Forecast 2019 mobile phone market: shutting down factories, cutting orders

According to data from China's mobile phone market released by market research firm GFK, in the second half of 2018, China's mobile phone market first appeared in the “quantity and price drop” situation; in the third quarter of 2018, China's mobile phone market sales fell 18% year-on-year, and sales fell by 9% year-on-year. %. At the same time, there are reports that China's smartphone sales will reach 450 million units in 2018, down 15% year-on-year.

In this year, while the mobile phone market was in a downturn, the industry has undergone tremendous changes, and enterprises have also shown a multi-polar development trend. In the past, the overlord faced a situation of rapid loss of share and embarked on the road of self-rescue. The enterprises that had been ranked second in the echelon had already achieved a counter-attack and began to hit the global TOP3. Some small and medium-sized enterprises fell rapidly, and the foundation industry collapsed for more than a decade and entered a desperate situation.

1

Closing the factory, cutting the list, the giant pattern was subverted

The crisis is no longer a patent for SMEs, and the current mobile phone giants are facing an unprecedented crisis. The market has experienced the shocks of the past two years, and the original pattern has been subverted.

According to data released by research firm IDC, the Chinese smartphone market has continued to decline since the second quarter of 2017, and has shrunk for six consecutive quarters in the third quarter of 2018. However, IDC still believes that this decline will change in 2019, and the smartphone market will resume steady and slow growth.

The data shows that in the first three quarters of this year, the top five smartphone manufacturers in the Chinese market were Huawei, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Apple. Among them, sales of Huawei and vivo increased year-on-year, and other brands showed different degrees of decline.

This year, Samsung and Apple are facing challenges. Although the overall sales of the two mobile phone giants are still in the forefront of the market, their market share continues to decline. In the third quarter, Samsung's smartphone shipments were 72.2 million units, down 13.4% year-on-year; Apple's new iPhone XS and iPhone XS MAX were high in price and weak in innovation, and sales fell 17% year-on-year, ranking the top five.

Brands such as ZTE and Lenovo, which are currently in the second echelon, also look at the global market and look for opportunities to survive overseas. Some of China's new mobile phone brands are also brewing, and the market will soon emerge in the 5G era.

Under the strong attack of Chinese brands, Samsung and Apple began a new round of adjustment and transformation in their business lines and strategies.

At present, Samsung is shrinking its mobile terminal business in China. Five years ago, no one would expect Samsung to shut down two mobile phone manufacturing plants in China within one year, but for now, the company has already turned its direction in the Chinese market. Data show that as of the third quarter of 2018, Samsung's mobile phone market share in China is only 0.9%.

However, Samsung obviously will not give up the Chinese market easily. With its R&D and supply chain resources accumulated in the chip, screen, memory, semiconductor and other industries for many years, Samsung has quietly become a supplier of many mobile phone brands, including Apple and Huawei. , OPPO, vivo, etc., obviously in the future mobile phone field, Samsung will have a certain voice in the industry chain.

Industry observer Ding Shaojun said: "In 2018, China's mobile phone market has changed from Apple and Samsung to domestic mobile phone brands. The loss of Apple and Samsung's share is related to the rise of domestic brands in the mid-to-high-end market, and also in technology. Innovation is slowing down and product strategy is conservative. In 2019, the domestic mobile phone market will still be dominated by Huawei, OPPO, vivo and Xiaomi, and Apple and Samsung will be challenged. With Xiaomi setting up China, the brands in the latest structural adjustment. The fight for the 'domestic market top spot' will be even more intense."

According to industry insiders, in the past eight years, the Chinese smartphone market has gone through a period of grasshoppers and high-speed growth, and is currently in a turning point. In this process, the smartphone market has moved from the incremental market to the stock market, and the multi-wheel drive has ended. The concentration of brands and models has been increasing, and the “Matthew effect” trend has intensified. In 2018, the smartphone market has already shown its cruel side. In 2019, this competitive situation will continue, and the oligarchic competition in the Chinese mobile phone market will be a big attraction.

