Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo's 5G ambitions: people to middle age, competition upgrades

The competition between the big manufacturers has accelerated the conversion of the entire market, the industry is undercurrent, and the more brutal 5G battle between mobile phone manufacturers has begun. Towards the end of the year, the 5G battle for mobile phone manufacturers is becoming increasingly fierce. After all, under the current situation that mobile phone sales are declining, just as Lu Weibing said in a public event on the 28th, "the arrival of 5G, the mobile phone market should have a big rebound." This is from Huawei, Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo. You can see this in the stand: On November 26, Honor released its first 5G dual-mode phone in Beijing, the Honor V30. On the same day, Lu Weibing, vice president of Xiaomi Group, also announced on Weibo that Redmi's first 5G dual-mode phone K30 will be released on December 10. OPPO is also expressing its stance. On the 28th, OPPO Vice President Shen Yiren reported on Weibo that his first 5G mobile phone was "probably the thinnest dual-mode 5G mobile phone at the same price in the same period."

Prior to this, in September and October this year, Huawei had released the Mate 30 series and Mate X folding screen phones that support NSA and SA dual-mode. After you chase me, no one of the mobile phone manufacturers dares to relax. The competition between the big manufacturers has accelerated the conversion of the entire market, the industry is undercurrent, and the more brutal 5G battle between mobile phone manufacturers has begun. In the less than half a year of 5G mobile phone sales in the Chinese market, many manufacturers have launched new mobile phones that support 5G, covering the high-end and low-end markets. Up to now, there are 12 5G smart terminals released on the market. Judging from the market share of China's 5G mobile phones released by IDC, the current competitive momentum of 5G mobile phone manufacturers is already very obvious. Data show that the total shipments of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market in the third quarter of this year reached 485,000, of which vivo's main low-end handsets accounted for 54.3% of the market share.

In China's 5G mobile phone market in 2019, Huawei and vivo are aggressive, while Xiaomi and OPPO are still poised for growth. In terms of Huawei, first Mate20x mainly supports both NSA and SA, and then Mate30 5G relay in November. The integration advantages from chips to mobile phones and networks support Huawei's leading position in 5G mobile phones in China in 2019. Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei Consumer Business, said, "From next year, Huawei will continue to increase the number of 5G mobile phones. At the same time, Huawei will provide more comprehensive solutions, which are reflected in two aspects of chip innovation. The first is independent networking and non-independent The networking is compatible so that consumers do not need to consider the network when choosing. Second, it is equipped with the first flagship 5G SoC chip, not a transition solution. "

Similarly, vivo has also released two 5G models. The first 5G mobile phone iQOO Pro 5G version launched in August 2019, and in September, vivo ’s second 5G mobile phone, NEX 3 5G, was launched. Mobile phones are all based on aggressive pricing strategies, and "the early layout of the mid-to-high-end performance machine market dominated by online channels and the high-end flagship market dominated by offline channels was made." Taking full advantage of the time difference, it took the first-mover advantage in the competition of the first 5G mobile phones. In addition, recently, vivo also announced that it will launch another 5G mobile phone-vivo X30 series in December. It is worth noting that this series will be equipped with the Exynos 980 dual-mode 5G AI chip jointly developed by vivo and Samsung. It can be seen that in the layout of 5G mobile phones, vivo has also begun to test water self-developed chips. In comparison, Xiaomi's performance is unsatisfactory. Today Xiaomi has only one 5G phone, the Xiaomi Mi 9 Pro 5G, which is listed in China. Although the price is also low, the market response is flat.

After realizing that it lost its first-mover advantage, in order to keep up with the outbreak of 5G mobile phones next year, Xiaomi also accelerated the launch of 5G mobile phones. Lu Weibing, vice president of Xiaomi Group, revealed that the Redmi K30 will be released on December 10, which will also be Redmi's first 5G mobile phone, and also supports 5G NSA / SA dual-mode. Xiaomi President Lei Jun also stated that Xiaomi is expected to release more than 10 5G mobile phones next year, and it is expected that the penetration rate of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market will reach 40% -50%, and Xiaomi will still be a good 5G mobile phone. In addition, OPPO, which has been going hand in hand with vivo, has also been slow in the layout of domestic 5G products. Even now, it has not launched a 5G mobile phone in the domestic market. OPPO aims to release Qualcomm's first SA-supported product Mobile phone-OPPO Reno3 series, this series supports dual-mode 5G across the board. OPPO sub-brand realme phone also officially announced that it will release the first realme 5G dual-mode phone. Although OPPO has abandoned the Chinese 5G mobile phone market in 2019, it has already settled for the spring of 2020.

