According to the analysis report on the operation of the domestic mobile phone market recently released by China information and Communication Research Institute, in February 2022, the shipment of mobile phones in the domestic market was 14.864 million, a year-on-year decrease of 31.7%; Among them, the shipment of domestic brand mobile phones was 12.783 million, a year-on-year decrease of 34.7%. Nowadays, smart phones are selling more and more expensive, but they lack transformative innovation. Mobile phone "nail households" have spread from the elderly to the younger generation, and the golden age of mobile phone consumption has become a memory. When the industry as a whole enters the bottleneck period of development, only major innovation can break the situation. The slowdown in smartphone demand is an indisputable fact According to the report of ConAs, a research organization, since the first decline in China's mobile phone shipments in 2017, it has fallen for four consecutive years; It was not until 2021 that shipments increased slightly by 1%. Under the superposition of various factors, it is an indisputable fact that the demand for consumer electronics represented by smart phones has slowed down. According to the data released by the industry analysis company counterpoint, the average change cycle of mobile phone users has exceeded 31 months; Strategy analytics, a market research firm, said that the average change cycle of Chinese users was 28 months. Bai Song, an independent analyst in the communication industry, said: "the smartphone industry is in a bottleneck period, and the rise of rational consumption is an important reason. The continuous progress of processors represented by Qualcomm Xiaolong makes the performance of mobile phones stronger and stronger. At least mobile phones will not become stuck in a year. Therefore, for many consumers, there is no reason to change phones in the short term." As the impulse to change phones subsided and rational consumption rose, mobile phone manufacturers at home and abroad began to "cut orders", lowered market expectations, and the mobile phone industry entered structural adjustment. Zhang Guobin, founder of e-innovation.com, said: "some analysts predicted that the shipment volume of 5g mobile phones in 2022 could reach 700 million to 750 million, with a maximum of 800 million. However, the current predicted shipment volume of 5g mobile phones is only 660 million, and the market demand has declined by hundreds of millions. I am pessimistic about the overall market view of 2022, and it is estimated that some mobile phone brands will disappear from the public view." Even so, the flagship new products of various mobile phone enterprises are still intensively launched. Netizens joked: "there are too many new mobile phones for young people to use." The words of Zhou Hongyi, founder of 360 company, can best reflect the current extremely "insider" mobile phone industry: "the mobile phone industry is no longer a red sea, but a sea of blood. It has to make headlines every week and put a satellite every month. Even if the CEO is not the ninth paragraph of talk show, he has to hurry up his spare time to become a rapper, otherwise he may lose the attention of the masses." Why no matter how many people fail, they can't stop the latecomers from cross-border "making mobile phones"? Luo Haoyuan, founder of China Guangdong joint capital, said: "driven by 5g, the people-centered Internet scene and experience of all things are reconstructing the boundary of products and services. Smart phones are still the core 'remote controller' of smart home, sports and health, tablet, computer, VR / AR and other full scene smart life." Smartphone innovation is reaching the ceiling The continuous extension of the replacement cycle makes users tend to buy medium and high-end mobile phone products with "better experience and longer use". However, although domestic mobile phone manufacturers continue to innovate in the configuration of folding screen, high brush screen, fast charging and camera, it is more and more difficult to arouse consumers' desire to buy. Obviously, the "micro innovation" of small repair and small compensation has been difficult for consumers to take out their money bags. "China's mobile phone market is expected to decline in 2022." Zhao Ming, CEO of glory, admitted that in such a market environment, mobile phone manufacturers need to find a suitable reason for consumers to "why should I change my mobile phone". "Hardware can only determine the lower limit of the product, and the collaboration of algorithm and software and hardware can determine the real experience and value that consumers can obtain," Zhao Ming said In Bai Song's view, in addition to the upgrading of processors and the renovation of hardware such as cameras, we have not seen the real bright black technology of smart phones for a long time, and the innovation of smart phones is touching the ceiling. How to continuously impress users has become a common problem faced by mobile phone brands. Shen Wei, founder, President and CEO of vivo, said in the "2022 Spring Festival speech": "at any time, competition orientation, cost orientation, parameter orientation and efficiency orientation must not be superior to user orientation. Enterprises that abandon users will eventually be abandoned by users and will not be healthy for a long time." However, it is not so easy to want every step of scientific and technological innovation to step on the hearts of users. The most challenging year of the smartphone Era Even dragging a power bank every day, many "fruit fans" are unwilling to change their course and join the Android camp. "At present, it seems that the 'moat' established by apple with technology, experience and brand is difficult for other brands to cross for the time being." "Although the strong brand effect left by the Steve Jobs era has always been the biggest help to Apple products, it can not be ignored that under the condition of increasingly serious homogenization of mobile phone products, the core of deciding whether users change their mobile phones is experience or habits. Once their use and operation habits are formed, it is difficult to change them," Bosson said Apple is still the most profitable manufacturer of consumer electronics. The iPhone accounts for only about 15% of the global market share, but it takes nearly 70% of the profits of the industry. Huawei is the only one that can compete with apple mobile phones in the high-end market. Even if Huawei fades out of the smartphone market, the market's expectations for it have not weakened, and the brand influence is still driving consumers to continue to buy. As a product released in the middle of 2021, Huawei P50 still has amazing sales force in the past more than one and a half years, becoming a classic case in the field of domestic flagship machines. Whether it is to catch up with apple or to accumulate power to advance to the high end, the folding screen is regarded by mobile phone manufacturers as an important innovative category of "lane changing overtaking" in the high-end market. So far, major domestic mobile phone brands have launched folding screen mobile phones. However, there are still differences on the views of folding screen mobile phones in the industry. Some people believe that folding screen is an important milestone product in mobile phones and even in the field of science and technology. However, the user experience at this stage is like chicken ribs, and its impact may not appear until a few years later. Manufacturers are obviously very confident, because despite the contradiction between strong user demand, few new product choices and high pricing in the domestic folding screen market, new products generally have a production capacity climbing cycle, and the prospect is more optimistic. Nowadays, the key development directions of major domestic mobile phone brands are locked in the medium and high-end mobile phone market. 2018-2021 is the "first round of exploration" for domestic mobile phone brands to impact the high-end. Almost all domestic brands choose "flagship renewal" or directly launch new series or even sub brands. In 2022, major domestic mobile phone brands have basically completed the reorganization of their flagship strategy. Vivo chose to focus on X series and divided it into three products: image (x), business (x note) and folding screen (x fold); Oppo launched a new find X5 series equipped with "self-developed image NPU"; Glory's newly released Magic 4 flagship series won the global DxOMark image champion Under the trend of "volume falling and price rising", the sales volume of China's high-end mobile phone market may hit the bottom again this year, but it will also usher in an important breakthrough and differentiation inflection point. Shen Wei called 2022 "the most challenging year in the era of smart phones". Luo Haoyuan said that China's mobile phone market has fallen into the worst competition cycle in 10 years. Mobile phone enterprises need to find the real needs and functional pain points of users in order to stand out. (Xinhua News Agency)