Revealing the secrets of celebrity phones: seemingly poor sales, but actually making money quietly

In recent years, mobile phones have become the most popular mass digital consumer product, and the rise of mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi has also given birth to many myths of wealth creation. Seeing such a good situation, since last year, teachers, crosstalk performers, singers, and actors have all come to do mobile phone business, as if they can make a fortune with the so-called "fan economy". This year, although this trend has some lack of stamina, Jay Chou's second-generation mobile phone continues to be released, and even Han Geng's GengPhone is planned to be the third and fourth generations.

Recently, there was a rumor that Fan Bingbing was going to release a mobile phone called FunPhone, and people were shocked. But earlier today, Fan Bingbing's studio came out to refute the rumor and claimed that it was not true. However, it is an indisputable fact that more and more stars are targeting the technology field represented by the mobile phone industry. But why are there so many celebrity phones with poor sales? Can this really make a lot of money from the "fan economy"? Xiao Nei will explain it to you one by one today.

The main feature is the star element, but the price is high and the performance is low.

As a celebrity phone, the audience is naturally those millions of fans and even die-hard fans. In the world of these people, idols are gods. When gods say they are going to release a phone, everyone will buy it, and die-hard fans can even spend a lot of money without asking the price. This is why celebrities can confidently cross over to the mobile phone business. Compared with those endorsed phones, celebrity phones have more exclusive features. First of all, the built-in ROM is implanted with a large number of celebrity content elements, and even the celebrities themselves participate in the design. The more prominent ones are Cui Jian's "Blue Bones" and Han Geng's "Geng Phone". The ROM of "Blue Bones" has Cui Jian App built in, which contains Cui Jian's personal classic songs and other content. Geng Phone claims that Han Geng personally participated in the design. The customized ROM comes with Han Geng Widget plug-in, itinerary calendar, photo album, exclusive event highlights, and new song previews, which is simply considerate to the hearts of fans. But as a hardware product, mobile phones ultimately rely on quality to gain a foothold in the market. "Fan economy" alone cannot last long. The masses are not really stupid. Shoddy workmanship may deceive them temporarily, but it will lose their hearts forever.

As Xiao Nei said before, celebrity phones are hardware products after all, and quality is still the core. However, due to cost control and limited order quantities, these phones are often produced by small ODM mobile phone factories, so the quality cannot be guaranteed 100%. Whether it is Yousi of Geng Phone, Ucan of Jay Chou's mobile phone, or Qingcheng of Sister Furong's "Goddess Phone", they are all small factories in third- and fourth-tier cities. Looking at the hardware configuration, Geng Phone is a low-end smartphone using MTK chips. The prototype price is only 1,499 yuan, but the limited edition of Geng Phone is as high as 2,999. The situation of Sister Furong's "Goddess Phone" is similar. It is also at the level of MTK low-end phones but has lower configurations. The price is also twice that of the prototype - 1,949 yuan, and it is also called patriotic elements. Even more jaw-dropping is Cui Jian's "Blue Bone", a phone that is full of tough rock flavor from its appearance to its built-in ROM. The phone is also quite stylish, and at 3,998 yuan, it is simply at the level of high-end phones from international first-line brands. However, its configuration is only at the level of the MX quad-core version from a year ago, and the price has doubled.

We can see that the biggest selling point of these celebrity phones that go against the market trend by relying on the star effect and play high prices and low configurations is the so-called "star element", not the phone itself. Therefore, it is the die-hard fans who pay for it. However, the so-called "star effect" is often not as strong as people expect. Putting aside the few die-hard fans who are really willing to pay a lot of money for their idols, the majority of the remaining fans either do not have the consumption capacity (minors/people with low incomes) or just love the idols' songs or film and television works (they only consume records/concerts/movie tickets). Therefore, among the seemingly huge fan base, there may not be so many suitable target audiences for celebrity phones.

Behind the dismal sales, someone is making a lot of money

As we said before, although these celebrity phones have more or less celebrity elements, these high-priced and low-spec products from small ODM factories are surprisingly rip-offs in terms of price-performance ratio. As for sales, you can imagine. Of course, celebrities are also smart. The reason they sell their phones in this way is to make their die-hard fans pay for them. They never thought about competing for sales in the mass market. As for marketing, referring to the success of mobile phone brands such as Xiaomi relying on a strong fan base, celebrities also follow suit. You know, what they lack the most is fans. With a little publicity, they can get considerable feedback with the so-called idol effect; and then sell through appropriate e-commerce platforms, without the cost of physical stores.

But the fact is not that "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there really was light." As Xiao Nei said before, the real target audience of celebrity phones is actually quite limited. If the star himself does not have a large enough fan base, then the sales of the phone will be even more difficult to guarantee. For example, "Blue Bones" was not something that Cui Jian's limited fans could get. He later changed his words and said that making phones was mainly to promote his personal brand, not just to sell products. Sister Furong claimed to have 50,000 "goddess phones" in stock, but her monthly sales on Amazon were only two. As a grassroots idol, Luo Yonghao, who was so strong that he started a business making phones, has only sold a little over 100,000 phones so far, not to mention Sister Furong, who was "bare-handed." However, this is not the worst. Shuimu Nianhua also made a 100 phone, but not only did it not cause any waves, but soon even the official website of the cooperating manufacturer could not find any information about it. You can't copy the success of OnePlus by multiplying it by 100.

It is estimated that after seeing the previous bruises of these compatriots, and the sensitivity of its own fans to pricing, GengPhone is more cautious. In November last year, GengPhone, priced at 2999, "very carefully" arranged 5,000 yellow limited editions to be first released on Amazon, and finally sold out. But after this short-lived success, GengPhone soon disappeared from major platforms, and even the official Weibo account stated that the platform had already removed it, and it was said that all the inventory was sold out. So, the question is, how much did GengPhone, which has a poor price-performance ratio, earn in the end with the support of some hardcore fans? Let's be conservative and take the sales of 8,000 units as an example, (2999-1499)*8000=12,000,000! What? Just by the price difference, you can make a gross profit of 12 million? This is nearly half of Han Geng's annual income. Although it is estimated that there will be millions of net profits left after deducting various costs, such a model is simply "making a million with only four ounces of money."

No wonder Jay Chou's mobile phone is eager to launch a second generation even though the previous "Blue Bone" and "Goddess Phone" have faded away. They have their reasons for persisting. While everyone thinks that celebrity mobile phones are losing money to gain publicity, the best ones have quietly made a fortune. The mystery behind this is thought-provoking.

In the end, we can find that since there are outstanding players who can make a small fortune in this wave of celebrity phones, how can celebrities who are keen on making money easily let go of this field? Let's imagine that if there are big manufacturers willing to cooperate, mainstream configuration plus deeply customized celebrity element ROM, still produced and sold in small quantities but at a slightly more reasonable price, wouldn't it be a Hammer phone? Therefore, celebrities still sell low-spec phones at high prices, and sell them in small quantities to hardcore fans to "make a fortune in silence."

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.