Of course, an optimistic fact is that October ’s 5G mobile phone shipments were 2.494 million units, a surge of 402% compared to 497,000 units in September, showing a blowout growth trend. As we all know, the excessive price of 5G mobile phones has always been the biggest obstacle to its acceptance by the market. From the current point of view, whoever has the most competitive low-cost products will have the mobile phone market in 2019. In other words, 5G mobile phones are not a good business that can make money now. IDC said that after three consecutive years of decline in smartphone shipments, 5G has little room to increase its average selling price. It can be said that no terminal change caused by a network upgrade is even more cruel than this one. Compared with 4G mobile phones, the cost of 5G mobile phones is much higher. On the one hand, there are hard costs in terms of baseband and antenna, on the other hand, due to the relatively low maturity of the current industrial chain, manufacturers' R & D investment is greater. First of all, in the pricing of mobile phones, the chip is in a very important position, even if it is a decisive factor.

"5G mobile phones are expensive on the processor." Industry researchers previously said so, but the fact is that 5G mobile phones are only "a little bit" more expensive than 4G mobile phones. For example, iQOO Pro released 4G version and 5G version at the same time this year. In terms of price, the standard price of 4G is 3198 yuan, and the price of 5G version is only 600 yuan more expensive. In order to meet the needs of mobile phone manufacturers, in terms of baseband, mainstream chip manufacturers have launched their latest 5G mobile processing platform, and have made a price drop. China's 5G market has entered a three-legged model: Kirin 5G mobile processing platform, Qualcomm 5G mobile processing platform and Samsung Exynos 5G mobile processing platform, and these three platforms have their own player representatives. The Kirin chip has naturally become the first choice of Huawei, OPPO has joined the Qualcomm camp, and vivo has chosen the minority Samsung Exynos.

Recently, MediaTek also held a 5G SoC processor conference and officially launched the Teana 1000 processor. Public information shows that Redmi K30 will launch MediaTek's 5G chip, and it will be officially released on December 10. Industry insiders predict that the MediaTek processor is likely to help the price of Redmi K30 break through 3,000 yuan. Undoubtedly, the competition among chip manufacturers in pricing and performance will eventually be amplified and manifested among mobile phone manufacturers. At the same time, under the situation driven by consumer demand, the price war between mobile phone manufacturers has already started. Starting from the market's pre-judgment of 8,000 yuan at the beginning of the year, the price of 5G mobile phones fluctuated greatly. Among them, Huawei Mate X 5G and Xiaomi MIX Alpha cost over 10,000 yuan, and most 5G terminals cost more than 4,000 yuan. The industry believes that this year's 5G mobile phone price war started with vivo's new iQOO pro (5G), which first broke through the lower price limit in August. The price is only 3798 yuan, and Xiaomi, which has always been the main "cost-effective" phone, was released in September Xiaomi 9 Pro (5G), and lowered the price again to 3699 yuan.

Two months later, Honor released the first 5G mobile phone V30, setting the minimum configuration price to 3299 yuan, which is currently the cheapest 5G mobile phone on the market. Considering Honor's shipments of more than 50 million units in 2018, the industry believes that this price has quickly reduced the price of 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market. Earlier, Yu Chengdong said when accepting the media that relatively low-priced 5G mobile phones will arrive in 2020. Yu Chengdong said that the price of 5G mobile phones will definitely reach the mid-range or even lower price range. Huawei will launch 5G mid-range mobile phones next year and will launch cheaper models later.

This means that after the first product is launched, 5G mobile phones will usher in a price dive once a month. In addition to mobile phone manufacturers and chip manufacturers, carriers also play an irreplaceable role in the 5G mobile phone market. It is reported that the three major operators originally planned to subsidize 5G mobile phones in the initial stage of commercialization of 5G networks to attract users to use 5G networks. However, according to the latest situation, the three major operators have stopped doing so and even ordered Subsidiaries are prohibited from conducting similar 5G terminal subsidy activities. Similar to terminal subsidies, operators have done it before when commercializing 3G and 4G networks. One is that when a user purchases a mobile phone, they only need to subscribe to a package, and the operator will drop the mobile phone. The other is that when the user subscribes to a package, the operator Give the user a mobile phone. In the early stage of commercialization of 5G networks, this model was rejected mainly because 5G mobile phones are not expensive now, and even the price is the same as some 4G mobile phones. If it continues to subsidize, it will be meaningless and even disrupt the market order. , But also to avoid vicious competition.