Sun Yanqi, president of the First Mobile Phone Research Institute, said: "At present, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have occupied 90% of the market share. The market next year will continue this year's competition. The homogenization of mobile phone products is still serious. The biggest variable in the market may be Apple, its share may continue to fall due to various factors."

2

Chasing debts, falling into the cold winter before dawn

In 2018, the mobile phone market suddenly changed. The mobile phone giants are chasing and competing for status and share, and they are fighting for the "head breaking blood". The small and medium-sized mobile phone market is also a mourning.

This year is a difficult year for many mobile phone manufacturers. Capital breaks, equity is frozen, debts are being pursued, factories are shut down... Meitu, Jinli, and hammers are in crisis, some have fallen, and some are still struggling.

The word "gold quality, the world" is still in the ear. Jinli Group, whose net profit was still 760 million yuan a year ago, was suddenly transferred to a debt of 20 billion yuan and collapsed in an instant. Liu Lirong, the founder of Jinli, is also in the midst of public opinion. He is accused of accelerating the company's capital chain break and bankruptcy due to the huge debt owed by gambling. In the past, the domestic mobile phone "Big Brother" quickly declined, making people embarrassed.

Sudden equity and liquidity problems have pushed down the first dominoes in the Jinli capital chain. Since then, Jin Li has been caught in a number of disputes with creditors and suppliers. Innovation is weak, marketing is unsuccessful, and high-level gambling is like a piece of stone on the building that will fall.

To say that mobile phone companies with similar fate to Gionee may be hammers. In the era of being chased by madness, Luo Yonghao, who has been ravaged by the sky, has experienced a year of destiny. Now he knows that he can no longer support the market with his feelings alone. From the out of stock to the layoffs, to the dissolution of the branch, a series of rumors, even if the three-headed six-armed Lao Luo, it is difficult to cope.

Inventory backlog, excessive marketing, and tight capital are not only issues facing Jin Li and Hammer, but have become a problem that the whole industry may face. "At present, there are nearly 50 million inventories of non-full-screen mobile phones in the entire market." Sun Yanxi said.

The year is close, and many mobile phone suppliers are hard to get through this cold winter. Affected by the decline of mobile phone manufacturers, suppliers in the mobile phone supply chain have also experienced a crisis of survival. Since many suppliers are stuck in the capital chain crisis of mobile phone companies, they have to sell houses and sell cars to suspend their own crisis and passively wait for " "Life-saving straw", and some even become victims in the long tears.

However, there is not much room left for small and medium-sized brands in the market. The data shows that in the first three quarters of 2018, the top five brands had a market share of 87%. For small brands, the living space is slowly decreasing.

Li Huaibin, an analyst at IHS's mobile phone industry, said: "From 2017, the domestic mobile phone market capacity began to decline, and the downward trend continued in 2018. At the same time, the global smart phone market also began to reverse, the market demand weakened, competition intensified, and small brands competed. At the same time, the innovation of mobile phone hardware has encountered bottlenecks, the threshold of technological innovation has become higher, and the market space of differentiation has been limited, which is conducive to the development of big brands, and the survival space of small brands will be further compressed. There will be more in 2019. Small and medium-sized brands have withdrawn, and the core resources of the supply chain have also tilted toward big brands."

3

Chasing, game, rivers and lakes, killing, comprehensive upgrade

After a round of reshuffle, the competition in the mobile phone market has been concentrated among several major mobile phone giants, and the competition among the head enterprises in the mobile phone industry chain has intensified.

Patent technology has become the main battlefield of the giants. In 2018, many corporate lawsuits were raging. Qualcomm v. Apple, Apple vs. Samsung, Samsung Fighting Huawei... International players are starting a round of intricate "world wars" around the world. The fierce killing of mobile phones has escalated to a whole new stage.

Two consumer electronics giants from the United States have launched a legal battle around the world around licensing fees, and the war has continued to spread, becoming the most popular patent war this year.

Directly referring to Apple's use of its intellectual property without paying fees, Qualcomm sued Apple in China, and Apple was ruled by the court to ban some iPhones in China. Apple objected to the ruling, continuing to supply iPhones in China and modifying its iOS operating system.

