Recently, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology released a set of relevant market reports, which show that in February 2024, the domestic market shipped 14.257 million mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 32.9%, of which 12.532 million 5G mobile phones, a year-on-year decrease of 29.2%.
In February alone, the domestic mobile phone market shipments plummeted by 32.9%, equivalent to a one-third drop in shipments, such a dismal market performance can not help but make people feel surprised and curious, the domestic mobile phone market shipments fell sharply, what are the deep reasons behind it?
In fact, the reason why the domestic mobile phone market has fallen into negative growth is an inevitable phenomenon caused by many aspects. Including, the homogenization of mobile phone product hardware, there are many brands and models of various mobile phones on the market, and there are almost no obvious differences between different brands and models of single products at the same price in terms of hardware configuration, design functions and actual product experience, resulting in the lack of core competitiveness and differentiated selling points of the product, which is not enough to stimulate users to arouse their desire to buy.
The consumer market demand is weak, and the enthusiasm for buying new mobile phones has declined, and the original incremental market has evolved into a stock market.
From a product perspective, compared with the old model, the new model has limited comprehensive upgrades, and the limited upgrade is not enough to stimulate the weak consumer market. With the update and iteration of products, new technologies and new hardware are constantly decentralized, so that most of the thousand-yuan stalls and low-end mobile phones have relatively excellent comprehensive performance, low prices, and can fully meet the daily use needs of most ordinary user groups. For high-end mobile phones with more than 6,000 yuan, there is no rigid need at all. When buying a new mobile phone, people will naturally not consider buying a new mobile phone if they feel that the product experience has not improved significantly.
The key to fundamentally increasing mobile phone sales lies in major innovations in products and technologies. The sharp decline in sales and the weak demand for users to buy mobile phones also show from the side that the innovation and upgrading of mobile phone products at this stage is limited, and the word-of-mouth effect caused by it is lacking, and the motivation of consumers to change their phones cannot be mobilized.
Since the launch of the iPhone 15 series, it fell below the launch price on the first day, and then ushered in several price reductions in a short period of time. The leading brand in the industry, Apple has not been able to get rid of price reduction promotions to boost sales, and other major manufacturers are not much better.
The lack of technological innovation is directly related to the lack of product competitiveness.
From a macro perspective, the smartphone industry is in today's predicament, and the key to how to break the situation lies in major revolutionary innovations in the field of products and technologies. Prior to this, the advent of the 5G network era has injected fresh vitality into the global mobile phone market, which has been flat as water, and in just two years or so, the mobile phone market has ushered in a wave of mobile phone sales. Once it falls into an innovation bottleneck, it not only restricts the update and iteration of mobile phone products, but also greatly limits people's demand for replacement.
At this stage, the lack of innovation is already the real status quo of the mobile phone industry, and in the short term, it is difficult or even impossible to completely change the normal state of this industry. For mobile phone manufacturers, on the one hand, they should strive for product research and development and innovation in technology, on the other hand, for old models, they should also make profits to the consumer market, and sell the backlog of hoarding goods as soon as possible by means of low prices and discounts.
The downturn in the mobile phone market, in addition to the slowdown in consumer purchase demand, is related to the economic consumption environment.
A few years ago, buying and using high-end smartphones was, to some extent, considered a kind of status and status enjoyment, and owning high-end brands such as iPhone, Huawei, and Samsung was almost recognized as a way to highlight status symbols. However, in recent years, with the rationalization of consumption concepts and other factors, the attribute of mobile phones to the blessing of identity and face has long been weakened, and it is no longer blindly pursuing big brands and high-end prices, and choosing the consumption concept that is affordable and meets their own needs has become the mainstream value of the consumer market.
From a market perspective, the plunge in the domestic mobile phone market in February is also a microcosm of the overall global market. After several years of rapid update and iteration, the smartphone market has long been free of demographic dividends, and the era of savage growth is long gone.
The slowdown in demand for new mobile phones is mainly due to a lack of innovation in technology and products. How to get out of the predicament, mobile phone manufacturers still need to enhance their competitiveness in terms of technology and products, create product differentiation, and benefit consumers, so as to be able to get out of the counterattack in the downturn of the industry, which is also a prerequisite for promoting the sustainable and benign development of the industry......