Three reasons why domestic mobile phone systems are tepid

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This year's Double Eleven, while sales continue to hit new highs, competition is also becoming more intense. According to data from JD.com and Tmall, the two major platforms for mobile phone products have sold nearly 6 million units in total, breaking last year's record. At the same time, as the world's largest mobile phone sales market, China is also playing an increasingly important role in the mobile phone market. Technology is the mainstay in supporting business operations. It is said that chips and systems are the brain center of a mobile phone, and Chinese mobile phones lack this important local core.

Situation: Two powers competing for supremacy

Today, China's mobile phone industry is still in the "manufacturing" stage. Although there are companies such as HiSilicon and Spreadtrum rising in the chip field, the mobile phone operating system has always been a pain in the hearts of users, and they all hope to have a system that can compete with iOS and Android. The current mobile phone operating systems are mainly based on Android and iOS. The market share of Windows and BlackBerry is gradually decreasing, and the former Symbian is gone forever. Amid the expectations and cheers of the Chinese people, several companies have also made attempts, but they all failed to meet the requirements in product design and experience. As for MIUI, flyme and EMUI, they are not real operating systems. They are just deeply customized and optimized based on Android to make them more in line with the usage habits of Chinese people, and some functions and interfaces are designed to have their own brand characteristics.

An operating system in the true sense is one that has its own independently developed Java virtual machine and framework layer code information. Previously, there have been independently developed operating systems such as COS, Ubuntu, Hongqi and Alibaba Cloud OS on the Chinese market. However, due to immature technology, small installation volume and unsatisfactory supported services, no mobile phone manufacturer was willing to take the risk to try, resulting in a lack of large-scale testing opportunities for the developed operating systems.

Why are domestic mobile phone systems so lukewarm?

As an important entrance to the mobile Internet, the operating system is considered the golden key to the rapid operation of mobile phones and a battleground for strategists. However, the current situation is that Android and iOS are competing for supremacy and have almost formed a monopoly, leaving less and less opportunities for other manufacturers. It is still an unknown whether they can break out. China needs a representative operating system that can be independently developed, and Chinese mobile phone users also strongly support the development and design of operating systems by many companies. However, behind the feelings, there are often thorns and bumps.

Enterprises simply give up on the road of research and development. Even if some enterprises launch the developed systems to the outside world, they receive little attention and are rarely known by the outside world. If you think about it carefully, China has been developing independent operating systems for quite a long time, and users pay so much attention and cheers, why has it been so tepid?

First of all, it is the lack of innovation ability. Independently developing an operating system is not a matter of one day or one night. It requires consideration of all aspects, dealing with a large number of bugs, and conducting multiple tests before a preliminary product is completed. During the war years, China did not have bullets and gun technology, so it disassembled the guns and artillery seized from the enemy, reassembled them, and copied them in large quantities. Nowadays, many R&D companies directly apply the so-called operating system they launched, which is a system that "absorbs the essence of many companies" and is pieced together. For example, COS is a complete replica of HTC. At the same time, for R&D, it is difficult to differentiate and create new highlights when Android and iOS have developed to a relatively mature level. The time and money costs required in the middle are too high, which often becomes the biggest stumbling block to its development. Of course, insufficient innovation ability is not a problem that Chinese manufacturers have to face. Foreign manufacturers such as Samsung also face a dilemma when developing, which is also one of the important reasons why they have not been able to launch their own operating systems.

Secondly, the support from application vendors is not in place. The operating system is just a basic platform. For consumers, what is more important is the corresponding software support. Each application requires developers to develop a corresponding application version separately, such as Android version, iOS version, etc., which requires a lot of manpower and time costs, and requires the recruitment of engineers for the corresponding platform. Even Windows Phone, which still has a certain market share, has few application vendors willing to update or even launch applications for it, let alone a new operating system platform that has just been launched and has a very small number of users.

At first, when Alibaba Cloud OS was launched, although it was endorsed by Alibaba and launched multiple models in cooperation with several mobile phone manufacturers such as Tianyu, the market response was mediocre and far from the expected goal. Today, although Alibaba has its own independent virtual machine, it still relies on the Android ecosystem to be compatible with Android applications, which has also been criticized by Google (Weibo). In short, once an operating system is not supported by applications, it will only be an empty shell.

Finally, the terminal support is not strong enough. In addition to the command of the brain, each human activity also requires the execution of the body. The same is true for the relationship between the operating system and the mobile phone terminal. Now most mobile phone brands will still choose to carry the Android system for stability considerations. Companies with funds and capabilities will also deeply customize it to meet their own brand style characteristics. Therefore, even if the current mobile phone sales are gradually increasing, there are very few opportunities for "rookie" operating systems. How many manufacturers like Alibaba Cloud rely on parent company investment in exchange for installed capacity? Of course, it should be mentioned here that Alibaba Cloud claimed that the activation volume has exceeded 30 million at the Meizu Metal launch conference, but how many active users are there? We don't know. On Double 11, the hot sales of Meizu Metal made Alibaba Cloud OS take another step forward, but it is still full of crises. In the Meizu Post Bar and community, you can still see many users questioning Alibaba Cloud OS, and some users even directly revealed that if Meizu Metal cannot be flashed into Android, they will not choose to buy it. After all, the stability and application restrictions are still relatively uncertain.

In conclusion:

China's huge mobile phone user market provides an opportunity for operating system updates and iterations. However, due to user awareness, imperfect applications, and brand owners' desire for stability, it is difficult for domestic mobile phone systems to compete with Android and iOS, resulting in the current tepid situation. At present, the homogeneity of mobile phone market development is becoming increasingly serious. The decisive factors for future mobile phone competition will come from ecosystems and application services. China's intelligent operating system has the advantages of time and place. In the future, it will need to invest more funds and talents in research and development to have a chance to catch up.