Subsidies ebb, invisible battles intensify: In 2025, the mobile phone arena enters a hardcore era.

In the Chinese mobile phone market in the first half of 2025, it was like an old soup simmered over a slow fire. On the surface, it seemed calm, but underneath, there were turbulent undercurrents.

IDC data shows that in the first half of the year, the shipment volume of smartphones in China reached 140 million units, a slight year - on - year decline of 0.6%, showing a certain degree of resilience. Taking a closer look, a glaring small negative line appeared in the second quarter - a year - on - year decline of 4%, interrupting the upward trend for six consecutive quarters. This line was like a needle, pricking all the players in the market to stay awake. As the national subsidies ebbed, the remaining players had to show their true skills and compete in a real - life contest.

Image source: IDC China, 2025

At this critical juncture, Huawei, which had been lying low for four years, saw its market share rebound. In the second quarter of this year, it regained the top spot. Vivo and OPPO followed closely behind. Xiaomi ranked fourth and was the only one among the top five with positive growth, while Apple ranked fifth. The combination of three factors - policy changes, accelerated technological iteration, and more rational consumer decision - making - pushed the entire industry into the deep water area of competing for hardcore strength.

01 "In the Changing Situation, a Price War Breaks Out"

The smartphone market is always in a state of rapid change.

The national subsidy policy at the beginning of the year provided a boost to the sales volume of the mobile phone market in the first quarter. However, the effect was not long - lasting - consumers' spending ultimately returned to the value of the products themselves. Starting from the second quarter, manufacturers adjusted their strategies. The 618 promotion was in full swing, and the core goal shifted to accelerating inventory clearance. IDC pointed out that most manufacturers actively reduced their shipments during the 618 period to control the inventory level in the distribution channels and focused on clearing the existing inventory.

Meanwhile, the price war became even more intense.

Apple's iPhone 16 series lowered its stance, with some versions seeing a price cut of over a thousand yuan, reaching a new high in recent years. The competition in the mid - end market (2000 - 4000 yuan) was particularly intense, and manufacturers all played the price card: The price of Huawei's nova 14 series dropped significantly, with a reduction of several hundred yuan compared to the starting price of the previous generation with the same configuration; In addition to price cuts, OPPO's Reno12 series also bundled gifts and extended the interest - free period, increasing the promotion efforts; The entire Vivo S19 Pro series had a significant price cut; In addition to price cuts, Xiaomi's Civi 4 Pro also strengthened preferential policies such as trade - in subsidies.

However, consumers' mobile phone replacement cycle is now getting longer, and they are not easily impressed by simple price cuts. Yang Jie, the chairman of China Mobile, said this year that the replacement cycle has reached about three years, compared to 18 months to two years before. Behind this is a fundamental adjustment of consumer expectations - users are paying more and more attention to the durability, reliability, and long - term use value of mobile phones. The author learned from several mobile phone sales guides in a digital product hypermarket that in the early years, customers might place an order after a cursory look at the pixels and storage space. Now, they have to carefully compare several models and even ask about the camera model.

As the subsidy tide begins to recede, only the naked experience value remains on the beach. The price war is the surface, while the value war is the essence. Whoever can impress the increasingly sophisticated consumers with real - life experience improvements will win the future in this hardcore competition. The market is undergoing a silent but profound value reconstruction.

In the competition, the market pattern is being reshuffled.

02 "Close - Quarters Combat, Each with Its Own Advantages"

In the first half of this year, the reshuffle of the mobile phone market pattern continued and was quite intense. The position of any party was far from being absolutely stable.

In the second quarter of this year, Huawei topped the list with a 18.1% share, followed by Vivo with 17.3%, OPPO with 15.5%, and Xiaomi and Apple biting at the fourth and fifth places with 15.1% and 13.9% shares respectively. The gaps between them were not large, and any slip - up could lead to a reshuffle of the rankings. This was no longer a long - distance game but a close - quarters fight, and each company's survival strategy was worth pondering.

