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

Author (pixel)

Editor Luo Wen Ba Niang

Planner Yang Qian

Since Motorola came to China with mobile phones in 1999, mobile phones have become a rigid demand in people's daily life. More than 20 years later, the mobile phone terminal market has experienced many industrial transitions, and now it has already entered a new stage from the struggle of thousands of yuan smartphones, and the major mobile phone manufacturers have increased their investment in folding screen phones. It seems that folding screen phones have become a new battlefield for them to compete for.

Is the folding screen mobile phone a rigid demand or a pseudo demand? Will the era when national mobile phones are dominated by folding screens really come?

01. When folding screen mobile phones become fashion "symbols"

I do not know since when, the folding screen mobile phone has become a symbol of wealth and trend. When the migrant workers from the first-tier cities returned to the county seat, they suddenly found that the "county rich women" already had a folding screen mobile phone-they may not be strong women walking in the first-tier city with their own BGM, but they had BMW, Audi, designer bags and folding screen mobile phones.

Like the slogan of Samsung's folding screen phone, "it's time to fold together."Sisters have it, it's cheaper than Apple 14, why not buy it?" Xiaohui, a post-95 girl in a county in Sichuan, said: "in addition to chasing dramas, chasing variety shows and brushing the news, what is the meaning of turning back and forth? anyway, I don't understand it, so I'll take it as a trend!"

Xiaohui's mentality reflects the attitude of some consumers towards folding screen phones. They do not need the function or different use value of specific things, but actually have a need for the meaning (and differences in meaning) given to the goods.

As Baudrillard pointed out in the Consumer Society, "the logic of goods has been popularized, dominating not only the labor process and material products, but also the whole culture, libido, interpersonal relations, and individual fantasies and impulses."

In Baudrillard's eyes, the object is not an objective entity, but a symbolic meaning with the objective entity as the carrier. Drinking Coca-Cola is not so much consuming a carbonated drink as consuming a meaning and identification with a certain way of life. And the mobile phone has become a fashion symbol, as early as ten years ago.

In 2013, six years after Jobs took out his first iPhone, Tianqing, a 21-year-old senior at a university in Harbin, finally got her first iPhone. At that time, most of her classmates were using full keyboards or flip phones from Nokia E63 or Lenovo, TCL and other brands. This iPhone 3 was bought for her birthday as a sailor's father when he was passing through the United States.

Each era has its own imprint, regardless of industry or field. In the eyes of domestic consumers, Motorola, Nokia, and BlackBerrys, which are loved by geeks and business people, are the "trendy products" of their respective times. With the entry of Xiaomi, the spoiler, the smartphone market has finally reduced the price to less than 1,000 yuan, the "trendy" attribute of smartphones has weakened, and the mobile phone has gradually become a "tool".

▲ photo source: Huawei China's Weibo worker, Mingming, born in 1992, for example, is in sharp contrast to the "county rich woman". "I use the folding screen mobile phone as a production tool, checking materials while writing copywriting." He said that as a typical "copywriter dog", he no longer has to carry a brick-like tablet or a heavy computer, that is "real freedom."but the screen is still too small, sometimes I think my eyes are fast 'blind', it's OK for a short-term emergency, and it's hard to use it for a long time."

But another feature of fashion is that it is bound to return. Today, folding screen phones, which have something in common with flip phones, have begun to become the fashion trend of this era. In this sense, the folding screen mobile phone at this time has become a new symbol.

02. Manufacturers want to win the new track, but in any case, folding screen phones are completely popular in 2022.

According to IDC data, in the fourth quarter of 2022, China's single-quarter shipments of folding screen products reached another record high, with shipments of more than 1.1 million units, with annual shipments of nearly 3.3 million units, an increase of 118% over the same period last year. Folding screen products accounted for 1.2% of the domestic smartphone market, up from 0.5% in 2021.

Looking at this set of data alone, there seems to be no surprise. It should be noted, however, that in 2022, smartphone shipments in China fell 13.2% from 2021 to 286 million units, falling below 300 million units for the first time in a decade. Compared with the peak of 470 million smartphone shipments in 2016, China's smartphone shipments have shrunk by about 40%.

