A brief history of mobile phone naming

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Today I’m going to talk to you about mobile phone names, and try to explore the changes in the smartphone industry from the perspective of mobile phone naming.

Speaking of mobile phone names, you may name a lot of them, such as Xiaomi 1, 2, 3...10, Huawei P1, 2, 6, 7, 10, Apple 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. These mobile phone names are simple and easy to remember.

But in the era when Nokia and Motorola dominated the mobile phone market, the names of mobile phones were a different story. Mobile phone names were a bit like network names, both "smelly" and "long". There were three main ways to name a phone:

• One is pure digital type, such as Nokia 1110, 3310, 5700
• The second is a string of letters plus numbers, such as Nokia N97, Motorola A1200, Samsung E1100
• The third is a letter plus a single number, such as Motorola Razr series v3

At this stage, the names of mobile phones are generally based on the high, medium and low-end products, customer group positioning and function support, as well as the manufacturer's product iteration model. In other words, the main body of naming at this stage is actually the manufacturer, and the manufacturer's brand and a series are highlighted, rather than a specific model.

This situation is similar for everyone, and domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers have been using it until the iPhone came out. The first generation of iPhone was named iPhone, the second generation was iPhone3G, the third generation was iPhone3Gs, and so on.

This naming rule may seem ordinary, but it actually has a lot of secrets. First, it is completely different from the naming of feature phones. Just like everyone in the village is called Zhao Tiezhu, Wang Erdan, and Li Gousheng, and you are suddenly called Mei Changsu, which naturally gives people a sense of difference. Secondly, the naming is simpler, easier to remember and spread. Finally, the product has continuity. Ordinary people know what the next generation of mobile phones will be called, and there is a sense of anticipation.

At the same time, domestic mobile phone manufacturers did not realize this problem and still used the old naming rules, such as the original ZTE v880 and Huawei C8500. Of course, seeing the achievements of Apple, domestic and foreign manufacturers are still quite jealous and follow the trend of naming, such as Lenovo Lephone and Gengphone.

However, the trend was not followed to the point until Xiaomi came along. In terms of naming, Xiaomi’s naming was most in line with Apple’s thinking, with the first generation being 1, the second generation being 1s, the third generation being 2, and so on. Simple and easy-to-remember names, coupled with extremely cost-effective pricing and an Internet-based approach, made Xiaomi rise rapidly. Other domestic manufacturers saw this and thought, wow, this is how it should be played.

Then, a number of domestic manufacturers quickly followed suit, starting with naming, with names like P1, d2, F1, and x1. At this time, everyone was very busy, with too many masters to learn from. On the one hand, they had to learn from Apple, the ancestor, and Xiaomi, the second generation of the Qiao, and on the other hand, they had to learn from Samsung's strategy of launching a large number of products. It was inevitable that mistakes would be made.

The most typical example is Huawei's Ascend series, which is also the predecessor of Huawei's P10 series. Huawei's original idea was to promote the Ascend series brand. Ascend translates to "rise", which means rising step by step, and it also starts with the letter "a", which is simply perfect. The only thing that was not considered was that the name Ascend was too difficult to pronounce. Imagine:

A colleague asks you, what phone do you use?

You said, Arsend.

Colleague: What?

You: Arsend.

Colleague: What is Sende?

You: Arsend.

Colleague: What?

You: Nothing, I’m not using my phone, let’s talk later.

That was all we talked about today.

Later, when it came to P10, we stopped mentioning Ascend and just called it P10. However, the romance of science and engineering men lies in the fact that if you keep thinking about something, it will definitely have a response. Ascend, such a perfect name, must not be lost, so this Ascend is now transformed into Huawei Ascend, covering intelligent computing, AI chips and other businesses, which can be regarded as making the best use of it.

Down

In addition to Huawei, there are some interesting innovations at this stage. Don’t be surprised, we are very good at going from imitation to innovation. The main ones are as follows:

• The first is the coarse grain group. This group of mobile phone manufacturers mainly learns from Xiaomi's brand naming, and typical representatives include Xiaolajiao mobile phone and Honglajiao mobile phone;
• The second is the trend group. Mobile phone manufacturers of this group understand that the Internet is a trend, so they name their mobile phones after the trendy trends. The typical representative is Coolpad Dashen.
• The third is the novelty group. This group of mobile phone manufacturers understands the Internet as novelty. The more novel, the more attractive it is to users. Typical representatives include 360 ​​special mobile phones, Lenovo Lemon, and Hammer mobile phones.

Innovation is innovation, but the results may not be good. There is a saying: Those who imitate me live, those who imitate me die. In the winner-takes-all industry of mobile phones, those who imitate me die, and those who imitate me also die. The above schools have retreated, collapsed, and have basically disappeared.

When Cook took over Apple, he basically continued Apple's previous naming. However, as he was familiar with supply chain management, he pursued maximum profits and took care of as many Apple fans as possible, so he thoughtfully added the plus version and c/se cheap version for them.

As latecomers, domestic manufacturers, seeing the changes of their predecessors, naturally do not want to lag behind and try their best to learn. Needless to say, the cheap version is played thoroughly. The plus version has evolved into plus and pro here, with different names, but the meaning is the same.

Apple in the Cook era, relatively speaking, has not had any leading or disruptive innovations, and it seems to be making steady progress. However, it has made a lot of innovations in naming. In addition to the plus version and the cheap version, the tenth generation iPhone creatively introduced the naming method of super large cup, large cup, and medium cup, which is simply groundbreaking.

Many manufacturers who were working hard to sell mobile phones saw that this was the way to go, so they all started to learn. Huawei, which regarded Apple as its master, was the first to launch the p40 pro+, p40 pro, p40, and the super large cup, large cup, and medium cup were clearly arranged.

Xiaomi is not willing to lag behind and launched the Mi 10 Extreme Commemorative Edition, Mi 10 Pro Edition, Mi 10 Edition, and Mi 10 Youth Edition. Not only are the extra large, large, and medium cups clearly arranged, but even the cheap version is also arranged. By the way, the Mi Extreme Edition is called Mi 10 Ultra, and Ultra was first used on Samsung phones.

Looking at the history of mobile phone naming, we can roughly see the changes in the development of mobile phones:

First, we should shift from being manufacturer-centric to being user-centric. When designing products, we should no longer think about what we can give to users, but what users need.

Second, the original brand-driven thinking has been changed to the hot-selling thinking. In other words, the original approach was to build the brand as a whole, but now the brand development is promoted by creating hot-selling products. However, it should be noted that this does not mean that brand awareness has weakened, but has been strengthened;

In general, the name is not the decisive factor in the success or failure of a mobile phone. Dashen mobile phone did not make Coolpad Dashen, and Ascend did not make Huawei mobile phone fall, but the collapse will still be collapse, and the success will still be success. Nokia 1110, Motorola v3 and other names are still popular, and are the best-selling mobile phones in the world's history.

The most important thing is that the mobile phone product itself must be strong and win the favor of consumers. Of course, it is also good to have a good name, so that people can still remember it even if it fails.