In the first quarter of this year, China's smartphone shipments dropped for the first time in six years. For China manufacturers, if they want to maintain rapid growth, they must seek new opportunities from overseas markets. Huawei, Xiaomi, Lenovo, ZTE, Meizu, OPPO and Coolpad, almost all first-tier domestic manufacturers are actively seeking overseas space, while emerging markets such as India and Brazil have become hot spots of competition.
It is difficult to enter America.
The United States is a high-end market, and the operator channel has an absolute advantage. According to the latest channel data (the fourth quarter of last year) of CIRP, a market research organization that can be found at present, American carrier channels account for 55% of the total smartphone sales, and Apple's own channels account for13%; Among other public channels, Best Buy and Amazon account for 12% and 7% respectively. Operator channels are divided into two modes: contract machine (post-payment) and non-contract machine (pre-payment).
Due to the high subsidies provided by operators, consumers can buy Apple and Samsung flagship machine with the original price of 649 dollars, and the two-year contract price is only 199 dollars. Because of this, according to comScore's data in May this year, Apple's iPhone market share in the United States is as high as 43.5%, far exceeding their share in other markets, and it is still rising, with an increase of two percentage points over the same period last year. However, Samsung's market share remained stable at 28%, and there was no sharp decline in the China market.
Compared with the top two, the market share of LG ranked third is only about 8%. Motorola and HTC, once two giants, have been shrinking in recent years, and their current market share hovers at 5% and 3.5%. Four years ago, HTC also topped the US market with a 20% share. In the past two years, LG quickly surpassed motorcycles and HTC to become the third place in the market. Apple's share growth mainly came from the shrinking market of motorcycles and HTC.
Although domestic mobile phones are seeking to go to sea together, most manufacturers are mainly in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and Africa, and rarely involve the two developed markets of North America and Western Europe. There are several major problems: market positioning, channel sales and patent issues. Among them, the patent issue is the most critical. Although domestic manufacturers have the competitive advantage of cost performance, except Huawei and ZTE, the overall patent accumulation of other manufacturers is relatively weak, which makes them easy to become the prey of patent litigation in developed markets.
Statistics show that the number of patent lawsuits initiated by "patent hooligans" in the United States is increasing. These "patent hooligans" hold patents obtained through acquisition and other means, but have no patent-related business, relying on patent litigation claims and authorization to make profits. Companies with weak patent accumulation can easily become their targets, even HTC, which was in full swing a few years ago, is no exception.
ZTE wins through channels.
Because of this, only domestic manufacturers that actually sell smartphones in the US market are ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad and small-scale sales. In addition, after Lenovo acquired Motorola, an old American manufacturer, Lenovo-branded mobile phones no longer need to enter the highly competitive American market, and motorcycles still have great influence and market scale in the United States. (The domestic manufacturers mentioned in this article are limited to Chinese mainland, excluding ASUS and HTC in Taiwan Province Province of China. )
But among these four manufacturers, ZTE is the only one that really has scale effect. ZTE is also the only China manufacturer that has cooperated with all mainstream operators and small regional operators in the United States, and also sells in Amazon, Yi Bei, Newegg and other e-commerce channels. Thanks to the combination of operators and open channels, ZTE has become the best-performing China manufacturer in the US market, and its shipment volume and market influence far exceed other domestic manufacturers.
The United States has become ZTE's best-performing overseas market, accounting for 65,438+00% of ZTE's overall revenue last year. With the increasingly fierce competition in the US market, ZTE's smartphone shipments in the US increased by 50% last year, becoming the fastest growing manufacturer in the US market, with 20 million online users at the end of last year. According to IDC data, ZTE has become the second largest manufacturer in the prepaid mobile phone market in the United States in the first quarter of this year, and the market share of operators ranks fourth (different from comScore data).
This week, ZTE USA will hold a press conference in new york to announce its new strategic products in the US market. According to Adam Gao, CEO of ZTE, ZTE established its sixth terminal R&D center in North America last year, and introduced R&D personnel before BlackBerry, which is expected to greatly enhance its R&D capability and global layout strength.
According to ZTE USA's plan, they plan to continue to increase smartphone shipments by 20% this year, reaching 20 million units. Cheng Lixin, CEO of ZTE USA, therefore proposed the goal of becoming the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the United States within three years. If this goal is achieved, ZTE will become a truly mainstream smartphone manufacturer in the US market.
The growth of Huawei witnessed Hayes.
In contrast, the development of Huawei mobile phones in the United States is somewhat bumpy. Three years ago, Huawei once occupied 3% of the American market by cooperating with small American operators to prepay mobile phones. However, with the integration of American operators, Huawei's original small operators were acquired by mainstream operators, which caused Huawei to lose a large number of orders and had to readjust its strategy.
