How long is left in the life cycle of a mobile phone?

We always have two perspectives to look at a product: one perspective focuses on the product itself. From this perspective, we can see the screen size, resolution, borders, etc. of the mobile phone; the other perspective focuses on the common features of the product. From this perspective, we can see the industry stage, supply chain, ecological entrance, etc. The specific characteristics of the product itself determine the success or failure of the product, while the essence determines the industry trend. In this article, we will explore the latter.

Is a mobile phone like cosmetics or like QQ?

Many people may think that discussing whether mobile phones are like cosmetics or QQ is a strange question, because obviously these two categories are completely unrelated to each other, but in the abstract, they do have similarities.

Most products can be divided into two categories, those with network effects and those without. This distinction is critical. For products with network effects, it is very difficult for latecomers to defeat the current leader by thinking “I can do it better” because network effects naturally make the strong stronger. If you really want to challenge the existing market leader, you have to wait for technology related to your industry to change or approach from a completely different perspective. QQ obviously has a network effect, but mobile phones do not actually have a network effect.

Products without network effects can be further divided into two categories: one is products with greater personalization value, such as cosmetics; the other is products with less personalization value, such as PCs. This distinction is also very critical. For products without personalization value, scale itself is an efficiency; for products with personalization value, scale is not as important as personalization. Corresponding to network effects, the term to describe this phenomenon is economies of scale.

This is also very important. Even if there is no network effect, there are economies of scale, which will lead to the fact that only a few companies can survive in an industry in the end. Of course, there are some industries that are not economical to scale, and this difference in characteristics will also lead to different trends in industry development.

Personalization plays a very important role in the divergence point. In industries where personalization is worthless, full market competition will quickly kill most companies. PC is such an industry now. Personalization is not very valuable, coupled with economies of scale and full market competition, which eventually led to the death of most PC companies. However, the cosmetics industry is obviously different. Personalization is more valuable, so various types of cosmetics products are constantly emerging, and the brands are also very rich.

Therefore, judging whether a mobile phone has the qualities of cosmetics is crucial to the current hustle and bustle of mobile phone manufacturing. Because if a mobile phone is like cosmetics, it means that mobile phone manufacturers still have a chance. If it is like a PC, latecomers will be in danger.

In general, the personalized value of mobile phones is greater than that of PCs, but probably not as great as watches and cosmetics. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why the iPhone sells for the highest price despite its weaker parameters.

Based on this inference, the future structure of mobile phone manufacturers should not become like that of PCs. There will be more brands coexisting, but due to the large number of common features, such as available parameter measurement, rapid generation replacement, and solving communication and Internet access problems, this industry will not be as rich in brands as cosmetics, and there may be a two-tier differentiation. Those occupying the most common positioning have large sales (behind them are pragmatists who do not care about personalization), while those focusing on personalization will have an advantage in the niche areas.

There are only five large-scale PC manufacturers in the world (Lenovo, HP, Dell, Acer, and Asus). The number of cosmetics manufacturers is too numerous to count. If we must discuss the final number of mobile phone manufacturers, we can only say that it must be greater than 5. The remaining readers can find concepts that can support unique brands on their own. In theory, there will be as many as there are.

A related point is whether the ecosystem or the product is more important for mobile phones. The above discussion is actually just about the product itself. If the ecosystem is more important, then the story will actually be different. Let's discuss this issue in the next section.

For mobile phones, is the ecosystem more important or the product?

This point has been discussed in previous articles. To build an ecosystem, you need a strategy. Products obviously focus on the details of the product itself. In fact, the major factors that can be compared with these two points are technology and management. So what is behind this is actually the relationship between products, strategies, technology, management, etc. This time we will only focus on the ecosystem and products that everyone is very concerned about.

In order to see this problem clearly, we need to broaden our horizons, and it will be helpful to look back at history.

Judging from examples such as Walmart, Taobao and Tmall, the ecosystem is undoubtedly more important. Once the platform is supported by network effects and has brand recognition that is deeply rooted in people's minds, players in the ecosystem will definitely not have as much say as the players who dominate the ecosystem.

From the perspective of the development of the PC industry, the story is a little different. PC manufacturers actually have far less say than Microsoft and Intel. From the perspective of the ecosystem, PCs are actually closer to users, more like today's mobile phone manufacturers. For the entire PC ecosystem, Windows and CPU are actually a product.

The only conclusion we can draw from these completely opposite examples is that profits are actually allocated according to the size of the voice after full market competition. (Resources are not completely allocated according to the market)

So for mobile phones, which one is more important: the ecological attributes behind the phone, or the product attributes of the phone?

The key issue here is not the mobile phone itself, but the characteristics of the ecosystem itself.

The various apps on mobile phones look similar to each other, but they are actually very different. The value of one type of app lies in itself, while the value of another type of app lies in the service it represents. The former is typically a browser, while the latter is typically Taobao.

The more you lean towards the former, the greater the impact of the phone itself, and the more you lean towards the latter, the less the impact. This is not difficult to understand. As long as the browser is pre-installed and not too bad, most people will not install the browser themselves. But no matter what phone you use, as long as taking a taxi remains the same, everyone will definitely take the initiative to install Didi or Kuaidi.

Therefore, whoever owns a mobile phone has a greater influence on the former, while the influence on the latter is mainly reflected when the competition is unclear, but it is not a decisive factor. This also means that the so-called impact of mobile phones on the ecosystem is mainly concentrated on the apps that are more inclined to the former, and the impact on almost all O2O, Internet finance, etc. is far less than expected. This should not be difficult to understand, and few people think that O2O or Internet finance can be solved with a mobile phone entrance.

