Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

In the eyes of many people, the release of iPhone 14 will be another carnival of mobile phone merchants and scalpers.

So, for Huaqiangbei, the first street of China Electronics, will this round of iPhone 14 boom set off a consumption peak? Indeed, every year before Apple's autumn launch, Huaqiang North merchants can always get a head start by releasing the latest iPhone, Apple Watch, Air Pods and so on, and many fans who turn empty-handed in specialty stores will find their favorites here.

However, after Apple's autumn press conference in the last two years, Huaqiang North merchants'"preemptive version" overturned once became a joke for netizens after dinner. On Sept. 8, Apple released the iPhone 14 of the "pill" screen. The screen version of the factory "exclamation mark" that was stabbed by Apple was instantly dizzy, and some toughened film merchants also cried and fainted in the toilet.

As for receiving the news in advance, it is confirmed that the new Apple Watch is still not Huaqiang North watch merchant with right-angled frame design, and it is also rumored to be polishing the frame of "preemptive version" S8 overnight. Perhaps the only one who can have the last laugh this year is the Air Pods merchant of the stockade factory.

Although the prosperity of Huaqiang North was once highly bundled with the products released by Apple, it is undeniable that in recent years, with the change in the consumption concept of users and the strong rise of domestic mobile phones, many local mobile phone accessories counters and "wild fruit chains" around iPhone have left the market one after another.

Among them, part of the "wild fruit chain" sank to the third -, fourth-and fifth-tier cities with greater market demand, looking for new business opportunities. With the sinking of the "wild fruit chain", what new changes and trends will the industry reflect in consumption?

"01" big cities do not need "wild fruit chain"? "nowadays, Huaqiang North iPhone parts business can be said to be more and more difficult to do."

Before the May Day holiday this year, Brother Guo, who had been rooted in Huaqiang North for more than six years, decided to go back to his hometown Chaonan Chen Dian in Shantou to open a mobile phone accessories store. Brother Guo said frankly: in the past year or two, there have been many Huaqiang North accessories merchants like him who have "backed down in the face of difficulties", almost all of which have been "transferred to" small towns to continue their previous livelihood.

Guo recalled that when he first arrived in Huaqiang North in 2016, the iPhone was still a luxury in the eyes of consumers in many first-tier cities. Although iPhone 7 was released in September of that year, the most needed business in his store was to replace batteries and fix burst screens for iPhone 4S.

"I remember that at that time, the average salary in Shenzhen was just over 5000, but the starting price of iPhone 7 was 5400 yuan." In addition, at that time, installment consumption had not yet broken out, and users dared to spend a lot of money on a new iPhone for a long time, so many young consumers hoped that their iPhone could be used for a few more years.

Brother Guo jokingly said that it is precisely because of the early fruit fans' consumption concept that "one machine is handed down for three generations, people are still there", which not only feeds the entire second-phone merchants in Huaqiang North, but also feeds a large number of iPhone majors and accessories stores like him.

"however, the wages of Shenzhen people have risen a lot in recent years, and the starting price of recent generations of iPhone is almost less than 6000, which is cheaper than many Android phones. Many Shenzhen people can use the latest generation of iPhone for half a month's salary, and the frequency of replacement is naturally much higher."

A glimpse of this trend can also be seen in Strategy Analytics's data: the average replacement cycle for Chinese users is 28 months.

However, Guo GE, who has nearly six years of experience in the "wild fruit chain", believes that in recent years, fruit fans in first-tier cities such as Shenzhen have undoubtedly pushed up the average replacement cycle of domestic consumers, and it is not uncommon for fruit fans to "catch up with the new" every year.

In the release of the 2021 Autumn second-hand Apple iPhone Trading report, we can see that second-hand iPhone is still moving from high-line cities to sinking markets. And this year's e-commerce platform 618 mobile phone war reports, iPhone 13 sales can be said to be a horse of dust, the new front-line, front-line users are still the main consumption of high-end phones.