In addition, the three major operators clearly know that due to the time required for network deployment, in the early stage of commercialization of 5G networks, network coverage is not enough to withstand the explosive growth of users. In this way, it is the three companies that are more willing to pursue a stable and slow transition to 5G Yes, coexistence of 4G and 5G has become the industry consensus after 5-10 years. Although there are no traditional subsidy programs, this does not mean that the three major operators will become bystanders of 5G mobile phones. They are also promoting the popularization of 5G mobile phones in their own way. China Unicom said that prices will reach 2,000 to 2500 yuan in the first quarter of next year. China Mobile also plans to push the price of 5G equipment to below 2,000 yuan by the end of 2020. The market predicts that by the end of 2020, 5G mobile phones with a price of 1,000 yuan to 1,500 yuan will appear on the market. At the same time, Zhao Ming, President of Glory, said that the cost of 5G mobile phones will drop much faster than in the era of 4G mobile phones. Obviously, mobile phone manufacturers need to sell goods, and operators need to find users. The combination of the two has caused the 5G mobile phone market to enter a price war too early, and it has also caused mobile phone manufacturers to enter a more brutal race. However, the "October 2019 Domestic Mobile Phone Market Operation Analysis Report" released by Xintong Institute shows that in terms of mobile phone standards, 4G mobile phones are still the absolute main force of mobile phone shipments, and they still firmly suppress 5G mobile phone sales. It only accounts for a fraction of the entire mobile phone market.

OPPO founder, president and CEO Chen Mingyong once stated that "the 5G era will lead to more new hardware. We need to gain insight and grasp the core needs of users to create the next entry-level product." Lei Jun also said, "5G + AI + IoT is the next generation of the super Internet. "Just as the big brothers have a bright attitude, the industry generally believes that 5G will not only bring huge opportunities to smartphones, but will also heavily empower the low-latency features of 5T, It can better support the data transmission of smart devices and sensors to make it work more smoothly, which coincides with the vision of IoT everything connected. What is more worth looking forward to is the broad market prospects of loT: Research by the Institute of Obstetrics and Technology International of ITRI has stated that the global IoT market will exceed $ 1 trillion in 2021 for the first time and grow to 2022 The annual compound growth rate (CAGR) from 2017 to 2022 reached 13.6%, which is a major driving force for the development of the technology industry in the next few years.

Taking Xiaomi as an example, in the just-released third quarter financial report of 2019, Xiaomi's IoT & consumer products business revenue reached 15.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.4% and accounting for 29.1% of total revenue. Compared with the weak mobile phone business, Xiaomi's IoT & consumer products business can be said to be a major contributor to revenue growth. Xiaomi is also regarded as the first wave of companies to bring IoT to the heat in China. In November 2013, Xiaomi released the Xiaomi router. The idea is to use the router as the center and the mobile phone APP as the entrance to control the connected hardware. In 2015, the core of the IoT connection was determined as the mobile phone. In 2017, the first IoT At the developer conference, Lei Jun believes that Xiaomi has become the world's largest intelligent hardware IoT platform; at the beginning of this year, it also launched a "mobile phone + AIoT" dual-engine strategy, which officially put AIoT on the same level of importance as mobile phones to cope with 4G and 5G Market opportunities. In fact, it does rely on the layout of the IoT. Xiaomi affixed the label of the Internet company to itself before listing in 2018, entrusting a declining valuation.