Image source: IDC China Quarterly Mobile Phone Market Tracking Report, Q2 2025

Huawei's share rebound was due to multiple factors. The return of the Kirin chip alleviated the "chip shortage" problem of its flagship models, ensuring the stable iteration of products. HarmonyOS had formed certain characteristics and advantages in cross - device collaboration and system - level optimization. The long - term accumulated brand recognition was transformed into a certain market pull after its products returned to the normal rhythm.

However, it is worth noting that although Huawei topped the list in the second quarter, its shipment volume still declined by 3.4% year - on - year, which reflected that it still needed time to ramp up production capacity and restore the supply chain, and also faced growth pressure in the fierce competition.

Vivo ranked second but faced great pressure. Continuous investment in the imaging field was its core strategy. The X200 Ultra released in April this year was equipped with the Blueprint Imaging Dual - Core Architecture, achieving 30 - millisecond "zero - delay snapshot" and the coordination of Zeiss triple - focal - length lenses. The night - scene portrait effect was close to that of professional equipment, consolidating its position as an imaging flagship.

However, Vivo's shipment volume in the second quarter declined by as much as 10.1% year - on - year, the largest decline among the top five. The key reason was its relatively concentrated product strategy. Its advantages were highly focused on the imaging track (X series and S series). Its presence in meeting diversified needs such as performance, gaming (although iQOO had some performance but with relatively low popularity), and high - end business still needed to be strengthened. Although the X series led in imaging, when targeting higher price segments (such as over 7000 yuan), it faced direct competition from Huawei and Apple, with insufficient differentiation. The brand premium and comprehensive experience recognition still needed to be improved.

OPPO ranked third. The synergy of its dual - brand strategy was crucial, but it had weak growth. The main brand's Find X8 Ultra continued to target high - end quality users with Hasselblad imaging and a new type of periscope telephoto lens. The sub - brand OnePlus 13 targeted the cost - effective market with its extreme performance and online marketing. The dual - track strategy covered the core price range of 4000 - 7000 yuan, aiming for complementarity.

However, OPPO's shipment volume in the second quarter also declined by 5% year - on - year. The reasons for the decline included: The weakening of its technical label. Compared with Huawei's Harmony + Kirin, Xiaomi's Pengpai OS/automobile ecosystem, and Vivo's imaging, OPPO had been somewhat vague in forming a core technological innovation label that could be strongly recognized by users in recent years. Although the Find series had some highlights, it failed to form a disruptive perception; The efficiency of brand synergy needed to be improved. After OnePlus returned, although there were intentional differences in positioning and target audiences between it and the main brand's Find series, there was still a need for running - in in resource allocation, product definition, and marketing synergy to avoid internal strife. The combined strength of the dual - brand had not been fully transformed into strong growth momentum. The Reno series, as the mainstay, also faced fierce competition. Huawei's strong comeback also had an impact on OPPO, especially in its traditional offline channels and high - end image building.

Xiaomi was the only manufacturer among the top five with positive growth, driven by the dual engines of "cross - border collaboration" and "channel penetration". The popularity of Xiaomi's SU7 car had a positive impact on mobile phone products such as the Xiaomi 15 Ultra. The ecological interconnection attracted new users. At the same time, the Redmi K80 series targeted the mid - end market with cost - effectiveness, reaching users in multiple price ranges. Xiaomi's growth showed the driving force of ecological collaboration on consumer decision - making, but it also exposed a shortcoming - the technological achievements such as self - developed chips had not been transformed into perceptible experience differences for users.

