Securities Times reporter Yan Cui
After experiencing a ten-fold rapid growth from 2007 to 2017, the mobile phone industry has grown sluggishly in recent years, and the market has shrunk as a whole. Now the mobile phone industry has fully entered the era of stock market, industry leaders generally predict that, It is a foregone conclusion that the industry will decline this year and in the next two or three years.
In addition, the mobile phone industry is also facing multiple challenges such as the new crown epidemic, rising raw material prices, and prolonged replacement cycles for consumers. Under this background, the industrial chain is collectively under pressure, and three breakthrough paths for enterprises have quietly emerged.
Replacement period has been extended to 3 years
Looking back at the development of the mobile phone industry, in 2007, the global annual shipment of smartphones was only 124 million units, while in 2017, it exceeded 1.56 billion units, an increase of more than 10 times, and the annual new market size reached several trillion yuan.
2017 was the culmination of global smartphone shipments, but since 2019, the deployment of 5G has opened up new space.
In July 2019, 5G mobile phones in the Chinese market accounted for only 0.2% of the total shipments. By 2021, the annual shipments will reach 266 million, accounting for 75.9%.
However, the 5G replacement wave failed to stimulate the overall demand for the mobile phone industry. In recent years, the overall mobile phone industry market has been shrinking.
On April 21, the global mobile phone market report for the first quarter of 2022 released by data agency Canalys showed that in the first quarter of this year, due to the poor economic situation and seasonal demand, global smartphone shipments fell by 11% year-on-year. Apple and Samsung are up from last year.
In this regard, Hu Boshan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, told the Securities Times reporter that there are two reasons for the decline of the global smartphone market in the first quarter of this year. One is the decline of the Chinese market, and the mobile phone market has completely entered the stock market. Without good product innovation to attract consumers, the replacement cycle of consumers will become longer and longer.
"I remember the earliest (mobile phone replacement cycle) was 16-18 months, then it was 20-24 months, and the most recent is 36 months. This is because the product is not innovative and cannot attract users, and the speed of users' replacement is prolonged. "Hu Baishan said.
According to data previously released by the Academy of Information and Communications Technology, in the first two months of this year, mobile phone shipments in the domestic market fell by 22.6% year-on-year, of which February shipments fell by 31.7% year-on-year, and domestic brand mobile phone shipments fell by 34.7% year-on-year.
From the perspective of overseas markets, Hu Baishan believes that the first quarter was still subject to chip shortages. From April last year to March this year, there was almost no supply of ordinary 4G mobile phones (below 1198 yuan), which led to a decline in industry shipments.
Hu Baishan believes that the second reason is the impact of objective factors such as the epidemic.
The epidemic not only affects the normal operation of offline stores of enterprises and the normal distribution of online sales channels, but also affects the economic income of consumers, which in turn affects people's consumer demand for mobile phones.
"The total volume of consumer electronics in the next 2-3 years will still be relatively weak." Hu Boshan predicted.
Li Jie, president of OnePlus China, also told the Securities Times reporter that it is true that the entire mobile phone market is currently declining. Macro factors, short-term epidemic factors, the overall update speed, and the increase in mobile phone quality are superimposed factors that lead to the continuous replacement cycle of the entire market. extended, thereby affecting sales.
Raw material prices rise
The industry chain's performance in the first quarter is under pressure
While industry demand is weak, companies are also facing pressure from rising raw material prices.
Li Jie revealed to reporters that since the epidemic, the price of chips in the mobile phone industry has continued to rise. On the one hand, the demand for electric vehicles has superimposed the impact of the epidemic, resulting in a surge in overall demand; on the other hand, due to the relationship between the economy and the epidemic, the supply of chips has contracted a bit.
In addition, some other industrial devices in the mobile phone industry are also becoming more and more expensive.
Li Jie believes that from the current point of view, the trend of rising raw material prices in the industry will continue, but the mobile phone industry will not see a collective price increase in the future, and leading companies will generally use their own technology, resources and supply chain advantages to digest Related costs, try not to pass the costs to downstream consumers.
Song Yiwen, director of Glory's supply chain management department, told the Securities Times reporter that the price of raw materials in the industry has risen objectively. For example, the price of mobile phone batteries has risen significantly. The main reasons include changes in energy prices, logistics, epidemics and other factors. A medium and long-term cooperation plan has been established, so the overall impact is controllable. In addition, the R&D of new materials and new technologies has been strengthened to cope with rising raw material prices.
The rise in raw material prices has been reflected in the performance of companies in the industrial chain.
Lens Technology (300433) achieved a total revenue of 9.334 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year decrease of 22.15%, and a net profit loss of 411 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 134.12%.