Between one rise and one fall, the market for folding screens seems to be visible to the naked eye. But if you dig deeper, you will find that behind the good-looking data is that the base of folding screen phones in 2021 is low enough.

Even so, for mobile phone manufacturers who have struggled for years in the "price war" and "stacking war" and finally see new possibilities in the industry, folding screen phones are indeed a direction to focus on.

As a rare bright spot in the mobile phone market in recent years, the emergence of folding screen phones is inseparable from Samsung, an established mobile phone manufacturer. The world's first commercially produced smart folding screen phone was made by Samsung-the 2019 Galaxy Fold,7.3-inch flexible large screen broke through the limitations of the original phone screen. With this, Samsung has also taken the opportunity to bring the industry to a new era of folding screen phones. As a pioneer of folding screens, Samsung ranked second in the industry with a 16.5% share of the global folding screen market in 2022.

▲ photo source: Weibo @ DTCHAT but the first person in the industry is not necessarily the one with the largest market share. This first-mover advantage is quickly surpassed by Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. As can be seen from the picture of IDC, Huawei has the highest share of the global market, even nearly three times that of Samsung. In 2022, Huawei exerted enough force on the side of the folding screen.

According to public information, Huawei's folding screen phones include Huawei Mate X2, Huawei Mate Xs 2, Huawei P50 Pocket and Huawei Pocket S, and these phones are all very popular.

"one out of every two folding screen phones sold in China is Huawei," Yu Chengdong said at the launch of Huawei's Pocket S and full-scene new products. This shows Huawei's determination and confidence in folding screen phones.

In addition, OPPO ranked third with 13.8% of the market share with Find N2 Flip. It was followed by vivo, Glory and Xiaomi, with market shares of 7.7 per cent, 6.5 per cent and 6.4 per cent, respectively.

In 2022, mainstream mobile phone brands including Huawei, Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, Glory and vivo continued to launch new folding screen phones. According to rough statistics from public data, at least 20 folding screen phones will be released in the second half of 2022.

With such a dense rhythm of new product launches, it is no wonder that the outside world will think that this is a rather interesting new track. However, from a slow point of view, folding screen phones are popular for two reasons.

First, the market needs new stories. Smartphones have been on the market for 16 years since the launch of the iPhone in 2007. Over the past 16 years, smartphones have grown from scratch and functions from single to diverse. Although the market can see the efforts of major manufacturers, it boils down to nothing more than a "price war" in the early stage. and the subsequent photography technology, screen pixels, memory, chips, design and other aspects of the "heap" war, the major manufacturers "volume" internal injuries have not seen a real breakthrough in the industry.

Second, there is new demand in the market. In the past few years, the competition in the middle and low end of the domestic smartphone market was the fiercest, so at that time, the market scale of "thousand yuan phones" was even larger. However, in 2021, the revenue contribution of domestic smartphones worth more than 4000 yuan has exceeded 50%, and the high-end market has gradually become the consensus of the global smartphone industry. The folding screen mobile phone, no matter the function or the price, is the representative model of the high-end mobile phone. In this case, the manufacturer's emphasis on folding screen phones is essentially to be expected.

03. How far is it from real popularization? Mobile phone manufacturers have made a big bet to fight it out, and each even hopes that their folding screen phones will become a sharp weapon for brands to seize the market, but consumers represented by Mingming and Xiaohui only want to use them as dispensable "tools" or fashion trends. This disparity between supply and demand has implied the difficulty of large-scale popularity of folding screen phones.

After all, they are also quite representative among consumers. What's more, the consumer complaints surrounding folding screen phones have not been stopped since they were launched.

"when I bought a folding screen phone with a fresh attitude, the price of more than 17000 really hurt for several months. after I bought it, apart from pretending to be forced, there seemed to be nothing special." Xing Lei is a digital enthusiast and a fanatic who wants to buy every new product on the market.

"if you have to say a few special things, it is that the sound of opening or closing the folding screen is so loud that you worry about the screen breaking every time you fold it." Since Xing Lei started folding screen phones earlier, the folding technology of the screen was really not very good at that time. However, what impressed him was the price of changing the screen. "not long after I bought it, my phone fell to the ground, and it wasn't my phone that broke, it was my wallet." According to him, it cost more than 3,000 to change the screen, which is equivalent to the price of a mid-range mobile phone.

