Affected by factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and Sino-US economic and trade frictions——
The global smartphone market faces a new round of reshuffle
Our reporter Huang Xin
Under the influence of multiple factors such as the new crown pneumonia epidemic and Sino-US economic and trade frictions, the global smartphone market is facing a new round of reshuffle.
According to data released by the US market research company SA, Samsung Electronics' share of the US smartphone market in the third quarter of this year was 33.7%, an increase of more than 6 percentage points from the previous quarter, surpassing Apple to regain the championship.
This is also the first time Samsung Electronics has surpassed Apple in the US smartphone market share since the second quarter of 2017.
SA data also shows that Samsung Electronics ranked first in the global smartphone market with a 21.9% share in the third quarter, followed by Huawei, Xiaomi, and Apple with 14.1%, 12.7% and 11.9% market shares respectively.
"Overall, the smartphone shipments of the top four manufacturers accounted for about 60.6% of the global smartphone market. Samsung surpassed Huawei and once again became the world's largest smartphone manufacturer. Xiaomi surpassed Apple for the first time and ranked third. The only mobile phone manufacturer among the top four that bucked the trend." Wang Liping, senior consultant at Zhongcheng Think Tank, said in an interview with a reporter from the Economic Daily.
Why can Samsung mobile phones re-enter the top spot?
An important reason is that Apple only launched the iPhone 12 after October this year, which had a greater impact on its market share.
"At the same time, the US has had a negative impact on Huawei’s chip ban, which has led to a slowdown in the growth of Huawei’s mobile phones in overseas markets. Samsung’s mobile phones cover models from low-end to high-end, which are caused by the delayed release of iPhone 12 and the slowdown in Huawei’s shipment The biggest beneficiary." Wang Liping said.
What does Xiaomi rely on to return to the top three in the world?
As we all know, Xiaomi has always insisted on "two legs" walking in the domestic market and the international market.
The domestic market with huge consumption potential is an important foothold for Xiaomi mobile phones.
According to the latest official data of Xiaomi, from 00:00 on November 1st to 23:59 on November 11th this year, the total sales of Xiaomi's new retail omni-channel in China exceeded 14.3 billion yuan, and Xiaomi mobile phones took over Tmall, JD.com and Suningyi. No. 1 in cumulative sales of Android phones on platforms such as shopping.
"Overseas markets are support for Xiaomi's return to the top three in global sales. Xiaomi has achieved significant sales growth in almost all important overseas markets. Among them, Xiaomi achieved a year-on-year growth of 65% in the European market, and its growth in the Western European market segment The speed even exceeded 116%." Wang Liping said.
Industry experts believe that in the low-end market, Huawei has slowed down the supply of mobile phones. In particular, the Honor brand, which has an advantage in the online mobile phone market, has weakened this year, which also provides opportunities for Xiaomi.
The main reason for the decline in Apple's mobile phone market share was the delayed release of the iPhone 12 series, which caused its shipments to fail to reach last year's level.
In addition, the rapid rise of other smartphone brands has also caused a big impact on Apple.
What is gratifying is that, from the perspective of the smartphone market share in the third quarter, half of the world's top four companies are from China, which shows that domestic mobile phone brands are still growing rapidly in the global market.
Will the mobile phone market share ranking continue to be maintained?
In this regard, Wang Liping said that the global smartphone market share is highly concentrated in top companies, and consumer brand recognition will increasingly tilt towards a few brands. The strong will be stronger and the weak will be weaker.
Comparing several leading companies, Wang Liping said that Samsung has a complete industrial chain, from screens to mobile phone hardware, across all fields of electronic product components.
However, compared with domestic mobile phones, Samsung's mobile phone prices are relatively high, so sales in the Chinese market are sluggish.
Xiaomi mobile phones have a cost-effective advantage in the low-end phone market, especially the Redmi series.
At the same time, Xiaomi is the first batch of manufacturers to sell mobile phones online and is a very successful Internet mobile phone brand.
With a wealth of online business experience, Xiaomi quickly adapted to the Indian Internet market.
While developing the Indian market, Xiaomi also learned lessons from the domestic market, and started to deploy to the offline market very early. This also gave Xiaomi a stable offline channel in India and improved the impact resistance of mobile phone sales.
As for the Apple mobile phone, its industrial design, operating system, chip and other software and hardware have brought a good experience to users for many years.
Compared with Android flagship phones, Apple's mobile phone brand premium is more obvious.
However, after experiencing rapid and frequent technical iterations in the past, Apple's product hardware is not sufficiently innovative.
In the field of 5G, domestic mobile phones are even ahead of Apple.
"However, the current 5G network is rapidly covering various regions. With the increasing popularity of 5G, the global smartphone market will usher in a new wave of replacement, and the new competition will be even more cruel." Wang Liping said, the global mobile phone market will be re-washed brand.