Domestic mobile phone carnival behind the helpless reality

Abstract: A foreign mobile phone chip executives to China to learn the first Chinese, not hello, but cost-effective. This is a domestic mobile phone companies to love and hate the word. On the one hand, the domestic handset market accounted for more than half of the Low-cost mobile phone has been the domestic brand

A foreign mobile phone chip executives to China later learned the first Chinese, not "hello", but "cost-effective." This is a domestic mobile phone companies to love and hate the word. On the one hand, the domestic handset market accounted for more than half of the Low-cost mobile phone has been the main territory of domestic brands, but on the other hand, low profits and strong competition also often let domestic enterprises miserable. Now, with the expansion of the electric business Channel, a new thousand-yuan mobile phone-electric dealer mobile phone brand has gradually become the main battlefield of the struggle, but they are also facing difficult to break through the predicament.

Status quo: The helpless reality behind the carnival

The previous one months, "dozen chicken Blood" to describe the domestic handset manufacturers are not excessive, these manufacturers with a high popularity of the topic of mobile phone products, densely bombed the domestic mobile phone market. From ZTE known as "bombs" the secret grandsii, Red Bull V5, Star One, to the Nubian X6, and then to Lenovo's Golden Warrior S8, as well as "will not" a plus mobile phone ... In just one months, there are nearly 10 new mobile phone products spread Huan son to consumers. Fight the propaganda, fight the fans, fight the popularity ... Not only the general consumers feel dizzy, is the mobile phone circle people feel overwhelmed.

However, in this lively carnival behind, but hidden a helpless reality, these are endowed with various rings, various nicknames of the star New machine, the price is not stunning. These phones, in addition to the Nubian X6 price of 2999 yuan, the other prices are below 2000 yuan, even half of the price is less than thousand yuan.

This is not a recent situation, in fact, from the end of last year, the domestic several major mobile phone manufacturers began a new round of the price of grappling. For a time, just thousand yuan below the mobile phone market has squeezed into too many competitors: the great god F1, Huawei Glory 3 C, Lenovo S8, red Meter note, Tcl Mody ... These phones have very similar keywords: MediaTek Eight-core processor, seven hundred or eight hundred yuan price, superior hardware configuration, the main distributor of sales channels, can be called "cost-effective artifacts."

"We spell too much, this price segment of the product profit margin has been extremely low, do not really mean." "A domestic handset maker insiders complain. But he also admits that this part of the market demand is very large, the manufacturers are always competing, and even the following market has become some of the domestic manufacturers business of the most important. Jingdong (rolling information) mall Vice President Wang Lisong introduced, the current Jingdong sold mobile phones, there are 60% or more are thousands of the following products, online channel, this proportion is similar.

"We spell too much, this price segment of the product profit margin has been extremely low, do not really mean." ”

Electricity dealers make competition more brutal

In fact, consumers are not unfamiliar with the concept of thousand-dollar handsets. From the 3G era, under the leadership of telecom operators, with low prices for high sales of product operation mode began to appear, this model also let Huawei, ZTE, Cool faction, Lenovo and other domestic mobile phone manufacturers by virtue of sales volume into the industry leader. "If the sales are not millions, are embarrassed to say that the carrier and the model." "Feng Jue, Lenovo's vice president, who was responsible for Lenovo's mobile phone operators, said in an interview.

But as operators cut back on custom-model subsidies and more sophisticated product technologies, domestic manufacturers are trying to push for higher-priced products to try to improve their brand-premium capabilities, but this attempt has failed. The domestic handset that sells for 3000 yuan is not able to obtain enough market share in the market.

"To tell the truth, while we are very keen to sell high prices, the brand value of domestic handsets is not enough to support higher prices." "ZTE's Terminal Division CEO Zeng Xuzhong once said that ZTE is releasing its flagship model GRANDSII. Its previous generation of products S1 can also set a price of more than 3000 yuan, and SII Price is directly Zeng Xuzhong pressure to 1699 yuan, not only since the reduction of nearly half, and hardware parameters similar to the Samsung S5, the grandsii price is less than S5 one-third.

Mobile phone price "overnight return before liberation" is the general situation of domestic manufacturers. So the concept of the thousand-yuan machine came back again. However, compared with previous, now the company's thousand yuan below the product has changed dramatically. First of all, the leader from the previous telecom operators into the platform of the electric business; In addition, the main marketing of the new thousand-yuan machine by the operator's subsidy promotion has become a manufacturer of Word-of-mouth marketing and hunger marketing, from the start of the millet booking, snapping up the model is almost every manufacturer has learned to go, but the resulting buy phenomenon also let many consumers feel dissatisfied In addition, with the traditional thousand-yuan machine emphasis on cost control, low price compared to the new thousand-yuan machine water mainstream configuration, the demand for cost-effective higher.

However, these electrical quotient thousand-dollar machine is born to have to face the dilemma, is the serious homogenization competition. The same processor, similar prices, similar configuration, the same work, even propaganda methods are the same, you said that the number of reservations record, I said the first batch of supplies sold out in a few minutes. "It's all learned from millet." "said one of the first-line handset makers. He believes that millet to the domestic mobile phone industry has brought a good impact and a bad effect, good is the church of traditional mobile phone manufacturers can still sell the original mobile phone, the bad thing is that the whole industry into an increasingly fierce price competition.

