile phones in the domestic market will accumulate 23 billion units, a year-on-year increase of 42%。
New growth is not easy to come by, how can manufacturers seize the market?
According to BCI data, in November 2023 (W44-W48), the number of new smartphone activations in the Chinese market reached 28.71 million units, a year-on-year increase of 127%。Among them, Xiaomi accounted for 183%, ranking higher to the domestic brand.
First, the second in the industry, the number of activations increased by 44% year-on-year1% to 52430,000 units.
Xiaomi's pricing strategy is also one of the important factors in its success. In addition to Xiaomi's Redmi brand, OPPO, Honor, Huawei, Vivo, etc. have also released products for the mid-range market. The "battle for recovery" in the mid-range mobile phone market is about to begin.
After entering 2023, OnePlus will take the lead in cutting prices. The Redmi K60 series followed up, and a few days ago, the realme GT Neo5 decided to launch a new 16GB+512GB large memory version. The situation of major mobile phone manufacturers fighting for mid-range machines to seize market share has intensified.
It is reported that the vivo S18 series was unveiled at the press conference on December 14. In terms of performance, the vivo S18 standard version will be equipped with Qualcomm's third-generation Snapdragon 7, which has an ultra-high score of one million, while the vivo S18 Pro will be directly equipped with the flagship Dimensity 9200 processor, which can achieve an ultra-high score of more than 1.58 million.
It is reported that Huawei's new generation of mid-range flagship mobile phones nova12 series is currently further online and will officially debut on December 26. Currently, the standard and Ultra versions of the nova 12 have been connected to the network, and the latter supports 100W fast charging. The Nova 12 series is confirmed to have a version with the Kirin 5G platform.
Mobile phone manufacturers have also made no secret of their "ambitions" for the mid-range market. Xu Qi, vice president of realme, president of global marketing, and president of China, once said that the capacity of China's online market this year is about 75 million units, and the market capacity of the price range of 2000 yuan to 3000 yuan is about 12 million units, and the goal of realme is to win 30% of the online market share in this price segment.
Lu Weibing, partner of Xiaomi Group, president of the group, and general manager of the Redmi brand, saidThe "middle" in the middle is not the mean, but the mainstayThe emergence of Turbo is to make the flagship experience super popular and lead the new pattern of mid-range.
From cost performance to quality-price ratio
In the past, the mid-range mobile phone market emphasized "cost performance", but now with the user's requirements for mobile phone performance and the upgrading of the industry's marketing war, they have begun to emphasize the "quality-price ratio".
As the name suggests,The quality-price ratio is not only the comparison between the quality of the product and the product, but also the comparison between the design, service and product quality of the product. This is a test for mobile phone manufacturers.
In order to seize the market, manufacturers have to improve product design at the same time, and launch a large price reduction campaign, especially some flagship mobile phones, which have fallen to the level of mid-range machines.
For example, the vivo X90s is a good example. This mobile phone3999Yuan mainly relies on the appearance to attract consumers,At present8GB+256GBThe standard version**has dropped to 2958 yuan,Directly from the high-end market to the mid-end market,12GB+512GBThe top version** is currently 3564 yuan。
In addition, the **substantial** of the realme GT5 is mainly due to the intensification of market competition, and manufacturers have to reduce ** in order to seize market share. The Realme GT5 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor and is also equipped with a 120Hz refresh rate screen, which makes the swiping and gaming experience smoother.
Xu Qi, vice president and president of realme China, said at the press conference that although the global sales of realme have exceeded 200 million units, the Chinese market is still very small. The Chinese market will always be the strategic market and base camp of the real me. In the future, Realme will focus on the two ace series of GT and digital, build the GT series into the king of performance, make the performance ceiling of the same gear, build the digital series into a mid-range subversive, and define the digital series with flagship standards to bring users a more transcendent experience. I really want to surpass the same level of product power, exceed expectations, and be the king of the quality-price ratio of Chinese mobile phones.
In addition, OnePlus, Redmi, and Meizu have also joined the price reduction camp. How to make your mobile phone more attractive is testing the major mobile phone manufacturers.
The large model is loaded into the phone
Previously, the innovation of the mobile phone industry has long been concentrated in the fields of cameras, screens, communications, materials, chips, etc., and at the moment when the global mobile phone market is weak, it is difficult to stimulate consumers' desire to buy.
After the outbreak of ChatGPT, AI has become an important consideration for users to change their phones and choose mobile phone brands in the future. IDC expects thatThe use of AI models on mobile phones is expected to break the lack of innovation in the mobile phone market for many yearsThe demand for higher performance of hardware is also conducive to promoting some users to change their phones. However, the real use scenarios of AI large models have not yet been clarifiedVoice assistantIt is still the main way to land.
At the end of June this year, at the MWC Shanghai Mobile Communications Conference, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, said that he would take the lead in introducing AI large models to the device side. At the beginning of August, at the Huawei Developer Conference, Yu Chengdong, executive director of Huawei, said that Hongmeng 4The 0 system will usher in a new voice assistant "Xiaoyi", which includes functions such as knowledge acquisition, logical reasoning, task planning, memory expansion, tool calling, and production assistance. In August, Lei Jun, CEO of Xiaomi, said that Xiaomi fully embraced large models and had established a Xiaomi AI large model team in April. On November 16, OPPO officially launched the Andean large model ANDEAN model with independent training and exclusive personality. In November, vivo's new X100 series smartphones were the first to be equipped with vivo's self-developed AI model.
So far, the four major domestic mobile phone head companies, Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo have all devoted themselves to self-developed large models.
It is understood that the current self-developed large models mainly include end-side large models and cloud large models.
The so-called device-side large model is more efficient, cheaper, and safer in many scenarios. In addition, the lightweight, network-free device-side large model has inherent advantages in response speed, computing power requirements, and information protection, but it cannot be comparable to the cloud large model in terms of model capabilities.
The large cloud model needs to transfer server computing power and data transmission, so there are also cost and security issues. The vice president of vivo has said that the average cost of calling a cloud large model is currently 12 points - 15 cents. Considering that each mobile phone manufacturer has at least hundreds of millions of users, if each person makes 10 calls per day, the annual cost will reach tens or even tens of billions of yuan. It is unrealistic for manufacturers to bear this part of the cost for a long time, but it will also reduce the user experience and willingness to pay for it.
In order to achieve a balance between the large model experience and the performance of the phone,At present, vendors have generally adopted the strategy of "device-cloud collaboration".Deploy both device-side and cloud-based models to select according to different application scenarios and requirements.
For example, vivo officially launched a self-developed general large model matrix, including a total of 5 models with three parameter levels of billion, 10 billion, and 100 billion. The 7 billion blue heart model 7b, a device-cloud dual-purpose model built for mobile phones, performs well in scenarios such as language understanding and text creation. 1 Billion Blue Heart Large Model 1b, a professional text model built for device-side scenarios, with localized text summarization and summarization capabilities, and the processing process is accurate and safe. The 70 billion blue heart model 70b, the main model for cloud services, performs well in scenarios such as role-playing and knowledge quizzes. Among them, the vivo S18 series will be equipped with AI blue heart large models, becoming the first batch of AI large model mobile phones.