Three lies about smartphones

If we count from 1965 when Moore's Law emerged, this methodology summarized from experience has dominated the computer industry for exactly half a century.

However, Moore's Law, which originated in the PC era, has failed to work on smartphones. To put it another way, Moore's Law cannot be applied to smartphones. If we count carefully, smartphones have been around for about ten years since the first generation of the iPhone, and the hardware performance of smartphones has skyrocketed during this period, squeezing out the technological advantages accumulated by the technology industry over the years. Perhaps it is not an exaggeration to call it an enhanced version of Moore's Law.

When the time threshold reached 2016, the hardware performance of smartphones could not be improved any further, the appearance design could not be changed, and the user population was highly popular, the public opinion on smartphones began to change. Led by Apple and Samsung, and supplemented by Xiaomi in China, the smartphone market began to be criticized. The so-called vicious competition and accusations of plagiarism caused the image of smartphones to plummet from the pinnacle of innovation.

Although there have been some bankruptcies in the mobile phone industry chain, I would rather regard them as the metabolism of the mobile phone industry rather than an industrial crisis. For example, last year, Huawei and ZTE's first-tier supplier Fuchang Electronics went bankrupt. According to a Huawei insider, Fuchang Electronics's bankruptcy was directly related to its unwillingness to upgrade its technology. Now most mobile phones have metal shells, and Fuchang's plastic shell market will naturally shrink severely. Coincidentally, Apple's supplier Wintek Technology, which went bankrupt in the same year, was also removed from the list of suppliers because its touch screen technology did not meet the standards.

The author believes that, judging from the current development situation, the importance of smartphones will become increasingly higher, and the trend towards centralization is obvious. The so-called argument that smartphones are marginalized is actually just superficial.

1. Centralization trend, the ecology of a tree trunk

Marginalized lie number one: smart hardware will replace it.

The most common argument I have heard is when smart hardware will replace smartphones and smartphones will be marginalized, not whether they will be replaced. For those who firmly believe in this trend, the relationship between smart hardware and mobile phones is either one or the other.

Of course, this argument is popular because it seems to be true on the surface. Smart hardware, including smart watches/bracelets and VR devices, has already successfully occupied people's vision. The overwhelming publicity and reports, as well as people's strong curiosity about unknown technologies, have made smartphones lose a lot of their luster. The author believes that smartphones have actually become control centers and connection centers.

• Control center of smart hardware

If you carefully comb through the relationship between these smart hardware and mobile phones, you will find that smart hardware has not existed as an independent entity since its birth, but has been closely attached to the periphery of smart phones. For example, mobile VR headsets, such as Samsung Gear VR, are often designed as tools for scene-based expansion of mobile phones, with mobile phones as the core computing and display tools of VR devices. Similarly, taking the Apple Watch smartwatch as an example, the Apple Watch itself cannot make calls, and can only assist the iPhone in the functions of information notification and display. Even the newly released Watch OS 3.0 has not changed this established fact.

Looking deeper, smartphones have not only not been marginalized, but have begun to show a centralized trend, becoming the center of smart hardware. A large number of other smart hardware, including smart home appliances, smart wearables and even smart cars, cannot do without mobile phones. In the long run, it is not inconceivable that mobile phones will become the center of the Internet of Things.

Because from the perspective of product form, although smart hardware has the functions of perception, information collection and computing, it is limited by battery life or its own form, and ultimately still requires a mobile phone as the final processing and display window to present to the user.

• The connection hub for productivity devices

To be frank, the mobile era is reshaping productivity devices, especially personal PCs. In my opinion, the biggest dilemma facing productivity devices, which are mainly PCs and 2in1 tablets, is not the weight or volume of the products. Even lightweight devices like Surface Pro 4 and iPad Pro are only relative to notebooks. The most pressing issue for this type of productivity devices is the physical communication capabilities across platforms and devices, that is, the seamless connection between devices.

As a device that users carry with them at all times and use very frequently, mobile phones can keep users informed of production tasks and the latest production status, communicate and collaborate with other productivity devices across platforms, and even assist in completing some relatively light tasks. Smartphones are the best connection center under existing conditions.