It is Xing Lei's more obvious feeling that there are few buyers and most of them watching the hustle and bustle. "I always feel that I have paid an IQ tax."

Xiaohui's idea is not so complicated. When she bought the folding screen phone, the price had already come down. "7,000 or 8,000 yuan, the price is not as expensive as Apple 14, the latest model, small and cute, very suitable for girls." Appearance is justice, and the price is acceptable, which is all she asks for the mobile phone.

Whether it is Xing Lei or Xiaohui, they are essentially "not short of money". But for more mass consumers, their replacement cycles and acceptable prices are not the case.

In the recent "folding screen mobile phone consumption survey" for young people, it may be possible to see some trends.

Survey data show that among young consumers between the ages of 21 and 35, folding screen phones account for less than 5%, and more people still use straight screen phones. In terms of replacement cycle, consumers in 1-2 years and 2-3 years account for more than 70%, while changing phones accounts for less than 5% in one year.

In terms of mobile phone prices, mid-range models are more popular, with consumers with the highest prices of 2001-4000 yuan and 4001-6000 yuan, accounting for 28% and 26% of consumers with prices of 6001-8000 yuan, only 17%. Less than 10% of consumers with mobile phone prices above 10000 yuan.

From the survey data, it can be clearly felt that the current price of 6001-8000 yuan for folding screen phones is not high for consumers. This also means that folding screen phones are bound to have fewer potential consumers if they want to extract target consumers from this group of people.

When asked about the price range of folding screens in consumers' minds, 33 percent of consumers thought it should be in the range of 4001 to 6000 yuan, 23 percent of consumers could accept the range of 6001 to 8000 yuan, but 26 percent of consumers thought that folding screen phones could achieve a price of 2001 to 4000 yuan.

For the willingness to buy folding screen phones, "may buy" and "resolutely do not buy" are almost equal, accounting for 10%; their feedback on "under what circumstances will buy folding screen phones". It is also quite telling: geek mentality, products to taste fresh accounted for the highest proportion, more than 31%, recommended by others after pulling the grass accounted for 18.5%, work needs accounted for 13.5% of users. " The proportion of consumers who buy after popularization is 8%. It is worth noting that 16% of consumers said that "they will regret buying it."

As a result, slow believes that the current technology and prices are in high-end folding screen phones are far from popular, mobile phone manufacturers want to increase the overall market share through folding screen phones, I am afraid it is too early. In addition, there are many unsolved difficulties in folding screen mobile phones, which need to be improved by manufacturers. For example, "too heavy, poor performance, expensive maintenance", "expensive, no special function", 22% of consumers think that this is a "proper IQ tax, do not pay for 'semi-finished products'".

However, they also said that if the folding screen phone is stable in all aspects and the cost is reduced to a relatively reasonable range, they will still consider buying it.

In addition, among the purchase decision factors of folding screen mobile phones, consumers rank among the top five in terms of function / performance, price, operating system and appearance design, and do not pay much attention to the brand. This also reflects from the side that the era of passionate consumption of "scrambling to buy the latest mobile phones" has passed, and the era of rational consumption of "paying attention to function, function and price" has come.

Overall, although from the consumer's point of view, folding screen mobile phones are still a long way from the real popularity. However, it is commendable that the investment of domestic smartphone manufacturers at the level of new technology has enabled them to break away from the whirlpool of "price war" and turn to real competition at the technological level.

We also have reason to believe that this kind of investment in long-term doctrine is bound to lead China's manufacturing industry to a wider world.

Reference:

1. Zijin Finance and Economics, Analysis: will folding screen mobile phones become the mainstream of the market in 2023?

2.IT Times? can't afford to repair folding screen mobile phones.

3. China Electronic News: why did Samsung, which dominates the global folding screen mobile phone market, be overturned in the Chinese market?

4. Geek net, why haven't folding screen mobile phones become mainstream?

5.36 Krypton: "essence" and "firmness" of folding screen

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: slow (ID:manfangsd), author: pixel

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