Although the dispute has not yet been settled, this judgment will undoubtedly have a great impact on the sales of Apple's mobile phones. At present, Apple's dependence on the Chinese market is very high. Most of Apple's supply chain is in China, and nearly 20% of Apple's sales come from the Chinese market.

According to FactSet, China is Apple's second largest source of revenue, second only to the US. In the third quarter of 2018, Apple's $9.55 billion in revenue came from Greater China, up 19% from the same period last year. Currently, Apple is doing everything it can to try to resume sales.

However, the patent battle between Apple and Qualcomm continues, and Qualcomm has no intention of letting go of Apple.

Recently, Qualcomm won the second lawsuit in the global patent battle with Apple, and Apple will withdraw some old mobile phones from the German store. Qualcomm announced that the Munich District Court found that Apple infringed Qualcomm's intellectual property rights related to reducing the power consumption of smartphones and granted Qualcomm a permanent ban that required Apple to stop selling, promising sales and importing and selling infringing iPhones in Germany. The decision covers all models of the iPhone that have infringement capabilities.

In this regard, recently, Apple said: "Qualcomm's move is another desperate attempt to transfer the real problems between our two companies. Their power in court and day-to-day business is hurting innovation and hurting consumers' interests." Apple said it plans to appeal. At the same time, the current anti-monopoly regulators and Apple have also issued high notices to US courts, which makes this legal dispute more complicated.

The patent war between Apple and Qualcomm will continue into 2019, or even longer, which will make Apple, which is facing a huge crisis in market share, worse. Well-known Apple analyst Guo Minghao predicts that iPhone shipments may decline by 5%-10% next year.

In addition to mobile phone manufacturers, the head enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industry chain have also launched fierce litigation in their respective fields. FPC (Fingerprint Card, Sweden's fingerprint identification manufacturer), Huiding Technology and Si Liwei, the top three fingerprint identification vendors in the global market share ranking, are carrying out the fingerprint "Three Kingdoms Kill" around the patent issue.

In August of this year, FPC sued Huiding Technology to the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, arguing that it infringed on its own invention patent called “Fingerprint Sensing System and Method”, which belongs to the field of capacitive fingerprinting. The infringing products promulgated by FPC are mainly a capacitive fingerprint chip of Xiaomi 6 mobile phone and Huiding.

Subsequently, Huiding Technology pointed out that Si Liwei had sold a certain capacitive fingerprint chip in violation of its two invention patents and a utility model patent without its permission, and took Sili and related companies to court. Its claim is 210 million yuan.

Behind these intricate patent wars, the giants suppress each other and regard the patent war as an effective means of competition at this stage.

“The patent warfare is frequent because the market share of small and medium-sized mobile phone brands has been squeezed, and the head brands have become more arduous in robbing the site. They all have a large amount of patent resources and have stronger power to use patent weapons to attack competitors. With 5G pre-commercial next year, the head brand may launch a patent offensive and defensive battle around 5G.” Ding said.

The industry believes that technology companies must maintain a rational attitude in "patent wars" and avoid vicious competition. National policies and regulatory authorities should encourage core technology patents and prevent the emergence and ravage of “patent hooligans” from the system.

4

Going out to sea, infiltrating

In the current Chinese mobile phone market, it is extremely difficult to compete with mainstream brands. A group of enterprises are looking for new ways in more markets. They have taken a different approach, or went to the sea or entered the market segment, and they have drawn their own world. Together, these companies have achieved a strong competitive edge in the Chinese smartphone industry.

The domestic market is fiercely competitive, and some manufacturers have focused on overseas. The two most famous companies are the voice and the mobile.

The two “base camps” are all based in Shenzhen, one is called “King of Africa” and the other is “French”.

The market share of voice in Africa exceeds that of Samsung. It is the largest mobile phone brand in Africa. Now this mobile phone brand from China has quietly mastered the entrance of the African mobile Internet. According to the data provided by the market research company, the market share of the three brands of TENCO, itel and Infinix, which are the brands of the company, has reached 38%, far exceeding the market share of Samsung by 23%. In addition, in the Indian market, the sales of voices are also among the top five.

