Text |Jin Wei.
The market position of Honor phones has been shaken somewhat.
According to data from a number of ** institutions, in the fourth quarter of 2023, Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Honor, OPPO, and vivo are the top six mobile phone manufacturers in terms of sales. Among them, Xiaomi's mobile phone sales soared by 38% and topped the domestic first, and Huawei regained lost ground with 15The 4% share rose to third. Honor with 11.11 million activations and 13The 9% share ranked fourth, while OPPO and Vivo ranked fifth and sixth, respectively.
In November 2020, Honor officially separated from Huawei to become an independent mobile phone manufacturer, and now in the past three years, relying on Huawei's foundation, Honor has quickly gained a firm foothold in the domestic market and rushed into the top five mobile phones. In the third quarter of 2023, Honor ended with 19The 3% market share once sat on the top spot in domestic mobile phone shipments, but the status of "first brother" was a little unstable.
In September 2023, the return of Huawei's mobile phones has brought the originally anxious mobile phone market into a more fierce competitive situation, and Honor has to face this "highly involutional" market.
In November 2023, Honor announced its listing plan to be listed in China through an IPO. The mobile phone market has entered the stage of stock competition, and if you want the capital market to pay, Honor also needs to do its best to tell new stories. Glory rolls are low-end, roll folding, roll overseas, can it still be rolled in 2024?
At the beginning of the new year, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, spoke out. On January 4, Zhao Ming, CEO of Honor, posted a conversation with Dou Wentao on Weibo**. Zhao Ming reviewed the difficult entrepreneurial journey of Honor after it became independent from Huawei. "It was very stressful because there was a huge uncertainty about the future," he said. ”
Zhao Ming said that we cut off a relatively thick branch bud on Huawei's big tree and inserted it in the ground, and its core values, culture, and spirit are inherited, but different soils, different living environments, and different experiences have also made Honor a new mutation, and Glory can no longer become Huawei. "The glory that is not defined is precisely to have the best space for growth and infinite imagination. ”
On November 22, 2023, Honor announced that in order to achieve the next stage of the company's strategic development, the company will continue to optimize the equity structure, attract diversified capital to enter, and promote the company's landing in the capital market through initial listing. This announcement clearly stated that Honor would go public through an IPO, which directly refuted the rumors of backdoor listings one after another.
In the interview, Zhao Ming responded to the topic of Honor's listing, saying, "We want to be an open and global company, and we must gradually hand over the company to the public and increase transparency." Zhao Ming said that today's glory, the profit realization rate of cash flow is 120% to 130%, and there are tens of billions of cash flow lying on the account.
In November 2020, Huawei's overall ** Honor business assets no longer hold any shares of New Honor, nor do they participate in operation and management decisions, and Honor officially separated from Huawei and became an independent mobile phone manufacturer, and the independent development of Honor has been questioned in various ways.
At the beginning, Honor was positioned as a market below 3,000 yuan, defending the online and low-end markets for Huawei, so the Honor brand was labeled as a low-end market.
Zhao Ming once said that after leaving Huawei, Honor has made it clear that it wants to hit the high-end market, so now there are Internet products that focus on technology and fashion, as well as digital series products that focus on mid-to-high-end products, and Magic series products that focus on high-end business.
Fortunately, Honor has proved itself with strength, and after these three years, Honor has gradually gained a firm foothold and achieved the top five results of domestic mobile phones.
According to data from market research agency IDC, in 2021, Honor will ship 13.8 million units, 117% of the market share returned to the top five positions in the market; Shipments in 2022 increased by 344%, it was the only major mobile phone manufacturer in the Chinese market to achieve shipment growth that year.
In 2023, Honor will continue its strong performance in the past two years and achieve growth against the trend. According to the IDC report, in the third quarter of 2023, China's smartphone market shipped about 67.05 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 63%。Among them, Honor's market share in the third quarter of 2023 is 193%, ranking first in front of OPPO, Apple, vivo, and Xiaomi.
Although Honor is separated from Huawei, the reason why Honor has achieved such a scale of achievements is more or less related to Huawei, and Honor can still see a lot of "Huawei shadows", for example, in terms of product appearance, the rear camera layout of Glory's flagship product Magic series looks like Huawei's Mate series. The phenomenon of cross-selling in some channels between Honor and Huawei has virtually blurred consumers' cognitive distinction between Honor and Huawei. Many offline stores have adopted the marketing strategy of "treating Glory as Huawei".