"iPhone users in big cities have high replacement frequency, which is not a good thing for accessories merchants and maintenance shops in Huaqiangbei. Apple fans have no time to wear out the iPhone battery, the screen has not had a chance to break, the mobile phone has been sold, accessories and maintenance, naturally can not make money."

For a large number of fruit chain merchants began to pour into the sinking market, Guo explained that in recent years, the factors affecting the "wild fruit chain" business, in addition to the high frequency of replacement of fruit fans in first-tier cities, the rise of domestic mobile phones and high-end flagships has also made Huaqiang North iPhone majors and accessories merchants unprofitable.

According to the data released by the China Institute of Information and Communication, in the first half of this year, 134 million mobile phones were shipped in the domestic market, of which 115 million were shipped with domestic brands, accounting for more than 80%, while foreign brands such as Apple accounted for less than 20%.

It is not difficult to find that more than 30 per cent of iPhone users choose other Android brands when switching phones, according to the 2021 White Paper on people's Insight into the Mobile phone Industry published by a large number of math.

In other words, the next phone of many apple fans may not be the iPhone.

So, with the rise of domestic mobile phones, Huaqiang North's "wild fruit chain" is not transformed into domestic machine parts? Brother Guo's explanation is that the prices of most domestic machine parts are more transparent, and their profits are not as high as iPhone accessories. "A lot of domestic mobile phones send shell film from the factory and use it as soon as they get their hands on it, what about Huaqiang North businesses?"

Gradually, the identity of many Huaqiang North "wild fruit chain" merchants has become suppliers of mobile phone maintenance shops and accessories stores in low-line cities.

They pay high rents in the core areas of first-tier cities and do wholesale businesses that only need warehousing, which is extremely uneconomical for shrewd Huaqiangbei merchants. As a result, the batch sinking of the "wild fruit chain" has also become inevitable.

"02" sinking market Nuggets "nail households"believe it or not, there are still some people in a small city with the iPhone 5s released in 2013."

Brother Guo admitted that almost all the iOS released by Apple in recent years did not support upgrades to older models below iPhone 6, so as to "force down" the so-called nail households.

At the end of last year, the news that Apple listed the iPhone 6Plus as an "outdated product" and stopped providing hardware services strengthened his sinking confidence.

According to the data, the cumulative sales of the iPhone 6 series are as high as 230 million, making it Apple's highest-selling model. In the domestic market, including authentic and "parallel imports", the number of iPhone 6 is not low. Today, there are still a large number of iPhone 6 mobile phone users in third-and fourth-tier cities.

Among them, there are not only new phones purchased by consumers in third -, fourth-and fifth-tier cities at a high price, but also second-hand mobile phones that have been eliminated in some first-tier cities and flowed to the sinking market. The aircraft with the shortest age is estimated to have been six or seven years old.

"the per capita disposable income in small towns is low, so you can't just change the mobile phones you bought that year." For this reason, Brother Guo believes that users in the sinking market even more hope that by replacing batteries and repairing burst screens for the old iPhone, the demand for this kind of "renewal" of the old iPhone and using it for more than a few years is actually not low.

In addition, after many young people change their new phones, they will give the replacement of the old iPhone to their parents or family members, and the elders who are used to "thrift" have repaired and repaired their phones, replaced their batteries, and are reluctant to buy new ones. "Last week, I repaired an iPhone 6, and the battery has been replaced four times, and the screen has been changed twice."

Of course, because some iPhone models are relatively old, it was difficult to find so-called original parts on the market long before the official announcement that hardware services would be stopped. Therefore, the low-cost accessory parts also provide considerable profit space for the sinking "wild fruit chain".

Because some fourth-and fifth-tier cities and towns do not have formal Apple official authorized service providers, they only use iPhone products that have been out of insurance for two or three years, and they also need to seek "wild fruit chain" services in the event of failure or missing accessories.

Industry research data show that the smartphone in-maintenance market accounts for 16% of the overall maintenance market, the external maintenance market accounts for 84% of the total, and the overall scale of the mobile phone maintenance market is 30 billion to 50 billion.