The company said that due to the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations, the epidemic and other comprehensive factors, the terminal market demand of some customers has decreased, the company's operating income has decreased year-on-year, and the benefits have decreased; affected by the new coronavirus epidemic, product delivery, logistics costs, procurement costs, epidemic prevention expenses and The management and control of related expenses have had a certain impact.
Lens Technology also stated that although the repeated epidemics, fluctuations in demand, rising prices, and rising labor costs have put a lot of pressure on the industry in the short term, which has put pressure on the capital flow of midstream companies and their performance has fluctuated, but the short-term challenges will not change the company's mid-level challenges. A good trend of long-term healthy development.
Zhuo Sheng Micro (300782) latest forecast to achieve revenue of 1.330 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 12.43%; net profit of 441 million to 466 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.35% to 10.43%, due to supply chain prices. Due to the market expansion of sub-3GHz receiver module products, changes in the company's product sales structure have resulted in a decline in the overall product gross profit margin.
Gongda Diansheng (002655) also recently estimated that in the first quarter of this year, it achieved a total revenue of 235 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.63%; net profit was 19.34 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 22.22%.
Luxshare Precision (002475), the leader in Apple's industry chain, has already seen an increase in revenue but not profit in 2021. In 2021, its revenue will increase by 66.6% year-on-year, but its net profit will decline by 2.12% year-on-year. Luxshare Precision said that in the global epidemic situation Under the repeated background, in the face of the severe macroeconomic situation such as "lack of cores and materials" in the upstream industry chain, unilateral rise in raw material prices and transportation costs, as well as the delay of mass production and delivery time of some products to varying degrees, multiple Factors have led to an increase in the company's operating costs.
However, Luxshare expects net profit in the first quarter of this year to increase by 25% to 30% year-on-year.
Among the top 15 listed companies in the mobile phone industry chain in terms of losses in 2021, the total losses of the top 15 companies will reach at least 10.6 billion yuan and up to nearly 15 billion yuan.
Specifically, there are Oufeiguang, Dongxu Optoelectronics, Visionox, and *ST Xingxing. The losses of these four all exceeded 1 billion yuan, followed by Chunxing Seiko, Zhiyun, Changying Precision, and DEREN Electronics. The loss exceeded 400 million yuan, followed by Guangxin Materials, Su Daweige, Tanyuan Technology, Baoming Technology, Jinfu Technology, Dafu Technology, and Hongxin Electronics.
Jiwei Consulting believes that one of the important reasons for the loss is that due to the changes in the smartphone industry, the demand for individual enterprise products in the market has dropped rapidly, the enterprise has failed to keep up with the development of market changes, and in the case of declining market demand, the industry Competition has intensified and price wars have become the norm, leading to a major impact on profitability.
Industry chain breakthrough
Three paths emerge
Under the background of poor industry environment and weak market growth, how the mobile phone industry chain enterprises can help themselves and achieve better development has attracted much attention.
From the reporter's point of view, there are three main paths for innovation in the current mobile phone industry chain. One is to maintain continuous innovation in the stock market and to focus on subdivided tracks, including games and high-end folding screen markets.
For example, OnePlus, OPPO, and vivo are all working on mobile phones in the game field. Because China has the largest mobile game users in the world, iResearch data shows that it has reached 620 million in 2019, which is close to nearly half of the total number of mobile Internet users in China.
Another example is that at present, mainstream domestic mobile phone manufacturers have collectively broken out of the folding screen mobile phone market, aiming at the high-end mobile phone market monopolized by Apple and Samsung, in order to improve their operating profits and operating quality.
At present, only Apple has not launched a folding screen mobile phone, and outside sources speculate that it will be launched in 2025, but Apple does not need to rush to launch a folding screen mobile phone, because it itself is the protagonist of the global high-end market.
Although the current global shipments of folding screen mobile phones are not large, the industry is generally optimistic about its future.
Hu Boshan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, believes that the folding screen is an incremental market for the smartphone market segment in the next 2-3 years, and the growth rate will be very fast. It is expected that there will be a 10-fold increase in the next few years. .
Relevant data show that in 2021, the global shipments of folding screen mobile phones will reach 9 million units, a year-on-year increase of 200%.
Honor CEO Zhao Ming is more optimistic. He believes that the folding screen mobile phone market will achieve tenfold growth this year.
The second path is to collectively increase the layout of the IOT field, help enterprises to improve their performance with the market expansion of more mobile phone peripheral products, and at the same time occupy the IOT market in advance. This is what the world's mainstream mobile phone brands are doing. Huawei, whose mobile phone business has declined due to U.S. restrictions, is still other unaffected mobile phone brands, without exception.
