Why the smartphone market keeps falling, these three friends may have the truth

The market seems to really like playing jokes on manufacturers, and just when they see hope, it suddenly pours a bucket of cold water on them.

Recently, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology announced the operating data of the domestic mobile phone market in May. Unfortunately, the domestic smartphone market in May failed to continue the growth rate in April, but instead experienced a year-on-year and month-on-month decline.

Data shows that domestic smartphone shipments reached 32.661 million units in May, down 10.4% year-on-year and 19.9% ​​month-on-month.

This market performance is indeed a bit confusing. After all, realistically speaking, the impact of the epidemic on the offline market in May should be lower than that in April, which should make the offline market more dynamic. As for the models launched, although April is the peak period for the release of new models, from the perspective of the three-month golden period for product sales, May should be the golden period for the sales of these products.

But smartphone sales are declining, so what’s going on in the smartphone market?

For this question, users may have more say. For this reason, Lin Zhang also interviewed several friends. The following is the transcript of the conversation. (To protect privacy, the interviewer is replaced by ABC).

Xiao A: The boring smartphone market does not inspire interest

Xiao A, a smartphone enthusiast, bought more than ten smartphones in his craziest year. For a user who has never worked in a related industry, this purchase frequency is very high.

But now he no longer has such passion for smartphones, and he has not bought any smartphone this year.

When I asked him why he was no longer as passionate about buying smartphones, Xiao A asked me a question in return: Do you think the current smartphone market is still fun?

This left me speechless.

From my point of view, I don’t find the current smartphone market interesting. All manufacturers seem to have entered a bottleneck period and can’t find anything that can excite the overall market.

Xiao A agreed with my answer.

He said: "Besides stacking cameras, what else can smartphone manufacturers do now? Although when Huawei P20 was doing something with the camera, I thought it was really awesome.

But as time went by, I found that it seemed that all manufacturers were piling up cameras, even Apple was no exception, which was hard for me to accept. From another perspective, how much can the experience be improved by manufacturers piling up so many cameras? Is it what every consumer needs? At least I don’t care so much about cameras, which is why I buy fewer and fewer smartphones. This market is becoming more and more boring. I’d better try something else now. The development of the smartphone market has disappointed me.”

Little B: At this price, isn't it good to buy spareribs?

Unlike Xiao A, Xiao B does not have much obsession or enthusiasm for smartphones. From what I know about him, I think he is a user who can control his desires and clearly understand his needs.

As a die-hard Xiaomi 6 owner, this year’s Xiaomi 10 still hasn’t convinced him to change his phone.

During this conversation, when I asked him why he hadn't changed his phone for so long, his reason was very straightforward but also very representative - that is, some of the current smartphones are too expensive.

He said that when Xiaomi 10 was launched this year, he was also tempted, but when the starting price of Xiaomi 10Pro was set at 4,999 yuan, he suddenly felt that Xiaomi 10Pro was not so attractive.

He said: This price is actually beyond my expectation. Think about it, for ordinary office workers like me, 4999 yuan is equivalent to half a month's salary. I think it is not cost-effective to use half a month's salary to buy a mobile phone. Do you think it would be more delicious to buy pork ribs with it? What's more, I have to pay the mortgage every month.

So, I still miss the Xiaomi of 1999. Well, I'd better be a happy wait-and-see party. I believe that the wait-and-see party will win in the end.

Indeed, this year's smartphone price surge is likely to be a major factor restricting users' demand for replacement phones. I have also discussed this issue in a previous article.

At that time, I said: For those Android flagship products that have arrived or are about to arrive, compared with their increasingly powerful functions and hardware, the rising prices are even more impressive. It seems that becoming increasingly unaffordable is becoming the most intuitive feeling of users towards Android flagship phones. So much so that words such as "real dissuasion, sorry to bother you, old phones can still last for another two years, I couldn't afford the Apple flagship before, and now I can't afford the Android flagship either" have become common comments from users when the prices of these new products are announced.

In these user reviews, we can feel the suppression of user consumption by smartphone products after price increases. Moreover, due to the impact of the epidemic this year, many people did not go to work in the first few months, which further suppressed users' demand for replacement phones.

Xiao C: Let’s wait for the 5G version of iPhone

Like Xiao B, Xiao C is also an ordinary smartphone user. Having worked in the sales industry, he trusts Apple more when it comes to smartphone brands. The reason is that the iPhone 6S in his hand is still providing him with strong service.

But when he chatted with me before, he also told me: The 6S is getting worse and worse, and it often gets stuck due to insufficient memory, so it is definitely time to change the phone.

In fact, before this, when chatting with me, he also asked me what kind of mobile phone to change to, whether the current 5G mobile phone is easy to use, etc. In this regard, I also recommended him several 5G mobile phones that I think are pretty good.

I thought he had changed his phone, but I found out during this chat that he hadn't. The reason why he didn't change his phone was that the price of smartphones was getting more and more expensive, but the more important reason was that he wanted to wait for the 5G version of the iPhone.

His habit of using iPhones over the past few years has made him have a strong brand affinity with Apple. So when he heard that several iPhones launched by Apple this year would support 5G, he decided to wait for the 5G version of the iPhone.

In conclusion:

In the conversation between these three friends, it is obvious that the main reasons for their low motivation to change phones are: "boring, expensive, waiting for 5G iPhone, current products are still usable, and the wait-and-see party will win in the end." Although their views may not represent all users, they are still quite representative in my opinion. Here, for smartphone manufacturers, perhaps they should really think about how to make smartphones interesting and affordable again.