"Rongmi OV" besieging iPhone 16 | Focus Analysis
Author: Qiu Xiaofen
Editor: Su Jianxun
In the past half month, the Chinese mobile phone industry has presented a rather rare phenomenon - six major mobile phone brands, as if in a relay, have released their flagship models of this year.
On October 14, the vivo X200 series was released; on October 24, the OPPO Find X8 series was released;
On October 29, the Xiaomi 15 series was released; on October 30, the Honor Magic 7 series and IQOO 13 were released;
On October 31, the OnePlus 13 was released.
Previously, domestic mobile phone manufacturers generally chose to update their annual flagship products during the period from November to January of the following year, and the releases were staggered to share the traffic. But this year, everyone unanimously released their products half a month or even two months earlier, and some mobile phone manufacturers even directly "released and started selling", no longer using the hunger marketing and pre-sale strategy.
This approach is not only to prepare for the most crucial marketing node of the year, Double Eleven, but also to confront their common opponent: Apple iPhone 16.
A collection of some recent flagship phones
Li Jie, the president of OnePlus China, told 36Kr that the collective advancement of the flagship series' release time is mainly due to two reasons:
On the one hand, the release time of this year's Qualcomm core processor is advanced, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 uses the most advanced 3nm process, with a significant overall upgrade. All Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are unwilling to wait too long and miss the opportunity.
On the other hand, it is also related to the earlier shift of the mobile phone consumption boom this year - according to the research data of the overall market, the two major consumption nodes of mobile phones in the past year were February and August (that is, the last month of the summer vacation and the month of the Spring Festival), but now they are June and November, which are the two peak seasons for offline and online sales respectively. "Everyone hopes to launch new products at the consumption peak and combine them with old products"
In response to the aggressive Android camp, Apple has also made rare adjustments recently.
Within one month of the release of the iPhone 16 series, Apple adopted a strategy of reducing prices to increase sales. If combined with the trade-in policy, the price reduction can be up to 1,600 yuan. During the mobile phone battle in October, Apple CEO Tim Cook made his second visit to China this year, visiting stores in an attempt to boost confidence in the Chinese market.
Tim Cook taking a photo with the staff of the Apple Wangfujing Retail Store. Source: Tim Cook's Weibo
At the end of 2024, behind the various "abnormal" phenomena of Chinese flagship phones, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers are accelerating and directly besieging Apple in the domestic market.
Playing the cards upfront
If in the past, the public attitude of major Chinese mobile phone manufacturers towards Apple was more of a "tribute", this year, everyone's ambitions are directly exposed. Judging from their respective flagship products, there is a more obvious flavor of competing with Apple, mainly starting from design and ecology.
In the past few years, in order to differentiate from Apple and to demonstrate sincerity by stacking materials, the Chinese mobile phone industry almost unanimously chose a large-size design, giving up the strategy of small-size with high configuration.
On the vivo side, this year, for the first time, they launched a new product line of vivo X200 Pro mini. At the vivo X200 series launch event, they did not shy away from saying that this small-screen flagship is "full of Apple flavor", and then deliberately showed a big PPT image of an orange.
vivo X200 Pro mini
Although other mobile phone manufacturers did not directly open a new product line, in the design of flagship phones, they unanimously chose a smaller-sized flat-screen design, giving up the previous monotonous large curved screen, and collectively reducing the weight and thickness.
Apple's strong ecological closed loop has always been the reason why users find it difficult to escape. Since October, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have directly launched an attack on the deepest part of Apple's barrier.
Take OPPO as an example. The newly released OPPO Find X8 series attempts to achieve ecological interconnection with Apple phones - through the One-Touch File Transfer function, OPPO phones and Apple phones can exchange files and pictures, similar to AirDrop. Moreover, OPPO also provides the live image format, making the photo format interchangeable between Android and Apple.
For this function, Liu Zuohu, the chief product officer of OPPO, previously did not hide his ambition, stating that their goal is to "convert Apple users and change the thinking mode of traditional hardware competition.
One-Touch File Transfer
Xiaomi, on the other hand, has set its sights on converting Apple's all-in-one users. After users install the "Interconnection" App on Apple devices, they can transfer files and pictures between Apple devices and Xiaomi 15. Users can also use this to enable the "Mi Share Desktop" on Apple computers and mirror the operation of Xiaomi phones.
Apple's AI push is slow, Android seizes the opportunity
As a model for Apple to accommodate the upgrade wave of old users (iPhone 12, 13), the iPhone 16 series is a crucial battle for Apple. However, Apple has made a mistake this time.
Since the hardware of the iPhone 16 series does not have too exciting innovations, AI has become one of the most concerned selling points for Apple users. But Apple's actual push of Apple Intelligence is only recently (that is, more than one month after the release), not overlapping with the release time of the new Apple phones. This has affected users' early purchase confidence to a certain extent.
Counterpoint data indicates that in the initial sales period of the first four weeks after the iPhone 16 series was launched in the United States, the overall sales volume is slightly lower than that of the iPhone 15 series last year.