Path 3 is to develop new energy vehicle-related businesses, hoping to empower and share new energy vehicles, such as Huawei, Luxshare, OPPO, vivo, Apple, Xiaomi, Anjie Technology (002635).
Among them, Luxshare, Huawei, and Anjie Technology are all positioned as components and solution providers in the field of smart cars; OPPO and vivo are currently positioned to provide full-scenario solutions for smart cars; Apple and Xiaomi are the manufacturers of complete vehicles.
Even some companies have made gains in the field of new energy vehicles.
On April 21, Anjie Technology disclosed the survey summary showing that its new energy vehicle business accounted for 5.98% of the company's business revenue in 2019, 16.30% in 2020, and 2021. 23.17%, the company's new energy vehicle business has grown year by year.
Anjie Technology predicts that with the continuous development of the new energy vehicle industry and the continuous maturity of new energy vehicle technology, the new energy auto parts industry also presents a trend of high prosperity.
Honor CEO Zhao Ming is firmly optimistic about the mobile phone industry. He believes that the mobile phone industry still has a lot to do, and there are still many innovations.
The epidemic does not affect
The normal production of the industrial chain
Since the beginning of this year, the new crown epidemic has broken out in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing and other places, and Shenzhen, Shanghai and other places have temporarily suspended production and production in the city. Will this situation affect the supply chain of the mobile phone industry?
In this regard, Honor told reporters that Honor has carried out supply chain layout in advance in response to the epidemic, such as a device with multiple suppliers, multiple regions, domestic and foreign layouts, etc. In terms of logistics, Honor has launched a multi-port processing plan, and even It has prepared various plans for air and sea transportation from Hong Kong to the mainland, so its supply chain has been little affected by the epidemic, and production and delivery of Honor is currently stable.
The person in charge of another mobile phone company told reporters that the Shanghai epidemic has not had a great impact on the company for the time being. Many of the company's chips are mainly Qualcomm and MTK, and the production is mainly in Taiwan, China. Some other materials may be affected to some extent, but At present, it has not caused a particularly big problem. As for whether the development of the epidemic in Shanghai will have a great impact on the company's supply chain, it is difficult to judge for the time being.
Recently, Goertek (002241) said in an investor survey that the repeated outbreak of the new crown epidemic in some areas has brought some inconvenience to the company's personnel travel, logistics and transportation, but has not had a significant impact on the company's overall production and operation. , the production and operation activities of the company's business segments are in normal and smooth development, and the company is confident to ensure the stable development of the company's business activities while responding to the new crown epidemic.
Anjie Technology recently stated that the current epidemic affects the speed of the company's supply, marketing and logistics, but the company's overall production and operation remain basically normal.
The epidemic has had a certain impact on the company's operations in the second quarter. After the impact of the epidemic control and control is over, the company will strive to make up for orders that have been delayed in shipments. The specific situation needs to be comprehensively evaluated according to the epidemic prevention and control and production and operation conditions. The company will actively cooperate with the government. Epidemic prevention and control requirements and measures to ensure the safety of employees, maintain normal production, and try to minimize the impact of the epidemic.
Jingyan Technology (300709) stated that since March 2022, the domestic new crown epidemic situation has repeated, which has brought certain challenges to the company's production and operation, but as of now, the company's overall production and operation have basically returned to normal.
From the demand side, due to the impact of the epidemic in the first quarter, the demand of some downstream customers was delayed, and some orders will continue to be delivered in the second quarter.
From the perspective of production and operation, in the early stage of the outbreak in Changzhou, the company's management responded quickly and placed nearly 3,000 employees for closed management, ensuring the continuous and normal operation of production and operation.
From the perspective of supply chain and logistics transportation, since mid-March, logistics has been interrupted or declined due to the impact of the epidemic, resulting in the company's inability to deliver goods in time.
With the improvement of the epidemic situation in Changzhou, the tension of the company's logistics and supply chain has improved.
At present, except for areas still in the epidemic (Shanghai, Suzhou and other places), the company's overall delivery and logistics companies have basically returned to normal.
Overall, at this stage, the company's production and operation have not been significantly adversely affected by the new crown epidemic, and the overall operating level is in good condition.
Gongda Electroacoustic (002655) recently told investors that the company has actively taken various countermeasures to ensure the normal production and operation of the epidemic. At present, the epidemic has little impact on the company, but the shortage of chips has led to prolonged chip procurement cycles and tight supply. It has a certain impact on the company's business, and the company's supply chain management department has adopted an active strategy.