The data show that the average change cycle of mobile phone users has exceeded 31 months

This generation of young people don’t like to change their mobile phones. How can they break them?

◎ our reporter Liu Yan

In addition to the upgrading of processors and the renovation of hardware such as cameras, we have not seen the really bright black technology of smart phones for a long time, and the innovation of smart phones is hitting the ceiling. How to continuously impress users has become a common problem faced by mobile phone brands.

Cypress pine

Independent analyst of communication industry

According to the analysis report on the operation of the domestic mobile phone market recently released by China information and Communication Research Institute, in February 2022, the shipment of mobile phones in the domestic market was 14.864 million, a year-on-year decrease of 31.7%; Among them, the shipment of domestic brand mobile phones was 12.783 million, a year-on-year decrease of 34.7%.

Today, smartphones are selling more and more expensive, but they lack transformative innovation. Mobile phone “nail households” have spread from the elderly to the younger generation, and the golden age of mobile phone consumption has become a memory.

Only when the overall development bureau is broken, can the industry enter a major bottleneck period.

The slowdown in smartphone demand is an indisputable fact

According to the report of ConAs, a research organization, since the first decline in China’s mobile phone shipments in 2017, it has fallen for four consecutive years; It was not until 2021 that shipments increased slightly by 1%.

Under the superposition of various factors, it is an indisputable fact that the demand for consumer electronics represented by smart phones has slowed down.

According to the data released by the industry analysis company counterpoint, the average change cycle of mobile phone users has exceeded 31 months; Strategy analytics, a market research firm, said that the average change cycle of Chinese users was 28 months.

Bai Song, an independent analyst in the communication industry, said: “the smartphone industry is in a bottleneck period, and the rise of rational consumption is an important reason. The continuous progress of processors represented by Qualcomm Xiaolong makes the performance of mobile phones stronger and stronger. At least mobile phones will not become stuck in a year. Therefore, for many consumers, there is no reason to change phones in the short term.”

As the impulse to change phones subsided and rational consumption rose, mobile phone manufacturers at home and abroad began to “cut orders”, lowered market expectations, and the mobile phone industry entered structural adjustment.

Zhangguobin, founder of e-innovation.com, said: “some analysts predicted that the shipment of 5g mobile phones in 2022 could reach 700million to 750million, with a maximum of 800million. However, the current predicted shipment of 5g mobile phones is only 660million, and the market demand has dropped by hundreds of millions. I am pessimistic about the overall market in 2022, and it is estimated that some mobile phone brands will disappear from the public view.”

Even so, the flagship new products of various mobile phone enterprises are still intensively launched. Netizens joked: “there are too many new mobile phones for young people to use.”

The words of Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 company, can best reflect the current extremely “insider” mobile phone industry: “the mobile phone industry is no longer a red sea, but a sea of blood. It has to make headlines every week and put a satellite every month. Even if the CEO is not the ninth paragraph of talk show, he has to hurry up his spare time to become a rapper, otherwise he may lose the attention of the masses.”

Why no matter how many people fail, they can’t stop the latecomers from cross-border “making mobile phones”?

Luo Haoyuan, founder of China Guangdong joint capital, said: “driven by 5g, the people-centered Internet scene and experience of all things are reconstructing the boundary of products and services. Smart phones are still the core ‘remote controller’ of smart home, sports and health, tablet, computer, VR / AR and other full scene smart life.”

Smartphone innovation is reaching the ceiling

The continuous extension of the replacement cycle makes users tend to buy medium and high-end mobile phone products with “better experience and longer use”.

However, although domestic mobile phone manufacturers continue to innovate in the configuration of folding screen, high brush screen, fast charging and camera, it is more and more difficult to arouse consumers’ desire to buy.

Obviously, the “micro innovation” of small repair and small compensation has been difficult for consumers to take out their money bags.

“China’s mobile phone market is expected to decline in 2022.” Zhao Ming, CEO of glory, admitted that in such a market environment, mobile phone manufacturers need to find a suitable reason for consumers to “why should I change my mobile phone”.

“Hardware can only determine the lower limit of the product, and the collaboration of algorithm and software and hardware can determine the real experience and value that consumers can obtain,” Zhao Ming said

In Bai Song’s view, in addition to the upgrading of processors and the renovation of hardware such as cameras, we have not seen the real bright black technology of smart phones for a long time, and the innovation of smart phones is touching the ceiling. How to continuously impress users has become a common problem faced by mobile phone brands.

Shen Wei, founder, President and CEO of vivo, said in the “2022 Spring Festival speech”: “at any time, competition orientation, cost orientation, parameter orientation and efficiency orientation must not be superior to user orientation. Enterprises that abandon users will eventually be abandoned by users and will not be healthy for a long time.”

However, it is not so easy to want every step of scientific and technological innovation to step on the hearts of users.

The most challenging year of the smartphone Era

Even dragging a power bank every day, many “fruit fans” are unwilling to change their course and join the Android camp.

“At present, it seems that the ‘moat’ established by apple with technology, experience and brand is difficult for other brands to cross for the time being.” “Although the strong brand effect left by the Steve Jobs era has always been the biggest help to Apple products, it can not be ignored that under the condition of increasingly serious homogenization of mobile phone products, the core of deciding whether users change their mobile phones is experience or habits. Once their use and operation habits are formed, it is difficult to change them,” Bosson said

Apple is still the most profitable manufacturer of consumer electronics. The iPhone accounts for only about 15% of the global market share, but it takes nearly 70% of the profits of the industry.

Huawei is the only one that can compete with apple mobile phones in the high-end market. Even if Huawei fades out of the smartphone market, the market’s expectations for it have not weakened, and the brand influence is still driving consumers to continue to buy. As a product released in the middle of 2021, Huawei P50 still has amazing sales force in the past more than one and a half years, becoming a classic case in the field of domestic flagship machines.

Whether it is to catch up with apple or to advance to the high end