So rather than saying that smartphones are marginalized, it is better to say that they are centralized, just like the trunk of a tree. As the branches and leaves grow in the summer, they will gradually cover up its prominence, but the fact that it is still the center of the tree cannot be erased. It’s just that this trend of centralization is developing in a very secretive and passive way.

2. Smartphone consumption upgrade: supply-side reform

Marginalized lie number two: Smartphone growth is slowing.

It can be said without hesitation that Xiaomi has detonated the domestic smartphone market, and the detonating point is the price-performance ratio, which is the so-called price war that never gets boring.

Of course, according to consumer psychology, people’s curiosity about new things often has a psychological tolerance red line. When it falls below the red line, most consumers dare to try new things. Low-priced mobile phones have officially met this expectation red line, but in 2016, the smartphone market has more stock than growth, and users’ curiosity about smartphones has long been infinitely weakened by low-priced mobile phones. They prefer smartphones with brand premiums and better experiences, such as Apple and Samsung.

According to data, market consulting firm GfK released a statistical data on China's smartphone market last year. In the first half of 2015, the scale of China's mobile phone market was 188 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 14.3%, of which the scale of smartphone market was 171 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 11.9%. The average price of smartphones in China remained above 1,800 yuan, while in the same period of 2014, the average price of smartphones was around 1,400 yuan.

Similarly, when it comes to domestic brands, data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology's survey this year showed that in the first quarter of 2016, shipments of smartphones priced in the 1,500 yuan range surged, while shipments of smartphones priced in the 1,000 yuan range showed a significant decline.

If the growth of the mobile phone industry before 2015 was driven by the dividend of the popularization of smart phones, then after 2015, the growth momentum of the mobile phone industry was driven by the demand for consumption upgrades. The increase in the average unit price of smart phones is caused by the demand for user consumption upgrades, and as the supply side, mobile phone manufacturers, the new phones released this year are also hitting the price ceiling. For example, Xiaomi no longer sticks to the price red line of 1999 yuan. The price of Xiaomi 5 Premium Edition has reached 2699 yuan, and the high-end version of Meizu Pro6 is 2799 yuan.

Huawei, a typical reference example, has been relatively successful in its shift to the mid-to-high-end market. Its P series and Mate series have now broken through the 3,000 yuan ceiling. At a time when the growth of major domestic brands slowed down last year, Huawei's smartphone business bucked the trend and became the only domestic brand with annual shipments exceeding 100 million units.

To sum up the above, the author believes that the slowdown in smartphone growth is due to the inability of the supply side to meet the upgrading of consumer demand. Compared with the incremental market, the existing market is more valuable.

3. The best carrier for content entrepreneurship and content consumption

The third marginalized lie: the form of smartphone products is backward.

Smartphones are the best carriers of content because the entire mobile Internet is based on smartphones, so the content of the mobile Internet will be the best value barrier for smartphones.

In recent years, the mobile Internet has shifted from its initial business model to content-based exploration, which is a return to its essence. Whether it is group buying O2O or sharing economy, its value is ultimately reflected in the content.

For social networking, social applications such as WeChat and Weibo not only consume most of their content on mobile phones, but even most of the content is produced on mobile phones. For example, posting on Weibo, taking photos and posting on social circles, sending audio files, etc., these are the strengths of mobile phones. Moreover, the online live broadcast industry, which is in full swing recently, such as Inke and Kuaishou Live, which are completely based on mobile terminals, is also consumed on mobile terminals; and digital books, magazines, new media, etc. cannot be displayed on smart hardware at all.

To put it bluntly, whether it is smart hardware or mobile phones, the value of the content ultimately provided by the product always takes precedence over the product form. Just like a smart watch, it is ignored 90% of the time in daily life, because apart from providing time information, it has no other content to consume, whether it is game content, social content, etc.

In the future, content services based on smartphones will continue to surge, such as various vertical e-commerce businesses and the upcoming IP boom. Internet celebrities like Papi Jiang are a special product of the smartphone era.

Therefore, being able to consume content anytime and anywhere also makes smartphones always at the center of user usage scenarios, while smart hardware is a marginalized product that quietly serves users. If one day, other products can solve the content carrying problem, perhaps that is the day when mobile phones are replaced.

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.