Smartphone growth slows price wars Taiwan brands face difficulties

On the stage, Shih, the grizzled Acer chairman, replaced his suit jacket, wearing a trademark green vest, picked up his new midrange smartphone, liquid E3, and two of beautiful faces. 70-Year-old He not only to personally demonstrate product features, but also incarnation as Q version of the doll "stan brother", turned into a ready-made brand spokesperson. " On the other end, ASUS chairman Shih LED CEO Shen Zhenlai, marketing director Weiming, the Big three in front of the media bowed and apologized, for the latest launch of the smart phone zenfone. ASUS in order to compete in the mainland market, especially the Chinese version of the product specifications to upgrade, the move caused strong dissatisfaction among Taiwanese consumers, the more the matter became stronger, eventually Shih to apologize, and in Taiwan market upgrade specifications, Price, only to quell consumer anger. Both occasions point to one thing: the low-end smartphone has become the next decisive target for PC makers. Double A attaches great importance to the market in order to let Shih stand out and become the brand ambassador; Asus has been too attached to the pricing strategy. Growth slows, price wars start Taiwan's smartphone market share has started to surpass functional handsets since 2011, with nearly 90% of the market by the end of 2013, and smartphones have officially entered maturity. In the past, the two-digit annual growth rate, which began in 2014, will be noticeably smoother. As a result, the new players to join the battlefield, or in the higher-order market, Apple, Samsung's brand, are facing the million below the medium and low level product development. IDC Research manager Shan Lanxin analysis, because the current smartphone in the specification difference is not as obvious as the past two years, coupled with the past is classified in the back-class of the manufacturers, in the above-order machine in the screen size, processor, camera paint, built-in memory and other specifications have been gradually followed, some models or even beyond some of the international manufacturers. It is expected that the 2014 smartphone market will be more active and white-hot than in the past, under the condition that the number of growth slows down and the hardware specification is narrowed. The total number of Android devices will be more than 1 billion in 2014, up to 2017, and more than 75% of Android devices will come from emerging markets, according to Gartner, the Research institute. IDC also pointed out that China's smartphone shipments amounted to 360 million last year, estimated to be 450 million devices this year. The sheer strength of growth and market opportunities are why Acer and Asustek are keen to preempt it. Wang, who led the way into the mainland market in the past, has been the main player in the high-end machine of HTC, this year also announced to put more force in the medium and low level products, after all, the rising mainland and Southeast Asian markets, like a piece of untapped bric. CEO Peter Chou pointed out that this year, HTC's medium and lower-level products will account for about 60%, higher-order products accounted for about 30%-40%, which is the ideal state. Especially in mainland China, which has become the world's largest smartphone market, HTC chairman Wang more personally. At the end of last year, Wang joined the front-line marketing and operations, to take her past experience, the associationTo help HTC explore the mainland market in China. She thinks it is important in mainland China to have a good marketing rhythm, to grasp the 51, 11 and other important days, HTC will do better in mainland China in 2014. She said. But in fact, HTC's threats come not only from higher-level rivals such as Apple and Samsung, but also from newly emerging brands in the lower-order market, such as Huawei and Lenovo. Huawei launched several cost-effective products on its MWC in February and is similar in design to HTC. Huawei's marketing revolves around photography and sharing, and the price is more people-friendly. Morman Annette Zimmermann, Gartner's chief analyst, points out that HTC needs to implement its excellent design concepts and innovations in more medium products and expand its product line. The smartphone's growth momentum will come mainly from medium-and lower-level handsets, and the higher-order handset market is slowing down, which is the main view of Gartner's forecast report. As a handset maker, it is difficult to raise the market share by a single unit of more than 600 dollars. He said. The telecom industry's entry to parity is generally considered to be an unattractive category, but IDC figures show that this is not the case, especially in India and China, where 150 dollar devices are fast becoming mainstream, bringing the powerful computing experience of smartphones to more people. Ryan Reith, director of global project at IDC, points out that the main driver of the smartphone's growth is the big screen and the low price, and the price is more critical. In addition to PCs, mobile phone manufacturers grab, even the local telecom manufacturers also do not fall, the decision to push their own brands in the lower-order mobile phones. Tele-Transmission Telecom recently published a new private-brand series of mobile phone far-pass smart, the second half of the 4G founding will be introduced after the introduction of the medium-step of the 4G, the price belt fell at 5,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan. Long-distance marketing long Zheng Zhiheng said that the first 4G user target of about 500,000, of which 20%, about 100,000 users are used to transmit their own brand mobile phones, will be launched throughout the year more than 10 private-label machines. Lin, general manager of China Telecom Branch, said that, after 4G founding, support 4G of the following machine species will have a great demand. Taiwan's mobile phone has long started to hit its own-brand handsets, and it is expected to have a wave of new machines this year. While it is hard to compete with Apple and Samsung in higher-order markets, Taiwanese manufacturers are still trying to get out of their own way towards emerging markets, but there are also ambitious mainland brand-name cards, and the future is bound to be a low margin of price bloodshed. But for Taiwanese brands that have been clinging to PCs in the past, this is a battle that has to be fought.