After the C-side has been completely covered, Fan Dian, Chairman of the Xiaomi AIoT Strategy Committee and General Manager of the IoT Platform Department, said at the Xiaomi Developer Conference 2019, "In addition to the consumer market that Xiaomi is good at, the enterprise market is the next focus for Xiaomi." The logic of Xiaomi's first To C and then To B is just the opposite. Huawei has adopted the development strategy of To B first and then To C. In 2018, Huawei shouted the slogan “Eco-scenario for a smart life environment in all scenarios”, and officially announced the AIoT ecological strategy in December. On March 14, 2019, Huawei announced that “Huawei's IoT ecological strategy will be fully upgraded to full-scenario intelligence Huawei ’s business focus changes between concept changes: Previously, the focus of the IoT business was on the B-side, and the most important thing in 2019 was to land on the C-side. As for how to promote the C-side? Huawei chose a similar "1+" 8 + N "strategy: 1 is the mobile phone as the main entrance, 8 is the eight auxiliary entry-level devices including PC, tablet, smart screen, speakers, glasses, watches, headphones, car machines, N is smart travel, audio and video Entertainment and other devices. Among them, Huawei only makes 1 and 8 and chip parts. Compared with Xiaomi's own ecological chain model, Zhi Hao, president of Huawei ’s consumer business wireless broadband and smart home product line, Said, "Our biggest difference is openness. We don't do it ourselves. We hope our partners will focus on making their refrigerators and washing machines, because this thing is still very difficult to make. "

Huawei's IoT business is coming later than Xiaomi, but from the first half of 2019's performance report, Huawei HiLink Ecology has gathered 260+ brands, 30 million + users, and connected more than 140 million IoT devices. trend. At the same time, it also has the leading OV in the mobile phone market. Although there are not many voices in the IoT market, they are not idle. It is not difficult to see from the mid-term mission and vision that Vivo re-formed itself last year: to become a technology company driven by the ultimate product, with intelligent terminals and intelligent services as its core. At the OPPO 2019 annual meeting, the founder, president, and CEO Chen Mingyong first proposed OPPO's three future tasks, one of which was the deployment of IoT. However, compared to the previous two singles alone, OV chose to cooperate in the first stop of OV's entry into the IoT. In July 2018, OV, together with Midea, TCL, XGIMI and many other manufacturers, established an IoT Open Ecological Alliance to utilize their respective traffic advantages and technical strength to achieve interconnection.

Since then, vivo has launched its own IoT product, Jovi Internet of Things. This year, it has updated its strategy again, which is called "one master and three assistants", that is, mobile phones, VR glasses, headphones, and watches. Unlike the ambitious ecological extension plans of other manufacturers, Hu Baishan, executive vice president of vivo, said in an interview with Tiger Sniff, "We still do what we can do. WeChat was born in the 3G era, and small Video, there will definitely be such applications in the 5G era, but this is not what we should do, what we want to do is to do a good job of 5G terminals. "From this perspective, OPPO has shown that it is more connected with Huawei, Similarities of Xiaomi. First, it launched the "5G + X" strategy. In X, priority will be given to smart phones, smart headphones, and smart watches focusing on sports and health. According to media reports, OPPO has recruited more than 200 headphone R & D teams this year. In addition, OPPO will also launch a new sub-brand, "Zhimeixinpin", to provide users with IoT products through three modes of self-development, cooperative research and development, and selection.

At the same time, similar to Xiaomi ’s Xiaoai classmate and Huawei ’s Xiaoyi, OPPO also plans to let the intelligent assistant Breeno not only integrate the AI capabilities of OPPO, but also “integrate multiple technologies in the 5G era” and become the hub in the 5G era to control IoT, wearable, connected car and other devices and platforms. Observed, the layout of Huawei, Xiaomi, and OV in the 5G + IoT field is very similar. Before the initial stage of product development, whoever can seize user time and ports will have greater advantages. After all, in this network, consumers' brand loyalty will migrate to different types of products and the cost of learning, money, etc. to change the brand is also within the user's consideration. From the perspective of the entire industry, with the entry of four powerful players, the road to the IoT of smartphone manufacturers in the context of 5G is becoming clearer: mobile phones are the mainstay, everything is connected, and data value is tapped.

This year is known as the "first year" of 5G commercialization. On November 1, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly announced the launch of 5G commercial services with the three major operators, and the entire industry is in the ascendant. According to the calculation of the China Academy of Information and Communication Technology, 5G will drive China's digital economy to grow by 1.52 billion yuan in 2020-2025, of which the value-added of the information industry will increase by 3.3 trillion yuan, while driving other vertical industries (Internet of Vehicles, Industrial Internet, Healthcare) ) The added value increased by 11.9 trillion yuan. Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and vivo have all rushed to the starting line, struggling with each other, hoping to occupy the market first. Perhaps, we can expect that, as Lei Jun said, 5G will bring earth-shaking changes to the fields of communication, mobile Internet and AIoT in the next year. Of course, with it, in the near future, Huami OVs will still repeat a round of elimination, competition, and merger games in the 5G market.