On March 28, Vivo officially announced the release date of its first folding screen mobile phone Vivo X Fold, which also means that several head manufacturers in the mobile phone industry have basically joined the production ranks of folding screen mobile phones.
However, in the domestic brand Top5, vivo is the last one to enter the game. If you sort by product release timeline, the brand that launched the folding screen mobile phone earlier is Huawei, followed by Xiaomi, OPPO, Honor and vivo.
In fact, vivo followed up the folding screen mobile phone time is not late, as early as 2018 in an interview with the media Vivo executive vice president Hu Baishan said that the company is already working on the relevant research and development of folding screen mobile phones.
This can't help but make people wonder: since the matter of doing folding screen mobile phones is not rushed, then why did vivo not launch a mass production model before but waited until now, what are the different thoughts behind this?
Folding screen mobile phone, from "moving" to "retaining people"
In 2007, Steve Jobs delivered a very important speech in his life, the arrival of the first generation of iPhone, let people realize that the keyboard and stylus advocated by the "BlackBerry" are not the necessities of mobile phones, and the touch interaction advocated by Apple has become a sign of the industry's entry into the next era.
Revolutionary innovations have won Apple years of initiative. But in recent years, the magic of innovation is fading, and even Apple has not been able to create products like the original iPhone that can really lead the industry into a new era, and it seems that stimulating user consumption has become a more important reason for the emergence of some innovations.
The evolution of the full screen is a good example. From bangs screens, waterdrop screens, pop-up cameras, slides to the mainstream punching screens of the Android camp to the present, manufacturers have tried a variety of different solutions in the past few years.
With the continuous optimization of the full-screen solution, the look and feel of today's mobile phone products is indeed better, but it has not made a qualitative leap in the use experience, and many people are using the hole-digging screen mobile phone, and the users who choose Liu Haiping iPhone have not seen this reduction.
iPhone 13 Pro/image from the official
In fact, the problems faced by the mobile phone industry today are not unique, including PCs, almost all industries that have entered the mature stage have similar innovation dilemmas. When the known user pain points are solved one by one, the innovation road to find unknown user pain points becomes more and more difficult.
In this context, there are actually two paths for manufacturers to maintain continuous competitiveness, one is to continuously carry out technical rehearsals and try more breakthrough innovations; the other is to polish out products with a more mature comprehensive experience to retain users.
From the perspective of the release time of vivo X Fold, vivo's attitude of making folding screen mobile phones actually coincides with Apple, and the two companies have not taken the pursuit of faster and newer product paths, but tend to be steady and steady, delivering a more mature mobile phone.
Since the beginning of entering the mass production stage, the folding screen mobile phone has gone through almost three years, although the shipment curve of such products has been on the rise, but a more realistic situation is that it has not yet become the choice of most.
Folding screen mobile phones have not been able to really enter the popularization stage soon, on the one hand, because the product pricing is generally higher than that of conventional mobile phones, on the other hand, many folding screen mobile phones currently on the market are not perfect, resulting in interested users choosing to wait and see.
Because the inner screen has the foldable characteristics, the folding screen mobile phone can break through the physical limitations, which is very good to meet people's requirements for the large-screen experience, combined with the external screen, which is equivalent to the convenience of the mobile phone and the large-screen display characteristics of the tablet computer to achieve a device, which is a very genius set of product ideas. It may not necessarily replace the straight phone, but it is enough to become an independent subdivision product line.
Image from the official
However, the folding screen products have been mass-produced so far, and some problems have been accompanied by them. First of all, it is the inner screen crease caused by repeated opening and closing of the mobile phone, which will directly affect the overall perception of the mobile phone after it is unfolded, and it is also a place where everyone complained more before.
In addition, due to the need to meet the characteristics of multiple folding, the internal screen structure design and material selection of the folding screen mobile phone have been specially processed, and there is no way to directly apply the mature program, and the screen display effect is also improved compared to the top flagship.
In addition to the above two points, there are still many places in the folding screen mobile phone that are in a state of catch-up. For example, biometric solutions, screen fingerprints have basically become the standard of conventional straight-board flagships, but so far, the folding screen mobile phones on sale have not followed up.
Therefore, the first entrant manufacturers, while gaining the market layout opportunity, also need to assume the role of "pathfinder"; the advantage of the latter entry is that it is relatively easy for users to obtain a more mature experience on the shoulders of predecessors. Products with a new form, such as folding screen mobile phones, will eventually have to go through two stages from "moving" to "retaining people", and then there will be a follow-up popularization stage.
