Samsung mobile phones have become a thing of the past in the country
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Samsung, the only mobile phone manufacturer that can compete with Apple's iPhone, has recently been lamented by some netizens as "a thing of the past" due to the threat of the rapid rise of emerging forces represented by mobile phone manufacturers in mainland China. And they believe that the evidence for this result is the current sharp decline in operating profits. Faced with the sudden crisis, Samsung has hardly found a better remedy from today's perspective, and even missed the great opportunity at the beginning of the 4G wave. In the cruel smartphone market, one wrong step may lead to many wrong steps. Will Samsung not catch up? Or will it be driven out of the mainland market like foreign brand color TVs in the past. Profits plummeted, Samsung lacks stamina. The ice is not frozen in a day, and Samsung's operating profit has already shown signs of plummeting. As early as April, Samsung announced its first quarter 2014 financial report performance guidance, indicating that the operating profit in the first quarter was 8.4 trillion won (about 8 billion US dollars), a year-on-year decline of 4.3%! At that time, Samsung gave the reason that users' demand for high-end smartphones slowed down, and it was confident that it could reverse the decline with the launch of Galaxy S5. But three months later, Samsung released its second quarter earnings forecast for this year, showing that its sales were 52 trillion won (51.5 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year decline of about 10%; operating profit was 7.2 trillion won (7.1 billion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year decline of 24.5%! Samsung's sales and operating profit double decline is directly related to the decline of its mobile phone business. It should be noted that the mobile phone department contributed 68% of Samsung's operating profit last year. But this year, this department only contributed 59% of Samsung's operating profit, a decline of nearly 10 percentage points, which has the magic of instantly turning Samsung from a rich and handsome man to a loser. In addition, in January last year, Samsung's stock price reached its historical peak, but it fell by nearly 12% in April this year. It seems that investors' concerns have finally become a reality, and Samsung's downward trend is like a slide that cannot be stopped. Of course, in order to stabilize the morale of the troops, Samsung is still showing off, saying: "With the release of new smartphone products, the company cautiously expects that the third quarter may be more optimistic." This naturally refers to the Note 4 that will be released in September. But don't forget that Apple's large-screen iPhone 6 will also be launched by then, which is definitely a strong rival to the Note 4. Samsung's operating profit in the third quarter will still not improve much, and it is very likely to continue to decline. Coupled with huge marketing expenses, Samsung's chairman's hospitalization due to illness and other factors, Samsung will encounter many difficulties in the coming period. High prices and ordinary performance make it difficult for Samsung to compete with domestic products. In line with the decline in operating profit, Samsung's smartphone market share has also declined. According to IDC data, Samsung's global smartphone market share in the first quarter of this year fell from 31.9% in the same period last year to 30.2%. It is worth noting that this is the first time that Samsung's smartphone market share has declined since the fourth quarter of 2009. Although it seems to have only fallen by less than two percentage points, Samsung's decline has reached a dangerous level in one of the most important markets, the Chinese mainland market. In 2013, Samsung's domestic market share was about 22%, but in May this year, this figure dropped to about 16.5%, a drop of almost 6 percentage points! At the same time, Lenovo and Xiaomi have a market share of more than 10%, and with the step-by-step approach of domestic manufacturers such as Huawei, Samsung's situation of being the only one in the market no longer exists. This is mainly because in the domestic smartphone market, with fierce competition, smartphones are becoming more and more popular, and not only have their prices bottomed out, but their performance and functions can also meet the daily use of users. The gap between high-end and low-end mobile phones has become smaller and smaller, especially domestic mobile phones with hardware configurations similar to Samsung's flagship phones, which are priced at only half or even one-third of the former, which has greatly impacted the sales of Samsung's flagship phones in China. Samsung's mid- and low-end mobile phones are also more expensive than domestic thousand-yuan phones, and are far behind these "thousand-yuan magic phones" in terms of hardware configuration. It should be noted that now that high-end models are becoming increasingly saturated, mid- and low-end models are the foundation of mobile phone manufacturers. After the end of this year's MWC conference, Reuters declared: "The mobile phone industry is currently targeting the growing demand for low-end smartphones below $100, because the high-end smartphone market is saturated, and entry-level smartphones now represent the industry's greatest hope for growth." Samsung's neglect of the marketing of mid- and low-end mobile