Why don’t young people like to buy new mobile phones?

"Hold on to 17,000, it can't go any lower, brothers!" A teacher from Tencent PCG (Content and Business Group) was still making the final mobilization, reminding colleagues in the department to guard core interests and not forget the bottom line.

Tencent, which is rich and powerful, got a Huawei Mate XS 5G phone through a special channel. The phone was not yet on the market and was priced at 19,000 yuan internally as a reward for the hard work of the PCG department. As soon as the reward was received, the employees sold it on Xianyu to realize the asset.

They are all familiar with this. They did the same thing when they released iPhone 11 last year. As they are familiar with the sales method of Xianyu and foresee the tight supply of Huawei phones, they spontaneously formed an organization this year and launched a price defense war between Tencent and Huawei phones.

As we all know, on Xianyu, the market is jointly guided by players and manufacturers. Not to mention that every time domestic mobile phones are either on the subway or in employee selfies, they are leaked in advance of the press conference. Those engineering phones that are accidentally sold on Xianyu are also a common "mistake" of mobile phone manufacturers.

Holding the handrail with one hand and playing with the new phone with the other, who took the photo?

The marketing gimmicks that mobile phone manufacturers are best at are like a cheesy and awkward drama in front of today's young people. The only feedback they get is "everyone laughed" and "that's it?" The fact is, no matter how hard the manufacturers try, young people are indeed less and less interested in changing their mobile phones.

When the news of the launch of iPhone 12 came, actor Liu Ye was the first to get restless and decisively replaced his iPhone 6S, which he had used for 4 years, with iPhone 11, ushering in a historical breakthrough in the number of mobile phone models reaching double digits.

Since celebrities are not willing to change their phones, let alone ordinary people, it is no problem to play Temple Run on iPhone 4 today.

For modern young people, a "new mobile phone" is not a terrible thing, but more like a sudden love. They would rather face a broken screen than try something new.

Even when it comes to a crisis point where a new phone must be replaced, smart young people can still find sufficient reasons to refuse to replace it at the last minute.

According to data from the China Business Industry Research Institute, my country's mobile phone production has continued to decline. In 2017, mobile phone production fell below 2 billion units, in 2018, mobile phone production reached 1.798 billion units, and from January to November 2019, mobile phone production reached 1.588 billion units, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%.

From January to November 2019, the scale and penetration rate of mobile phone users hit new highs, with the scale of mobile phone users reaching 1.601 billion and the penetration rate of mobile phones reaching 114.7 units per 100 people.

The lack of growth in mobile users is one thing, and people are also losing their sense of the rampant growth in mobile phone performance.

In the past, mobile phone enthusiasts would argue over the placement of a certain button, but now they just watch the argument between Lu Weibing and Yu Chengdong.

Today, young people, who are the main consumers, seem to no longer care about new models. The remix version of Lei Jun's single "ARE YOU OK" has received more than 999 comments, but apart from the gadget experts, few people really know how black the black technology of Xiaomi's new phone is.

If this is the case with domestic mobile phones, can the iPhone be spared? The indifference of young people is not at all a worship of foreign things. Apart from mobile phone evaluation agencies and friendly companies, not many people have the same pilgrimage-like piety and expectations for the iPhone launch conference as in the past, otherwise Apple would not remind users to add the launch conference time to their calendars.

Who didn’t have rich ancestors? But ten years ago, Apple was the key to accessing the smart Internet. In particular, the launch of the iPhone 4 marked the official entry of Chinese young people into the “electronic estrus period”.

The whole world once had a religious craze for Apple products, and even deified Jobs. It was rumored that when Jobs was traveling in India, he received initiation from a mysterious monk, and only then did he start his lucky life when he returned to the United States.

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The story of Doctor Strange was attributed to Steve Jobs, and some people actually believed it at the time, most of whom were Marvel fans.