But why did Glory only last for a quarter before falling in the fourth quarter of 2023?
2023 is known as a milestone year for China's mobile phones.
This year, Huawei's mobile phones, which had been silent for nearly three years, regained their strength, and the Huawei Mate 60 column and the folding screen Mate X5, which were not released in September of that year, fired the first shot of the king's return. At the same time, Huawei pressed the acceleration button for the transformation to "Hongmeng", and wanted to share the world with iOS and Android in the operating system.
With the rise of domestic high-end machines such as Huawei, China's high-end smartphone market, which has been dominated by Apple for many years, has been broken, and the pattern of Apple + "OV Rongmi", which has occupied China's mobile phone market for many years, has been broken, and the mobile phone industry has ushered in a new reshuffle.
The re-boiling mobile phone market due to Huawei has made the originally scorching mobile phone war more competitive. In order to maintain market share, various mobile phone manufacturers are firing on firepower, especially aiming at the high-end market, making a big fuss about technologies such as folding screens, operating systems, AI large models, and satellite communications.
In terms of strategy, Glory still continues the strategy of "machine sea tactics".
At present, Honor's mobile phone product line is divided into X series, digital series, Magic series, Play series, Play series, etc., to cover all market segments as much as possible.
While conquering the mass market, Honor continues to make efforts in high-end products, and the folding screen has become an important breakthrough.
In 2023, Honor will release three folding screen products, Honor Magic V2, Honor V Purse, and Honor Magic VS2, which focus on flagship configuration, stylish appearance, and thin and light experience, respectively. Honor folding screen won the sales championship of many folding screen categories during the Double 11 period, among which Honor's magic V2 won the first market share of folding screen single products in the current season.
In the third quarter of 2023, one of the important reasons for Honor's significant sales growth and domestic shipments peaking is its layout of the folding screen mobile phone market. According to an IDC report, Honor has significantly increased its share in the high-end market above $600 with 3 new folding products, and the thinnest folding screen mobile phone is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
On November 17 of that year, Zhao Ming said on Weibo that Honor has grown into a leader in the field of folding screens, achieving the top of China's smartphone market and folding screen market.
However, the folding mobile phone market is fierce, Huawei and Samsung are the leaders of folding screens, and OPPO and vivo have also taken folding screens as the focus of market development in recent years.
In September 2023, Huawei launched the largest folding screen mobile phone Huawei Mate X5 through the Pioneer Program, which occupied the top spot in the folding screen market in just one quarter.
The data shows that the share of the Huawei brand in the fourth quarter of 2023 is 5123%, accounting for half of the market share, and the market share of Honor folding screen mobile phones is 1554%, and Samsung, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, etc. share the remaining less than 47% of the market. In other words, in just one quarter, the folding market changed the king's flag.
In addition, there has been news recently that Apple will launch a new folding screen product at the end of 2024 and ship it on a large scale in 2025, and the competition in the folding screen market will become more intense, which will also further impact the Glory market.
In addition to the high-end market, Honor also targets the overseas market. Zhao Ming said that Honor wants to build Europe into a second domestic market, and its core strategy is to build a high-end brand in Europe and compete with Apple and Samsung. ”
In December 2023, Wan Biao, vice chairman of Honor, revealed that in the first three quarters of this year, Honor's overseas mobile phone shipments increased by more than 300% year-on-year, and it is expected to achieve exports of 17 billion yuan this year.
However, overseas markets are also highly complex and challenging. In 2023, represented by the Indian market, Chinese brands such as Xiaomi, vivo, and OPPO will be frustrated, and many overseas executives of enterprises will be investigated and overseas funds will be frozen, which will hit these brands harder, while the European market is a highly competitive place for high-end mobile phones.
At present, the red sea of the low-end market is the reality that Honor has to face first, and the high-end market is facing the squeeze of Huawei, Xiaomi, etc., for the glory of the listing is already on the bow, if you want the capital market to pay, Honor needs to do its best to tell a new story, which leaves Zhao Ming with less space and time.
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