On January 26, Counterpoint, an international authoritative market research agency, released the latest data report, which showed that in the fourth quarter of 2023, China's smartphone sales increased by 6% year-on-year6%, the first quarterly increase in more than two years.
In terms of market share, for the whole year of 2023, Apple will win with 17A 9% share tops the list, while vivo tops the list with 16The 9% market share won the top spot among domestic mobile phone brands, and OPPO, Honor, and Xiaomi won the third to fifth places. This is also the third consecutive year that vivo has won the top spot among domestic brands. 
In the treacherous smartphone industry, each manufacturer's products and market strategies are the result of exquisite design, and it is not surprising that any leading manufacturer has reached the top in a short period of time, but it is not easy to sit on the position of domestic sales champion for three consecutive years. The more drastic the changes in the external environment, the more valuable the ability to "stabilize". In 2023, vivo will successfully "stabilize" the first place in China, but this is obviously not the end of vivo. 
Slow down and win**In the era of decline, in order to seize as much market share as possible, manufacturers often choose machine sea tactics to attract consumers, that is, to meet the purchase needs of more consumers through intensive model output. For example, a series launches nearly ten configuration versions, or new models are iterated in just a few months. This strategy can indeed stimulate consumers' desire to buy in a short time, but it will also make the product highlights blurred, and while rushing to grab the position, it also ignores the polishing and technical precipitation of the product. In the long run, it won't really boost **. vivo has long put more time and energy into product polishing. In 2023, vivo's vivo X100 series surpassed the all-day sales of the previous generation X90 series within 5 minutes of its launch, and the first-time sales volume of all channels exceeded 1 billion yuan, breaking all new phone sales records in vivo's history, and ranking among the top three in the market share of $600-800 after listing. 
The results of the vivo X100 series are not surprising. As a perfect score in the new decade, the X100 series is equipped with vivo's self-developed image chip V3 and the new ZEISS optical photography system, which has set off a major iteration of mobile imaging technology at the level of optics, computing power, and algorithms. In terms of performance, the Dimensity 9300, the "all-big core" flagship platform jointly developed by vivo and MediaTek, has brought new ideas for joint innovation in the mobile phone industry, and it is also one of the biggest highlights of the X100 series. Whether it is design, performance, image or battery life, the vivo X100 series has achieved the leading level among models in its price range. Judging from the third-party data, it is also a milestone model on vivo's road to high-end, allowing vivo to truly move towards the high-end top arena and wrestle with Apple. 
It is worth mentioning that the vivo X100 series has also attracted a lot of users from Apple. According to *** data, the vivo X100 series has been on the market for one month, and the overall net inflow of users is as high as 69%. Among them, the net inflow of X100 Pro users is as high as 74%, the inflow of Apple users has increased by 57%, and the sales of X100 Pro have increased by 4% compared with the previous generation5 times. The folding screen is another important battlefield for high-end machines. Unlike most brands that pursue single-function innovation and ignore the overall performance experience, vivo has adopted a strategy of "flagship first, then folding" for folding screens, the core of which is to allow users to use folding screens as the main machine, and truly promote the popularity of folding screens. Vivo's two folding screens, Vivo X Fold2 and Vivo X Flip, launched in 2023, both won the double championship in sales and sales on multiple platforms on the first sale day. Outside the high-end market, vivo's performance is also stable. IDC analysts said that with the persistence of investment and word-of-mouth accumulation of continuous multi-generation products, the X100 series has helped vivo gain high recognition from consumers in the high-end market, continue to increase orders, and rank third in the market share of $600-800 in the fourth quarter. There is a common saying within vivo that if you bury your head in the cause, the effect will come naturally, and 2023 may be the best example of this sentence. When the outside world complains about the market, vivo still believes that smart phones are the best track in the field of science and technology, and persistently invests in it, which ushered in a comprehensive explosion of brand power and technological power. 
Buried in the causeWhat is the "cause" planted by vivo? The only driving force that can drive a technology company forward is a steady stream of technological innovation. According to public data, vivo has 10 major R&D centers around the world, with more than 13,000 R&D personnel, accounting for 75% of the company's total headcount, with an average increase of 20% in R&D investment in the past three years, more than 40,000 patent applications, and more than 400 industry technical standards. These resources have become the most solid reserve for vivo to tackle technical problems and respond to changes in the market environment. The competitive nature of the mobile phone industry is changing. The blind competition of parameters has long been unable to attract consumers to pay, and only by going deep into the change of the underlying architecture can we truly break the bottleneck of innovation in smartphones. vivo can emerge in the domestic high-end machine market, precisely because it understands this truth and has taken real actions. 
