China-Singapore Jingwei client April 16th (Chang Tao) April 15th, Beijing time, Apple released a new iPhone. However, this is not the legendary 5G iPhone 12, but the iPhone SE starting at 3299 yuan. Interestingly, at the same time as this ultra-cost-effective 4G iPhone was released, domestic mobile phone manufacturers are vigorously launching 5G mobile phones in various gears and card market.
In March, 5G mobile phone shipments showed a rebound growth, and recent 5G applications have been updated one after another, which makes many people optimistically predict: Is the 5G replacement wave coming?
New latitude and longitude in the data map
Apple is also engaged in "market sinking"?
This is an expected product. Earlier, multiple sources showed that Apple will release a cheap iPhone in April this year, but it is temporarily uncertain whether it will be named iPhone 9 or iPhone SE.
On the evening of April 15th, Beijing time, the answer was revealed, and Apple disclosed iPhone SE information on its official website. This phone retains the large bezels on the top and bottom and the Home button with Touch ID, which looks very similar to the iPhone 8.
Unlike the iPhone 8, the SE has been upgraded on the chip. Apple's strongest A13 bionic chip is used in this phone, which means that the performance of this phone is comparable to the iPhone 11 Pro.
Although the iPhone SE ’s single camera does look shabby, this rear lens supports 4K video shooting at up to 60 fps, using Apple ’s “single eye depth sensing” technology, which can be achieved with the previous dual-lens iPhone Portrait mode.
"More fragrant" is the price. This Friday (April 17), the iPhone SE will start pre-sale and ship on April 24. Specifically, iPhone SE has 64GB, 128GB and 256GB three files, black and white and red are available. According to different memory specifications, the prices in the mainland are 3299 yuan, 3799 yuan and 4599 yuan. It is indeed Apple's cheapest mobile phone at present, no wonder some netizens ridicule: Apple is also going to sink the market?
Screenshot source: Apple China official website
There is a view that iPhone SE is indeed a good choice for users who do not pursue novel features and have limited budgets but still want to experience the iPhone.
Li Yi, chief researcher of the Internet Research Center of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, previously analyzed the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client: "In fact, there are still many consumers who adore the iPhone in the Chinese market. They may be limited by economic conditions and are sensitive to prices. They have never bought an iPhone. If the price of the iPhone is reduced to a certain level, there will still be many people who want to own the first iPhone in life. That is to say, the Chinese market still has great potential, depending on what Apple can reduce the price of the iPhone. Degree. "
5G replacement is coming?
On the same day as the iPhone SE, Glory released the 30 series, covering various gears of 2000-5000 yuan. And this is only a microcosm of the intensive 5G new card position market released by domestic mobile phone manufacturers.
Since the beginning of the year, Xiaomi first released the 5G flagship product Xiaomi 10 Pro in China on February 13. Since then, various brands have followed up. Huawei, Glory, vivo, OPPO and other brands have released nearly 20 5G mobile phones through online channels. Without exception, the newly released 5G products jointly target the high-end market. The highest price of Huawei P40 series is 8888 yuan, the highest price of Honor 30 series is 5499 yuan, and the highest price of OPPO Find X2 is 6999 yuan ...
Industry analysis believes that the 5G flagships of domestic manufacturers are generally priced high, both based on practical considerations and striving for high-end demand, "hoping to seize the benchmark experience in the 5G era."
In an interview with the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client and other media on the 15th, Honor President Zhao Ming said in response to the "Why the 30 Series Pricing Is Radical", Honor has made a forward-looking layout for the 5G track and adopted a combination strategy to do a high-end low-end layout , Match the products of different gears, make each gear product to the extreme, so as to guarantee to become the sales champion of each gear.
New latitude and longitude in the data map
Earlier, the market research agency Strategy Analytics released a report saying that although the Chinese are more optimistic than consumers in the United States or Europe that everything can quickly return to normal, the smartphone replacement rate and the popularity of 5G have undoubtedly slowed down. 37% of people postponed plans to buy new smartphones, while 32% of people postponed upgrading 5G services.