The sales trend of the iphone16 series in the United States within several weeks of its release
In China, the Chinese version of Apple Intelligence is expected to be launched in April 2025, which just leaves a time window for Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. Therefore, this year's flagship phones of each manufacturer have heavily invested in AI.
However, the AI gameplay of each mobile phone manufacturer has completely changed compared to a year ago. In the past, the AI selling points of everyone were more single-point applications, such as asking the phone to help you cut out the image, remove passers-by, etc. The functions were not very effective, and the entrances were scattered everywhere.
In 2024, the AI functions of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have gradually become systematic - instead of presenting in the form of an APP, they are deeply integrated into the system.
"Reconstructing the OS" is almost a high-frequency word in each manufacturer's launch event. These systems are now supported by a multimodal large model at the bottom layer, and the form of an Agent intelligent body is introduced at the surface layer, changing the interaction mode between humans and mobile phones.
For example, based on ColorOS 15, the OPPO Find X8 series has launched the core function of "One-Click Query Screen", without any APP entrance. By long-pressing the physical button on the phone, the AI function can be activated. For example, users can ask the AI to help you edit pictures, generate text, and summarize the documents you see, etc.
OPPO's One-Click Query Screen function
In the vivo X200 series, there are also various ways to activate the AI. In addition to long-pressing the power button, you can also long-press the bottom navigation bar of the screen with two fingers to activate it. This time, vivo also launched a new function of "Atomic Island" based on the OriginOS 5 system, as an integration place for AI, which is somewhat similar to Apple's Dynamic Island.
On the Honor side, the newly launched MagicOS 9.0, the intelligent body it carries can also perform cross-application and cross-ecosystem operations.
At the launch event, Zhao Ming, the CEO of Honor, demonstrated many interesting functions, such as asking the phone to help order 2,000 cups of coffee, or asking the phone to help check which apps have not turned off the automatic renewal service, and asking the system to automatically recharge the phone bill in the China Mobile APP, etc.
A collection of AI functions of MagicOS 9.0
Each manufacturer is confident in their own AI functions and is willing to invest a lot.
Zhou Wei, the president of vivo AI Global Research Institute, previously told 36Kr that vivo's cumulative investment in AI has exceeded 23 billion yuan. Zhao Ming directly told the media including 36Kr, "Honor's AI experience in the Chinese market has surpassed Apple by more than one street, similar to the gap between Apple and Android phones in communication capabilities in the past."
Competing difficultly in the price increase trend
In 2024, each mobile phone manufacturer also has a similar pricing strategy.
36Kr found that in October, the Chinese flagship phones collectively increased in price - the flagship series (basic version, Pro version) of vivo, Xiaomi, OPPO, Honor, and OnePlus have increased by 100, 200, and 300 yuan respectively compared to the previous generation - the Chinese mobile phones have collectively bid farewell to the history of "flagship phones starting at 3,999 yuan."
A person in the mobile phone industry said that this year, the mobile phone supply chain has been jointly attacked by the interest rate hike environment and the war, and the prices of raw materials such as nickel and chromium have increased. The prices of all parts of the mobile phone have increased by at least 5%. Among them, the two components with the most significant price increase are the core processor and memory.
Famous analyst Guo Mingxi revealed that the cost of a 3nm process Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip carried by this batch of flagship phones is $180, with a price increase of 15% - a small chip is almost equivalent to the price of a low-end phone;
In addition, as a product with a strong cyclical nature, memory is currently at the highest level in the past two years. This is why the 1TB version of all flagship phones has the most significant price increase this year, with a substantial increase of about 500 yuan.
At the same time, the flagship series of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers have not received a high degree of tolerance in the domestic market, and they cannot maintain a high premium like Apple while the costs are increasing. This means that in this round of supply chain price increase, Chinese mobile phone manufacturers do not have much profit margin to maneuver.
Although some mobile phone manufacturers have adopted the method of reducing configuration to reduce costs, cutting the configuration of the motor, fingerprint unlock, and dual speakers, they still generally maintain the configuration that a flagship phone should have. A person in the mobile phone industry sighed to 36Kr, "The price increase trend in the supply chain has put a lot of pressure on each manufacturer!"
In fact, before the release of this round of new phones, there were some glimmers of hope in the battle between the Android and Apple camps.
Counterpoint data shows that in Q3 of 2024, Apple's market share in China dropped by 2.6% year-on-year to 13.5% - instead, domestic mobile phone manufacturers' shipments have increased significantly: vivo's market share increased by 10% year-on-year, Huawei increased by 30%, Xiaomi increased by 13%, while OPPO and Honor have declined. Therefore, how each manufacturer plays their flagship phones in October is quite crucial.
An interesting phenomenon is that at the October mobile phone manufacturers' launch events, the basic versions of each manufacturer are basically targeting the iPhone 16 Pro, and their Pro versions are targeting the iPhone Pro Max.
At the launch event, Xiaomi 15 is targeting the iPhone 16 Pro
What each manufacturer is aiming at is the