The same processor, similar prices, similar configuration, the same work, even propaganda methods are the same, you said that the number of reservations record, I said the first batch of supply for a few minutes sold ◇.

Interpretation: Survival is a chance

Why are domestic manufacturers so fond of ultra high performance ratio products? Communications industry Observer Xiang (Weibo) believes that mainly because of the domestic participation in the competition more and more, "there are some well-known domestic mobile phone brand no less than 20, coupled with the less well-known, estimated 100 more than", so many competitors gathered, coupled with basically no core competitive advantage, So prices have become a handful of competitive tools. However, due to the huge volume of China's market, domestic manufacturers of low-cost products, although the profit is very low, but with huge sales, still can earn profits live.

Mobile phone industry analyst Chengbo said at present, most mobile phone manufacturers in low-cost mobile phone operating mode, the gap between product pricing and cost is not big, only when the product sales reached a considerable level, to rely on the size of parts and components to bring the price reduction and other costs of diluted to obtain profits, at this time, The profit margin of the product is often below 5%, really is "small profits but quick turnover". In contrast, Apple (571.94, 4.17, 0.73%), Samsung's high-end flagship products, the price is often the sum of the cost of parts and components, the gross margin is surprisingly high.

"Survival is the first place after all. "Xiang said. Looking at the global market, the companies that are leading the profit margins and sales are currently only Samsung and Apple, others who insist on profit margins, or Nokia (7.27,-0.03,-0.41%), Motorola is marginalized by the market, or HTC, Sony (17.87,-0.28, 1.54%, still struggling to live. On the contrary, China's local manufacturers have survived with high sales and low profits. "This is also a way of survival, after all, to survive the opportunity." ”

Of course, domestic mobile phone companies also have the pursuit of high profit margins. For example, °pp° and the "I" °, its flagship products through high marketing input, high configuration, high pricing way, become one of the few can be strong in more than 3000 yuan in the price segment of the mobile phone. "Such a brand chooses a strategy that is not the same as that of other vendors, taking the boutique route." This is also a domestic manufacturer of a development idea, but the key is to hold on, once the price can not keep falling down, it is difficult to think up. "Xiang said.

Sales are not equal to brands

Domestic manufacturers do not expect higher profit margins. The time has gone backwards two or three years, at that time in the interview, several domestic brand leaders have expressed a similar view: "Domestic mobile phones need to rely on the cooperation with operators, the use of lower prices to open the market, access to sales of breakthroughs, the brand has influence after the aim of higher profit margins." However, a few years later, we found that the sales of domestic brands did go up, a number of first-line brands have been in the annual shipments of more than 50 million, and some brands have put forward the annual sales of broken billion targets, but in terms of profit margins, compared with the previous no change, or even lower.

"It turns out that sales are not directly helpful to brand premium capabilities, and that even the strategy of long-term low-cost competition can hurt brand value." Said Chengbo, a mobile industry analyst. And this, in fact, the domestic enterprises at the helm also has a clearer understanding.

Not long ago, Huawei President Ren in the internal speech to mobile phone business executives pointed out: "You said that the electric dealer to sell 20 million mobile phones, pure profit is 100 million dollars, a mobile phone to earn 30 yuan, this is what High-tech, high level?" "In his view, the Chinese market is fierce competition, the number of manufacturers, product prices are low, so good domestic mobile phones can only lower the logic of the price is not established," if the principle, Hermès already collapsed. To this end, he asked Huawei's mobile phone business to be profit as the standard of performance assessment, "Report later on how much profit." Sales are to achieve profit needs, not the goal of struggle.

No high-end, no future.

For most consumers, the higher the cost of products is naturally more welcome, but for manufacturers, blindly pursue "small profits but quick turnover" is not a good thing. "High-end machine market demand is always there, and the scale is considerable, if the domestic manufacturers have been no way to the high profit margin of the high-end market, it means only to see Samsung, Apple from the hands of Chinese consumers to make a lot of profits." "Chengbo said.

He says the market for low-priced products is a lack of user stickiness, consumers choose the main basis of the product is who's more cost-effective, today the manufacturer is very hot, but once the more cost-effective manufacturers enter, many consumers will switch to another, and in the high-end market brand stickiness is much greater, Apple fans can complain about the latest model of Iph°″ "How common and queue up to buy." "If a manufacturer is always in a low price market, it will be dispensable, facing the most intense market competition, always standing on the edge of the cliff, not to be replaced by new entrants." So for mobile phone brands, not in the high-end product market foothold, it is difficult to have a bright future. ”

Xiang also believes that, although through cost-effective products, domestic mobile phone manufacturers to solve the problem of survival, but in the meantime certainly not. "An industry, there are usually two to three companies at the top of the pyramid, now in the mobile phone industry is undoubtedly Samsung and Apple, from the current market pattern, there are opportunities to rush or replace them, should be from China's manufacturers." "But he also admits that the current domestic brands are very far away from this goal." "One is the gap between research and development, which requires the accumulation of time and technology, the second is the gap in brand influence, which requires sustained marketing input." ”