Original title: The smartphone industry highlights the Matthew effect, China's top five swallowed 82.5% of the share

In the atmosphere of the full-screen war in the mobile phone industry, OPPO released its new full-screen flagship phones R11s and R11s Plus on November 2nd, which may be the latest full-screen models to come out in recent months. OPPO still places its expectations on the next "explosive model".

However, Wu Qiang, vice president of OPPO, was not optimistic about the capacity of this year's mobile phone market when he was interviewed by the Securities Daily and other media. Almost none. After entering the third quarter of this year, it has been declining for several consecutive months compared with the same period last year. The annual domestic smartphone market shipments may decline by more than ten percent."

In this regard, Wang Yang, director of research at IHS Technology China, said in an exchange with a reporter from the Securities Daily, “It’s not that exaggerated. The offline market fell by 5% compared to last year, but the online market has grown a little this year, and the market size is estimated to be flat. Or a small reduction."

Regardless of the magnitude of the decline, it has become a consensus that the overall mobile phone market in China will no longer grow this year. Even OPPO, which won the first place in the Chinese market with nearly 80 million shipments last year, is only expected to "slightly increase year-on-year" for this year's shipments.

Wu Qiang doesn't care about the growth rate, "Why does it have to grow? The most important thing is to survive when the market is declining."

OPPO review "boutique strategy" blood and tears lessons learned

Wu Qiang said that OPPO will still take the boutique route. "Focus on the core needs of users, make the product series 'less', and at the same time concentrate resources to make each product a high-quality product, which is the reason that OPPO has understood in the past few years."

In fact, there are not many mobile phone companies that hit the market with a single model and achieved success without relying on machine-sea tactics. OPPO has verified the effectiveness of the high-quality goods strategy with the R series of single-product hits.

According to Counterpoint data, the flagship model OPPO R9 has sold nearly 17 million units, making it the best-selling model in the Chinese market in 2016 with a 4% market share in China. At the same time, this is the first time that Apple has lost the best-selling single model in the Chinese market in five years.

The "OPPO phenomenon" has become a business idea worth thinking about in the industry.

Wu Qiang said frankly that the current product strategy of OPPO is learned through his own blood and tears. "After we fully transformed into smartphones in 2014, we launched a lot of products at the same time, and then launched two dual-flagship routines at the same stage. In this case, we may indeed not be good enough. The two There are not enough promotion resources for each product. Our terminal sales staff don’t know which one to sell. In 2015, we learned from the painful experience and came up with a "boutique strategy" that should be simple and focus on popular models. Until now, we Focus more on the explosion of the R series."

Wu Qiang said that the explosion strategy has brought many changes to the entire system and the entire factory.

"It makes our research and development more focused. Moreover, popular models can simplify many actions in the entire supply chain production link, storage link, and sales link, and thus become more focused. In addition, we can also be more focused in terms of promotion resources. Focus on popular products, so that more audiences and consumers will be more impressed with this product. This is the experience of popular products in the past three years."

Regarding the changes brought about by focusing on creating high-quality products, the channel leader of OPPO gave a very simple example: channel personnel no longer need to memorize the information of multiple products as before, and the support services for stores are more efficient. In the past, due to the large number of product categories and miscellaneous information, each person could only serve 3-5 companies. After "simplification", the efficiency has been greatly improved, and it can serve 7-8 or even 10 companies, but the service professionalism has been significantly improved. In addition, the channel can also invest more energy in the training and training of sales personnel, so as to provide users with more detailed and in-place services.

Don't blindly follow the industry hotspots, put your eggs in one basket

Of course, the other side of the coin is risk. Wu Qiang admits that the risk of bringing all the resources together stems from the idea of ​​making high-quality products that will hit the market. "However, there is a very popular saying in the stock market that most people agree with, 'Don't put your eggs in one basket'. But Buffett also has a saying, 'Put all your eggs in one basket, and then take good care of them. It'. We must go this way, but we must predict all possible risks in advance, and then take measures in advance to prevent them.”

In addition, OPPO didn't care about being the last manufacturer to release a full-screen mobile phone. Instead, it put forward the concept of "dare to be the best in the world, and strive to be the first in the last".

In OPPO's cognitive system, "Dare to be the first in the world, and strive to be the first in the last" means that when entering a certain market or creating a product, it does not necessarily have to be the first to go to market, nor does it have to be the first to use the latest technology or device. But when you enter this market, you must be ahead in some aspects. The time of entry is not important, what is important is to quickly take the lead after deciding to enter, and then run faster than others.

Wu Qiang said that industry hotspots and technologies are emerging one after another, and OPPO has never followed suit. A company with long-term competitiveness does not lie in whether it enters early or late, but the key lies in its ability to truly change the consumer experience through technological innovation and ingenious application. Because users don't care about sooner or later, they only care about good or bad.

Wu Qiang said that in the course of OPPO's operation for so many years, there have been many similar cases. "For example, OPPO was not the first company to enter the MP3 industry, but only entered when the industry was developing rapidly and at its hottest. But we managed to be the first in the industry and quickly achieved this market-leading position."

"I think we should focus on 'the last one'. When we switched to 4G in 2014, we were the most determined among all manufacturers. Because we realized that the upgrade of this technology at this point in time would bring huge benefits to the entire industry and the market. Changes. When we think clearly, we internally say 'I would rather sell a few million units less than to fully transform to 4G'. The result is that we will soon be able to lead in this market", so Wu Qiang believes that for "dare to be the world In the discussion of "the latter", more attention should be paid to how to "compete for the first in the latter".

The top five in the market account for 82.5% of the market, and the strong mobile phone industry will become stronger

Each strong brand has its own way of success. It is undeniable that the mobile phone industry has entered an era in which the strong get stronger.

According to the latest research report released by IDC, global smartphone shipments reached 373.1 million units in the third quarter of 2017, an increase of 2.7% from 363.4 million units in the same period in 2016. Samsung, Apple, Huawei, OPPO, and Xiaomi occupy the top five positions, and all of them increased their shipments.

Telecom analyst Fu Liang (Weibo) pointed out that the sixth place should be vivo, and the share of vivo is likely to increase. The share of the top five has exceeded 60%. Adding the share of vivo, the top six account for two-thirds of the global smartphone market.

Looking at the domestic market, according to the research report on China’s smartphone market in the third quarter released by Counterpoint, the top five players, OPPO, Huawei, vivo, Xiaomi, and Apple, accounted for 82.5% of the market share.

In addition, according to JD.com’s latest smartphone battle report from November 1st to 3rd, among the price ranges above 500 yuan, only Hammer Nut PRO 32G and 64G are listed in the list of 1000-1499 yuan and 1500-1999 yuan respectively end. The top five mobile phones under 500 yuan have nothing to do with TOP6, because they have given up this market.

Fu Liang said that from these data, we can see that the global TOP6 mobile phone brands (Samsung, Apple, Huawei, OPPO, Xiaomi, vivo) have achieved an overall overwhelming advantage in the market above 500 yuan, and their share is still expanding , other mobile phone manufacturers either grab the low-end market, or seek differentiated demand, but even so, I believe that most days will not be easy, because the profit is too thin.

It is not difficult to see that in the second half of the smartphone game where there are many masters and the strong are getting stronger, the mainstream players who are still active on the table must show their housekeeping skills.

As the growth rate of the global and Chinese mobile phone markets shows signs of slowing down, it gradually enters the replacement period from the incremental period, which also puts forward higher requirements for mobile phone manufacturers. Even the current TOP6 major manufacturers must continue to improve product experience and service levels in order to grasp users.

[Source: Securities Daily]