In products that tend to be more like the former, all social networking related things can be removed, because the huge network effect can offset the trouble caused by the so-called installation. Who would forget to install WeChat?

In summary, the impact of mobile phones on the ecology of several major categories is far less than expected, such as e-commerce, social networks, O2O, and Internet finance. The only unclear thing here is the search engine, but this is not because the search engine is not a product that focuses on the service side, but because the search itself has the attribute of a secondary entrance, and mobile has exacerbated this trend. Search can be divided into two categories, one is the horizontal search such as search engines, and the other is the vertical search belonging to each site. The prerequisite for the former type of search is the browser, and the latter type relies on how complete the information of a single site is. With the advent of mobile Internet, searching in the browser will definitely be downgraded to a secondary entrance, and the rise of various super apps has made vertical search more valuable.

The entrance is indeed valuable, but its value seems to be overestimated at the mobile phone point.

Predictable mobile gameplay?

Various industries always go from being new to mature, and then enter a cycle of continuous improvement. For computers, this improvement cycle probably began with the release of WinXP. IT veterans may remember that before that, each time a computer was replaced, the previous generation of computers was actually unusable, but after that, various key needs were better met, and many improvements were actually not eye-catching. This is probably one of the reasons why there are still so many XP users, after all, it is difficult to find Windows 95 users.

Once the improvement cycle begins, the typical selling point of the product will become bigger, faster, and stronger. Mobile phones have an electronic product aspect, and this should not change. However, based on the current situation, it is unlikely that there will be a big gap. Based on the current situation, everyone is more dependent on similar supply chains, so as long as one company can digest it, the other company should be able to handle it quickly. At the same time, another rigid constraint is that if you can't get out of this circle, the people in the bureau will live a painful life. For example, you can refer to PCs. Think back to how many people were working on PCs and how the PC industry developed.

In this way, under the premise of fierce competition and convergence of supply chains, mobile phone manufacturers can only focus on technology and experience. Actively introducing new technologies is to keep up with others, while technology and experience are to make themselves different.

The so-called ecosystem is actually a weight for mobile phone manufacturers to influence others. Most of the time, it is impossible to become a selling point of mobile phones. Who would be willing to match only a few manufacturers with their ecosystem? Therefore, it is unlikely that a large closed ecosystem will appear outside of Apple. This is actually fatal. If you really want this to become a selling point that affects mobile phones, then unless the mobile phone manufacturers have their own unique ecological chain and are willing to make this industrial chain a supporting component of mobile phones, this feasibility is not high.

For example, if smart home plays this role, it means that smart home not only has the mission of its own development, but also the mission of supporting mobile phones. This is actually very dangerous in the current state. In fact, you can't let the whole family use your mobile phone. In this case, you can only rely on apps to universally apply to all models, rather than making this ecosystem a selling point for mobile phones.

But there is one type of ecosystem that may be more helpful, and that is the ecosystem that expands the basic functions of mobile phones. So when the competition becomes fierce to a certain extent, new stories should emerge in this area.

When will mobile phones be disrupted?

If we look beyond mobile phones, we will wonder how long the life cycle of mobile phones will be, which will undoubtedly have a huge impact on this category.

After mobile phones and tablets indirectly weakened the role of PCs, although PCs cannot be called a sunset industry, they are at least a relatively mature industry. So when will mobile phones face a product that challenges them?

In addition, it is important to note that mobile phones are actually products that combine two technology development routes: one is the development route of computers becoming smaller and stronger after the invention of transistors; the other is the development route of 2G, 3G, and 4G communications. From the results, it can be seen that the computer industry is more powerful, and Apple has led this change. Many people talk about Nokia, Motorola, etc. and give various reasons, but in fact, a fundamental reason is that the areas they originally focused on have been downgraded to a part of the new product. This trend is terrible. If you only look at it from a local perspective, it may be that its communication is indeed not as strong as your original one, which will lead to cognitive dislocation. However, in fact, although the new product is not as good as you in some parts, it has far surpassed you in terms of the overall value it provides. You are just a part of it.

The above two perspectives are exactly what we must pay attention to when considering what will replace mobile phones: one is about what products will weaken the functions of mobile phones, which is actually an indirect subversion; the other is to make the two things that mobile phones focus on: communication and computers become local again.

If you have to choose one for the former, it would be smart watches or IoT devices; the latter is not yet visible.

If the world becomes a place where you can talk and surf the Internet anywhere, then the role of mobile phones will undoubtedly be weakened, but it is difficult to completely replace mobile phones. For example, when you are surfing the Internet on TV and a call comes in, you can just talk without looking for your phone. In abstract terms, as long as there are more and more SIM cards and screens, the role of mobile phones will be weakened.

Some of the new technologies that are popular now, such as AR/VR, do not seem to be able to replace mobile phones for the time being.

So the life cycle of mobile phones should be very long. If we take the launch of the first generation iPhone in 2007 as the first year, then this type of product has been around for eight years. In comparison, if we take the launch of Apple II in 1977 as the first year of the PC, then it has been around for about 40 years, with a development period of about 30 years.

summary

As mentioned at the beginning, we can always look at a thing from two perspectives: one is the God's perspective, looking at things from the top down, and many philosophers do this; the other is the experience perspective, which looks at things from the bottom up. In the long history, many major events are actually related to these two perspectives. The former needs to focus on essential issues, and what it focuses on is actually a commonality, which is more like the Tao that the ancient Chinese talked about, but the impact on success or failure is indeed not as real as the latter. From a realistic point of view, the former, which seems to be really valuable, lacks something. There are techniques and methods, but no Tao. This is actually problematic, especially when it comes to people.

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.