For this reason, the smartphone maintenance market is divided up not only by individual maintenance shops, but also by o2o (Online To Offline) maintenance platforms.

Some industry analysts said that in the case of reduced maintenance demand in first-tier cities, mobile phone maintenance platforms should accelerate the layout of sinking market business. In Guo's eyes, the competition between the mobile phone maintenance O2O platform and the "wild fruit chain" has shifted to low-line cities.

"fortunately, sinking users, especially the elderly, are used to repairing mobile phones and buying accessories offline." In order to meet the consumer needs of "small town users" as much as possible, Guo's stores have also expanded from only making iPhone accessories to a large number of domestic brands.

However, with the sinking of the "wild fruit chain" with wholesale supply and first-tier resources, the mobile phone maintenance market in third-and fourth-tier cities began to "roll in", and the once quite comfortable "ground snake" encountered Huaqiang northern businesses hit by dimensionality reduction. Life is hard for everyone.

The dimension reduction attack of "03" and "Wild Fruit chain": "many rural people who used to 'get rich' in Huaqiang North have come back to open shops."

Less than 100 meters from Brother Guo's shop, there is another mobile phone store with a bit of a "sense of age". It is known from the business scope marked on the store that this store integrates mobile phone trading, maintenance and spare parts sales. Ah Cai, who runs the store, said that his mobile phone store has been open in the town for almost a decade.

Just like iPhone used to feed Huaqiang North in Shenzhen, buying, selling and repairing iPhone phones, which are still high-end in the eyes of "small town youth", is indeed the main source of income for many local individual mobile phone stores. Of course, Ah Tsai's stores are no exception.

When it comes to those colleagues who return to their hometown from Huaqiang North to set up shop, Ah Caiqi does not come here for a simple reason: Huaqiang North's peer merchants have "disrupted" the inherent rules of the mobile phone market in small towns and destroyed the originally comfortable business model of local shops.

"Let's not talk about anything else. Why should I charge customers 80 yuan for batteries, while you only charge 60 yuan for batteries?" Ah Tsai said angrily that he was the only mobile phone store within a three-kilometer radius, so the cost of repairing mobile phones and the price of mobile phone accessories were indeed higher than those in first-and second-tier cities.

In his view, when he takes goods from a dealer, the cost of the iPhone 6 battery is about 40 yuan, and it is not too much for customers to earn a handicraft fee of 40 yuan. "but for these people who come back from Huaqiang North, the cost of first-hand battery supply is only 30 yuan, and customers can earn 30 yuan if they charge 60 yuan for changing batteries."

Because of the first-hand supply and cheap maintenance of mobile phones and accessories, the "wild fruit chain" hit by dimensionality reduction quickly stole a large number of customers from "local snakes". In order to retain regular customers, local businesses, including Ah Tsai, also have to cut prices and join the ranks of "volume".

Local businessmen originally thought that such an "inner roll" approach would make some "Qiang long" retreat in the face of difficulties, but what Ah Tsai did not expect is that more and more Huaqiang North businessmen are sinking to open stores, and now they are located in the center of the town. it even forms a mobile phone street, with shops repairing mobile phones and selling accessories on both sides of the road.

"A lot of mobile phone stores are sublet, and some of them are old local shops. If it goes on like this, I'm going to close down." He said with a wry smile that the reduced demand for smartphone maintenance in first-tier cities has undoubtedly squeezed the living space of Huaqiangbei's "wild fruit chain", but the sinking of the "one-meter counter" may cut off the survival of the small town's mobile phone store.

[conclusion] it can be said that many Huaqiang North businesses have become rich because of iPhone, and with the upgrading and iteration of iPhone, they have changed their business model. Nowadays, as more and more users begin to change their consumption patterns and the domestic mobile phone market is constantly changing, big cities are becoming less and less dependent on the "wild fruit chain".

The release of an iPhone 14 will not change the fate of Huaqiangbei merchants, and sinking may be the best option for more and more "wild fruit chains" rooted in first-tier cities.

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