However, the official data of the voice show that the company's mobile phone shipments in the world reached 120 million units in 2017. Although the sales volume of mobile phones is large, the unit price is low and the overall profit is not high. The voice needs to be transformed quickly, changing the strategy of relying on low-cost growth and establishing an ecosystem.

The market for Scorpio Mobile is mainly in Western Europe. The Wiko brand, which is launched in cooperation with local French companies, is the second largest mobile phone brand in France and currently has a market share of 16.8%. Scorpio Mobile has replicated and expanded the local team operation model throughout Europe, exploring a path to enter Europe and the United States and create its own brand.

At the same time, Huawei and Xiaomi, which previously focused on the domestic market, have gradually increased their pace of overseas competition. In addition to the Chinese market, Huawei is currently stepping up its pace in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India; benefiting from the surge in shipments from China and India, Xiaomi has become one of the fastest growing mobile phone brands in the world in 2018, with the exception of India. In addition, it is currently accelerating its efforts in markets such as Spain, Russia and Europe.

In addition, some companies have embarked on the development path of ODM and become a professional smartphone OEM. Wentai, Huaqin and Longqi are the three giants of ODM companies. According to the data, in 2017, Wentai's smartphone shipments reached 83.7 million units. The main customers were Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo and Meizu; Huaqin's shipments were 79.10 million, and its main customers were Huawei and Xiaomi; Shipments were 34.2 million units, and the main customers were Xiaomi and Lenovo. In addition, there are 15.4 million ODM shipments from Tianzhu Mobile.

5

Cross-border, expansion Multi-touchers prepare for 5G

With the arrival of 5G commercials in 2019, the door to the next game of competition is slowly opening.

In 2018, the full screen was indeed developed and popularized, but the full screen did not seem to have caused too much ripple in the market. In the future, the battlefield of mobile phones has turned to 5G, and 5G has become another important slogan after the comprehensive screen and AI.

At the same time of preparing for 5G, many mobile phone companies began to reach up and down, and even played a "cross-border", involved in the automotive, television and other industries.

BlackBerry has previously formed an alliance with Qualcomm, and both parties announced that they will expand cooperation to seize the fast-growing connected car market. BlackBerry will use Qualcomm hardware in areas such as virtual cockpit controllers, electronic control gateways and infotainment systems.

Apple has long been in the automotive field, focusing on the development of autonomous software systems, and its autonomous driving technology and system is making progress this year; Huawei regards the network, the Internet of Vehicles platform, and the in-vehicle computing platform as the third of its automotive business. In the direction of large products, it has cooperated with domestic and foreign automobile manufacturers such as SAIC, Audi and BMW in the field of car networking and smart cars, and established the “5G Automobile Alliance” jointly with Ericsson, Intel, Nokia and Qualcomm.

In addition, this year, more mobile phone manufacturers will put their sights on the TV industry, and mobile phone companies will frequently spread their news on TV. Following Huawei's re-establishment of the TV project team, many mobile phone manufacturers such as vivo and OPPO have also been reported to be evaluating and researching the TV market. One plus TV is more details: India will be one of the first wholesale markets for TV plus, about 2020. In the fierce market competition, many mobile phone manufacturers began to spread from the mobile phone to the TV end, eroding the TV market share, preempting the living room traffic entrance and deploying the smart home industry.

The new direction emerging in the industry chain such as chip, AR, AI, etc., is also of great interest to mobile phone companies. This year, they are accelerating the extensive industry in the upstream and downstream of the supply chain to advance their ecosystems in the future competition. Platform plan. On the occasion of the resurgence of some mobile phone brands in the Chinese market, “mobile phone recruits” such as OnePlus, Ali, and Tencent mobile phones have caused waves in the industry. Next, mobile phone companies are bound to usher in a hard battle, but the innovation and ecological development of new technologies is like a castle built in the future, full of magic, giving enterprises more opportunities to bend overtaking, and the Chinese mobile phone market is also bursting out. Unlimited life.