In 2023, vivo's biggest progress in R&D achievements is the release of the "Blue Technology" matrix, which includes the blue crystal chip technology stack, blue ocean battery life system, blue heart large model and blue river operating system, which is a collection of vivo's ideas for in-depth study of the underlying technology in the past ten years, and is also a set of successfully verified innovation-driven system. It can even be said that it is the secret of vivo's high-end. Taking the blue crystal chip technology stack as an example, through the self-developed image chip, vivo not only achieved comprehensive self-development of algorithms in the core image scene, but also mastered the full-link technology closed-loop of flagship SoC from planning, R&D to tuning in the process of joint research and development of Dimensity 9300 with MediaTek. In the X100 series, vivo has achieved an integrated design of software and hardware, which is the reason why Apple's mobile phone can take the lead in the high-end market, and it is also a key to Android mobile phones to break through the high-end. In the field of AI, vivo is one of the earliest and deepest mobile phone manufacturers. The blue heart model is the result of six years of brewing by vivo, for which a team of thousands of people has been invested, and more than 20-3 billion yuan is spent a year. In addition, the consensus of vivo's strategic department is that it will be difficult to successfully commercialize large models in the next two years, but this is a necessary way to become a top technology company, and only by daring to invest and firmly investing can we see the results. For mobile phone manufacturers with strong financial strength, the short-term technical gimmick is simple, but it must be difficult to go deep into the change of the underlying technical architecture. As the threshold for R&D gradually becomes higher, every in-depth exploration requires a lot of manpower, material and financial resources. Especially at a time when the smartphone market is not performing optimistically, it takes courage to make such a decision. From Hi-Fi and ultra-thin ten years ago to today's "blue technology", from application innovation to rooting in the underlying technology, from hardware drive to the formation of software, hardware, algorithms and AI integration capabilities, vivo is fully prepared for the new future of smartphones and technology. 
The answer is the answerObviously, vivo's victory in 2023 is not due to a single factor - this year, the company has achieved milestone progress in many aspects such as technology strength, product strength and corporate influence, which is an important reason why vivo has been able to maintain a leading position in the highly competitive mobile phone market. From the source, this is also the result of vivo's adherence to long-termism and countercyclical continuous investment under the attitude of "burying one's head in the cause". "The wise man is the cause, and the effect is not required, the ultimate user-oriented and the ultimate scientific and technological innovation are the cause of all results. On January 30, 2024, Shen Wei, founder, president and CEO of vivo, spoke at an internal conference. This style of behavior is unique in the mobile phone industry, and the reason why it can be perfectly interpreted by vivo is because the company has always practiced the corporate values of "duty". In the past, vivo's duty was not only reflected in the face of external changes and competition, but also to always maintain a calm and enterprising spirit, and insist on returning to the original of things; It is also manifested in the insistence on "user-oriented" at the product level, which is vividly reflected in its four long development tracks of firm design, image, system and performance, as well as the self-developed "blue technology" technology matrix. Nowadays, vivo has a more dimensional interpretation of the cultural values of "duty". After the smartphone industry has entered the stage of stock competition, "one eliminates the other's strengths" has become a realistic portrayal of the results of competition between competitors. In order to compete for the attention of users as much as possible, this electronic technology manufacturing industry has passively integrated into a diversified competition method, one of which is a typical manifestation of the fact that many mobile phone manufacturers increasingly like to use gimmicks to win traffic and shout against each other to win popularity. In the face of the industry's occasional war of words, vivo almost never participates. On the surface, this is vivo's posture as a technology company, but fundamentally, it is due to vivo's values. In the chaotic and chaotic business battlefield, this company does not want to rely on the so-called eye-catching "explosive" speech to attract temporary traffic, but only wants to pursue a simple business philosophy of products and users under long-termism. In the cycle of slow recovery of the market, this business philosophy that is not high-profile, does not promote, and is only responsible for users and products will only be more difficult to win. Because it needs to make a more calm and powerful roar in the midst of a crowd of voices, and radiate the most precise and powerful appeal to its audience in a hard-won display window. This requires vivo to focus more resources and energy on the innovation of the underlying technology and the insight into users. This is also an important step for vivo to achieve three dreams. Shen Wei once said, "vivo people have three major dreams: first, to establish a world-class corporate culture and values; Second, to create world-class great products and services for users; Third, to build a world-class great brand that is respected and loved. In order to realize these three dreams, vivo is convinced that the ultimate user-oriented, the ultimate innovation, and the pursuit of public happiness will be the three only paths. In fact, this is exactly what vivo is going to do in 2024. At the aforementioned internal meeting, vivo said that it will be closer to user pain points, product experience and specific scenarios for users. Facing the steady and long-term development, vivo believes that the pursuit of public happiness with industry partners rather than individual happiness is the key to the long-term and ambitious development of the industry and enterprises. The success of 2023 is not the end, in 2024, vivo will further explore the most difficult areas of smartphones. *The above content does not constitute investment advice, does not represent the views of the publishing platform, the market is risky, investment needs to be cautious, please make independent judgment and decision-making.