At the same time, Huawei's terminal global strategy is also undergoing major adjustments. In order to improve the positioning of the whole product, Huawei drastically cut off the low-end models, so instead of continuing to cooperate with operators to launch prepaid mobile phones in the US market, Huawei chose to take the road of promoting brand-name machines through open channels. However, Huawei has long suffered from non-trade barriers from government agencies in the US market, which has also affected their cooperation prospects with operators to some extent.
Last year, Huawei established official website, an e-commerce company in the United States, and established a fully localized customer service and after-sales network, which laid the foundation for long-term growth in the future.
This year, Huawei continued to reach cooperation with online and offline retailers such as Amazon, Best Buy and Fry's, further expanding the sales channels in the open market. Xu Zhiqiang, president of Huawei Terminal USA, said that Huawei believes that with the gradual reduction of subsidies from American operators, more consumers will turn to bare metal in the open market due to price factors.
However, the key to Huawei's future growth in the United States lies in Hisilicon chips. Because Huawei's own Hisilicon chips have not been certified by the United States, Huawei's models listed in the United States are all low-end Qualcomm versions launched a few months after domestic listing. Most Huawei global channel smartphones, including P series, Mate series and Glory series, have not entered the United States, which has seriously affected the competitiveness of Huawei mobile phones in the United States.
Last year, Huawei launched only one Mate 2 model in the United States, achieving sales of more than 2 million units. This year, a low-priced version of P8 chip was launched in Qualcomm, and other models are planned to be launched in the second half of this year. Xu Zhiqiang also put forward a long-term plan to enter the top three in the United States within five years, changing the current situation that Huawei's models listed in the United States are seriously behind the global market. This may indicate that Hisilicon chips will soon enter the American market.
Cold+small scale
Besides ZTE and Huawei, Coolpad has been in the American market for four years. Coolpad USA mainly cooperates with small regional operators in custom machine, and its products are mainly low-end models, mainly for low-income groups in the United States and users who switch from feature phones to smart phones. The price of the five models ranges from $40 to 150. According to Coolpad USA, this year's shipments are expected to increase by 50%, reaching the million level.
One Plus mainly sells one plus mobile phones to American Android players on a small scale through official website, and most of the time it is in a state of restricted purchase. Although the sales volume of one plus mobile phone in the United States is only a few hundred thousand, considering that one plus has been in a state of restricted purchase in the United States for a long time, one plus has only released one product, and the overall sales volume is also below 2 million; In fact, the United States is already the most eye-catching overseas market.
More importantly, with the previous cooperation with CM, the third-party ROM provider of Android, the unknown startup OnePlus successfully opened the American market, winning the favor of many Android players with low pricing, high parameters and good design workmanship, as well as high-profile reports from the mainstream media in the United States.
The second generation product will be released at the end of this month, and the overseas version will also switch to its own ROM oxygen OS. CM once brought brand awareness to Yijia in the American market, but this year, without the aura of CM, whether Yijia mobile phone can gain popularity or even further sales in the United States last year will become the touchstone to test Yijia's real R&D strength.
Patent and brand issues
Due to patent problems, Xiaomi, Meizu, OPPO and other powerful manufacturers that have developed rapidly in China are not sold in the United States, and there is no plan to list in the United States in the short term. In addition, they can be sold in the United States, perhaps more because they are only sold online in official website on a small scale. Sales are too small, and patent litigation is of little value. If one plus's sales in the United States reach a certain scale, there is no doubt that it will be subject to patent litigation.
In fact, ZTE, Huawei and Coolpad have all encountered patent lawsuits in the United States. However, these three domestic manufacturers have strong patent accumulation and sufficient strength to deal with patent litigation. For example, ZTE has defeated the patent lawsuits initiated by three patent companies for three consecutive times, paving the way for the smooth progress of its follow-up business. Huawei and ZTE ranked first and third in global patent applications last year.
Brand is also an important challenge for the future development of China manufacturers. In order to enhance its brand image and positioning, ZTE has put the ZTE logo on all mobile phones that cooperate with operators, and signed advertising cooperation with three NBA teams, including this year's NBA champion Golden State Warriors. Huawei, on the other hand, directly cut off the mobile phone business of operator custom machine, focusing on selling brand-name machines through open channels. However, because Huawei's mobile phone business in the United States has not been fully launched, there is no brand promotion and sponsorship activities for the time being.
However, it is also undeniable that the smartphones sold by ZTE and Huawei in the United States are still at low-end models with bare-metal prices below $250, and the products are positioned at a parity premium. Due to market positioning or product strategy problems, the mid-to high-end models sold by ZTE and Huawei in China have never entered the US market.
Domestic manufacturers such as ZTE and Huawei still have a long way to go to get rid of the label of "low-end cheap goods" of smart phones in China and truly challenge the status of mainstream manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and LG in the high-end market. These two domestic manufacturers with strong patent strength are also the most likely China brands to enter the mainstream in the United States.