Since the iPhone 4, Apple has been more than just a mobile phone. In the hands of entrepreneurs, it is a talisman that makes the big capitalists look up to it; in the hands of girls, it is a "golden apple" that makes their peers jealous; in the hands of poor boys, it is bloody, representing a young kidney that has not yet had time to form stones.

For a long time, kidneys and iPhones were put in the same frame of reference, serving as a guidepost for love. A widely circulated story at the time was that a poor boy went shopping with his goddess for the first time. The two met at an Apple store, and the goddess stared at the gold version of the iPhone 6S and couldn't walk. The boy was so scared that his calves cramped because his last attempt to pursue her failed and he no longer had any extra kidneys to give.

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But with the rapid development of mobile Internet, you gradually find that no one cares what mobile phone you use. Mobile phones are no longer a symbol of status, no longer the embodiment of price, and can no longer even serve as a luxury item. Those young people who once made jokes about their kidneys online have now started searching for health products that can strengthen the kidneys and enhance sexual function.

Young people’s consumption concepts are changing, and the idea of ​​“enough is good enough” is beginning to take root in their minds: it’s not that they can’t afford top-level flagships, but young people understand that the best way to allocate resources is to “only eat the most hungry pie.”

"Don't talk to me about noise, pixels, or nits. Just tell me if the screen is shatterproof." Whether it can withstand a beating is the core pain point hidden deep in the hearts of young people.

In fact, iPhone users have long seen that the most enjoyable moment of using a new iPhone is posting on Weibo, then the marginal utility decreases, and finally it is found that no matter what phone it is, the most common usage scenarios are nothing more than chatting, watching TV series, taking selfies and paying, and the phone can do all these as long as it is not broken. No wonder people don’t like to change their phones.

When mobile phones began to become a portal to convenient life, it became more inconvenient for individuals to change mobile phones. Improving 100% performance can no longer bring 100% pleasure.

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It is a tacit consensus among almost everyone that the core value of a mobile phone is reflected in the balance on its Alipay account. When it comes time to pay, I won’t argue with you even if your phone is 0.5 seconds faster than mine.

The boring new features added under the guise of ease of use and user experience are all marketing gimmicks, just like you only memorize the first page of an English dictionary. The only usage scenario for new features of new mobile phones is the unboxing and film-tearing ceremony on the first day of purchasing a new phone.

The marketing news of the iPhone 12 conference is constantly teasing young people's consumption desires, which is not without effect. Many people also watched the advertisements and then remembered that they wanted to change their mobile phones last year. Why not take a look?

So they opened Xianyu late at night.

In the past week, 120,000 people wanted to buy iPhone 11 on Xianyu every day.

The top three searches for mobile phone products on Xianyu are:

• iPhone X searches increased 25.2% in the past week
• iPhone 11 searches increased 85.8% in one week
• Xiaomi Mi 10 search volume increased by 8.6% in one week

Every day, 6,971 people still search on Xianyu for the iPhone 4/4s models, which have been on the market for 9 years.

75% of Xianyu users who search for iPhone 4/4S are under 25 years old

Young people vote with their feet, which is more accurate than any economic prediction. Xianyu’s data undoubtedly shows that the honeymoon period for mobile phones has ended, and young people have officially entered a new stage of living with electronic products.

Starting with Feng Xiaogang's "Cell Phone", mobile devices began to touch the secret areas of people's hearts. Just like mastering a language starts with swear words, mobile phones were more like grenades, provoking people's nerves at any time.

Today, with the widespread use of smartphones, the transcendental value of mobile phones has also been diluted. Just like the aluminum cups that were only available to Napoleon III in 1848, they eventually became ordinary metals. Whether this is a rational return of human cognition or an inevitable result of technological development is unknown.

But what is certain is that young people are less and less interested in changing their phones. You laugh at his lousy phone, and he laughs at you for paying off your mortgage. But you definitely know that nothing in life is more real and heavy than the fun and vanity of a phone.