phones ultimately brought bad consequences, trapping itself in a quagmire from which it could not escape. While domestic mobile phone manufacturers have mastered Internet marketing and attracted a large number of fans such as "Mi fans" and "Hua fans", Samsung still insists on investing huge amounts of money in TV media and other media to promote its flagship mobile phones. It is not down-to-earth at all and is naturally abandoned by domestic users who value "cost-effectiveness". In essence, Samsung mobile phones still use the Android system, and the workmanship and materials are not unique, and there is not much difference from mobile phones. How can it add high added value just by relying on Samsung's signboard? Apple has its own fixed consumer group because it has built a complete ecosystem for the iPhone. In contrast, Samsung, which is the king of global market share, relies solely on marketing and other means to maintain its position, which makes many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have always challenged and hostile to Samsung. When Huawei's Yu Chengdong released P7 in May this year, he said: "The second-ranked manufacturer in the market (Apple) has a special ecological chain, so I can't say, but the first-ranked one (Samsung) does not have any competitive advantages that Huawei does not have." In addition, it is an indisputable fact that Samsung mobile phones have frequent quality problems. The font door and motherboard door have been widely reported by the media. And its after-sales attitude and high maintenance costs are often complained by users. I have a friend who bought the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 China Mobile 4G version for only three days. Without falling or hitting, the motherboard was completely damaged. In the end, it cost nearly 2,000 yuan to replace the motherboard. Lagging behind in the 4G era, Samsung's future is bleak. With the opening of the curtain of the domestic 4G era, many domestic manufacturers have begun to exert their strength in 4G terminals, among which Coolpad and other manufacturers have already taken the lead in the market. In May this year, Coolpad ranked first in the domestic 4G mobile phone market with a share of 23.1%, and Samsung and Apple ranked second and third respectively. Samsung, on the other hand, was slow to respond and only launched expensive flagship 4G mobile phones that could not meet market needs. In order to seize the high ground in the 4G era, domestic mobile phone manufacturers also took out their usual "price killer" and launched a number of thousand-yuan mobile phones, which made Samsung unable to resist. Although Samsung executives also believe that 4G will become the main driving force for Samsung Electronics' growth, it has obviously not exerted its efforts in the Chinese mainland market. Once domestic mobile phone manufacturers take the lead, Samsung will be in a very embarrassing position in the 4G era. Among them, if low-end models support 4G, the price will inevitably increase further, and it will not be able to compete with domestic 4G mobile phones at all. One wrong step, all wrong steps. The potential of 4G is very huge. If Samsung fails to gain a foothold at the beginning of the 4G wave, it will be very difficult to make a comeback. This loss of 4G will inevitably cause a chain reaction, which will in turn affect Samsung's overall performance in China. Lower your profile and enrich your product line. At present, if Samsung wants to stabilize the situation and stop the downward trend, it must aim to seize market share and sacrifice short-term profits in exchange for the opportunity to occupy the top spot in the long term. This naturally requires Samsung to lower its profile, reasonably reduce prices for its high, medium and low-end smartphone models, and launch a variety of strategic competition. Then compete with domestic mobile phone manufacturers, and finally rely on the recovery of the Chinese mainland market to consolidate its leading position in the global smartphone market and better fight against Apple. In addition, although most of Samsung's operating profit comes from the mobile phone business, it cannot ignore the market development of other new fields, such as wearable devices and smart homes. Samsung is obviously ready for an all-out war. At this year's CES conference, it launched the Smart Home smart home platform; launched a new generation of smart watches equipped with the Tizen system and smart watches based on the Android Wear puzzle, and is about to launch the virtual reality device Gear Live... The rich product line is enough to interact more with smartphones, so as to create a complete ecosystem and lead the consumption trend. In the end, the importance of the Chinese mainland market is self-evident to Samsung. But unlike Apple, Samsung has always treated Chinese mainland users with a condescending attitude, and even thought that huge investments in marketing can bring rich returns. However, domestic mobile phone manufacturers have dealt Samsung a heavy blow, and the declining operating profits have caught it off guard. At present, Samsung has not been able to adjust its operating methods in mainland China in time. But time is running out. Once the Chinese mainland mobile phone manufacturers are allowed to fully exert their potential, Samsung's "running away in panic" is almost a foreseeable future. As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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