Zhao Ming said that the epidemic will accelerate the deployment of the entire 5G network, and will also accelerate the replacement of 5G mobile phones. Glory is very optimistic about 5G construction and 5G mobile phone sales this year.
The data also illustrates this. In March, 5G mobile phone shipments rebounded. According to the China Information and Communications Research Institute, from January to March 2020, the overall domestic mobile phone market shipments were 48.953 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 36.4%, including 14.06 million 5G mobile phones. Compared with February, 5G mobile phone shipments rebounded in March. In February, 5G mobile phone shipments were only 2.38 million units.
Regarding the rebound of 5G mobile phone shipments in March, telecommunication analyst Fu Liang said in an interview with the Sino-Singapore Jingwei client that this is a natural release of user demand under the current situation of better epidemic situation. "At the beginning of the year, the user's purchase demand was delayed by two months, and the shipment of 5G mobile phones will continue to rise."
Does this mean that the wave of 5G replacement is coming?
Fu Liang said: "According to the forecast at the end of last year, the rhythm of 5G replacement in 2020 should be like this: in January and February, don't buy 4G mobile phones with more than 3,000 yuan; in June and July, more than 2,000 yuan I want to buy a 4G mobile phone; by the end of this year, the price of 5G mobile phones will drop to 1,500 yuan. However, affected by the new coronary pneumonia epidemic, the user's replacement cycle has been lengthened. Those who originally planned to change their mobile phones in January may now 4. I bought it only in May. But from another perspective, this has virtually accelerated the rise and popularity of 5G mobile phone sales, because consumers will not consider 4G mobile phones anymore, and will jump directly to buy 5G mobile phones. "
Fu Liang predicts that a large-scale 5G replacement will occur at the end of this year or early next year. "The arrival of the 5G replacement wave means that users actively eliminate 4G mobile phones and use 5G mobile phones because 5G mobile phones are easy to use. At present, most users who purchase 5G mobile phones are natural replacements. This part of users should still be the main consumer of 5G mobile phones in the first half of this year. . "
What factors influenced the arrival of the 5G replacement wave? Fu Liang believes that the current price of 5G mobile phones is high and the performance is not mature. What is more important is that the coverage area of 5G networks is now small and the tariffs have not dropped. "The wave of changeovers is inseparable from the promotion of operations, such as changing all 4G packages to 5G to achieve relatively large 5G network coverage."
China Mobile stated that the goal of "constructing 300,000 5G base stations at the end of the year and the 5G network covering cities above the prefecture level in the country" remains unchanged. China Telecom and China Unicom plan to complete the annual target of 250,000 base stations nationwide in advance.
5G "killer app" has not yet appeared
In addition to the launch of new 5G phones, 5G applications have also been updated.
On April 15th, Baidu released a "cloud phone", saying that users can get rid of hardware constraints, and low-end devices can smoothly run large-scale games and applications. Baidu's "cloud phone" can cover four major scenarios including cloud games, cloud applications, cloud VR and cloud office.
Ma Jie, vice president of Baidu, said, "The arrival of the 5G era will accelerate the development of cloud gaming. Baidu's" cloud phone "will provide a safe, reliable and efficient technology cornerstone for the entire industry, and provide unlimited access to a wide range of AIoT devices with limited computing power. Possibility. "
Prior to April 8th, the three major operators launched 5G news, which is considered a small version of the SMS version and public account. WeChat will inevitably be subject to competitive pressure from it. Ping An Securities believes that RCS (Converged Communications) is expected to become the first killer application of 5G, and the business model of the industry's short message market will change.
New latitude and longitude in the data map
For 5G applications, Fu Liang said that manufacturers are still in the layout exploration stage. At present, from the perspective of terminal adaptation, the problem is not very big, but if users are clearly aware of the advantages of 5G applications, they may still need to wait until the fourth quarter of this year. .
Earlier, an industry insider who did not want to be named told a reporter from Sino-Singapore Jingwei that the killer application was never artificially created, but was born in the user experience.
Telecom analyst Ma Jihua believes that for individual users, 5G may bring super applications in health and safety. "The next generation of super apps must be related to our bodies, such as physical health monitoring and remote medical intervention." (Zhongjing Jingwei APP)
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