Better, is the "key" to explore the high-end market
A small number of people have it, but it provides a new opportunity to expand the market. Since last year, several head domestic mobile phone manufacturers that are still active in the center of the stage have basically made it clear that they want to enter the high-end market, which is not unrelated to Huawei's giving up a certain market space, but in the long run, high-end is actually a road that mobile phone manufacturers must take.
According to the data released by the statistical agency IDC, the global smartphone shipments in 2021 were 1.3548 million units, an increase of 5.7% year-on-year, and the top five brands in terms of shipments were Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, OPPO and vivo. Among them, Samsung accounted for 20.1% of the market, Apple 17.4%, Xiaomi 14.1%, OPPO 9.9%, and Vivo 9.5%.
If you evaluate brand profits according to the number of shipments, in theory, Samsung should be the most profitable mobile phone company, but the fact is that Apple, which has never been at the top of the list in terms of shipments, has become the most profitable mobile phone brand for many years, and in the second quarter of last year, they took 75% of the operating profit of the global mobile phone market, and once exceeded 90%.
From a report published by Counterpoint, the reasons behind this can be found. While Samsung's overall shipments will be higher in 2021, the high-end smartphone market accounts for only 17%, and Apple's is as high as 60%. In other words, as the industry growth curve tends to be stable, it is difficult to further expand the sales advantage, and it is impossible to make up for the gap between the profits of individual products.
When the road of "small profits and quick sales" is difficult to maintain, it is inevitable to explore the high-end market. In addition to this fundamental reason, the iPhone sells well, but also from another point of view, the market for high-end products to carry more and more strong capacity, users have the ability and willingness to pay for high-end products, the external environment has been available.
Among several domestic mobile phone manufacturers, Vivo's high-end strategy has achieved initial results. Counterpoint data shows that at the end of 2021, Vivo's market share in the domestic market of 4000-5000 yuan reached 24.1%, ranking first. However, globally, if you want to catch up with Apple or Samsung, it seems that there is still a long way to go.
Android mobile phone brands want to impact the high-end mobile phone market in the form of straight mobile phones, the main problem facing them is that in the era of highly mature industrial chain, the flagship products of large manufacturers are very good, but it is difficult to fundamentally differentiate. One of the important reasons why the iPhone can occupy the top position in the high-end market for a long time is precisely from hardware to software, which is different from Android phones.
According to the current situation of the industry, perhaps domestic brands can seize a part of the high-end market share, and it is very difficult to achieve a breakthrough. The emergence of folding screen mobile phones provides a door for entering the high-end market, and making products better is the "key" to open this door.
On the one hand, the folding screen mobile phone has not yet entered the popularization stage, although there are many manufacturers entering the game, but the market pattern is undecided, which can provide enough large space for competition to show their talents; on the other hand, the recognition of mass users for such products is constantly improving, and its own technology trend attributes are more conducive to breaking the high-end market monopolized by the iPhone and other rigid mobile phones.
In order to use this "key" well, in fact, Vivo made the most reasonable decision on the brand side. According to the official statement, the NEX series is no longer updated, and its emphasis on the spirit of innovation is carried by the X series, while its first folding screen mobile phone vivo X Fold is drawn into the X series.
For this decision of vivo, it can be roughly interpreted from three aspects: first, after the cancellation of the NEX series, fold will become vivo's most high-end mobile phone product series without controversy, there will be no internal fights, which is convenient for user psychological construction; secondly, merging into the X series, vivo X Fold is more likely to quickly enter the market with the help of the good image accumulated by the X series for many years; finally, if the future folding screen mobile phone successfully breaks through, it will feed the X series. Let its whole take another step towards high-end.
Create surprises in maturity
Of course, whether vivo can achieve a breakthrough in the high-end market with folding screen mobile phones, the most critical point is whether it can pull out a convincing product. For vivo X Fold, the official description of it as "open the folding screen 2.0 era", it is easier to guess that it will be equipped with a new generation of Snapdragon 8 platform, more details or wait until the end of the conference to know.
However, huang Tao, vice president of vivo products, recently listed in a public article including screen creases, internal and external screen switching setbacks, color difference, hinge, screen fingerprints, etc., a series of folding screen mobile phones should solve the problem, while the official announcement of vivo X Fold will become the official designated mobile phone of the Boao Forum for Asia, which makes us have some more expectations for Vivo's first folding screen mobile phone and its high-end road.
Back to the topic we raised at the beginning of the article, in fact, the sustainable development of the industry requires explorers who dare to be one step ahead, and there must also be a mature faction like Vivo. After all, a mature product experience can retain users, which proves the value of innovation. There is no problem in exploring new technologies, and the pursuit of better is not necessarily a good choice.