Apple's situation was particularly delicate. On the one hand, its aggressive price - cut strategy under the national subsidy policy briefly stimulated sales. On the other hand, its market share was continuously under pressure due to the impact of domestic brands. In the second quarter, its shipment volume was the lowest among the leading manufacturers, and it declined by 1.3% year - on - year. This performance was in contrast to what Tim Cook claimed about a 4% revenue growth in Greater China in the second quarter - the revenue growth relied more on the short - term sales volume increase after the price cut of high - end models, rather than the consolidation of the user base. As a Canalys analyst pointed out, Apple's "high - end price - cut" strategy might overdraw its brand premium although it achieved sales during the 618 period.

This close - quarters fight reveals that in a highly mature market, a single model cannot dominate. As hardware innovation gradually reaches a plateau, polishing the experience in details and in - depth exploration of differentiated technologies are becoming the new keys to break the situation. And the deeper competition has quietly shifted to the exploration of the next - generation form and intelligence, namely foldable screens and AI.

03 "Hardcore Challenges: Breaking Through with Foldable Screens and Implementing AI"

The development of foldable screens is entering a critical period of solving core experience bottlenecks. Brands are increasing their efforts to break through.

IDC data shows that in the second quarter of this year, the shipment volume was about 2.21 million units, a year - on - year decline of 14.0%. It was still a niche market in the entire smartphone market, but its technological evolution direction attracted attention.

Looking at specific brands, IDC data shows that in the second quarter of this year, Huawei had a 72.6% share in the foldable screen market. Specifically, Huawei led the foldable screen market with its dual - flagship strategy of Mate XT and Pocket 2. The new water - drop hinge design of the Mate XT made obvious progress in reducing screen creases and improving durability. Coupled with the foldable optimization of HarmonyOS, the user experience was improved.

Image source: IDC China

Honor had a 7.6% share in the foldable screen market. It is reported that the upcoming Magic V Flip2 will have major upgrades in appearance, imaging, and battery life. In addition, Honor is also promoting the lightweight and price reduction of foldable screens to expand its user base. However, it also faces the challenge of finding the best balance between lightweight, reliability, and functional completeness.

Vivo had a 5.5% market share. The X Fold 5 series promoted itself as the "lightest and thinnest horizontal large - foldable" device, making breakthroughs in weight and thickness reduction while maintaining good imaging capabilities. At the same time, Vivo also emphasized the user - friendliness of daily use to lower the threshold for users to switch from straight - screen phones. However, Vivo still needs to make up for the shortcoming of establishing a stronger differentiated technical label beyond being lightweight.

Xiaomi had a 5.0% market share. Relying on Pengpai OS, it strengthened cross - device collaboration and tried to integrate foldable screens into its own ecosystem. The MIX Fold 4 had obvious investment in performance and imaging. However, Xiaomi's foldable screens need to solve the problems of heaviness and fine - tuning of software ecosystem adaptation.

OPPO had a 4.6% market share. It deeply explored hinge technology and software adaptation to enhance productivity. The Find N5 released in February this year was officially claimed by OPPO as the "world's thinnest foldable flagship", equipped with a new titanium - alloy sky - dome hinge, and the body was as thin as 8.93mm. However, OPPO still needs to solve the problems of its vague technical label and the failure of its high - end foldable screens.

Overall, there is still a wide gap between making foldable phones "user - friendly" and "popular". The bottleneck lies in the price. The starting price of some relatively cheaper horizontal foldable screens is still over 5000 yuan, equivalent to the price of two ordinary straight - screen phones, keeping many consumers away.

The hope of breaking the situation lies in the maturity of the domestic supply chain. For example, domestic flexible screen manufacturers such as BOE and Visionox have continuously improved the yield rate, driving down the panel cost. The domestic supply chain has made rapid progress in the research, development, and mass production of precision hinges, showing a cost - effectiveness advantage. Lighter materials and structural optimization are also gradually improving the heaviness of foldable screens.

For foldable screens to truly become mainstream, they must find a better solution between "lightweight and reliable" and "affordable", which requires continuous collaborative innovation and cost control across the entire industry chain.

While foldable screens are struggling to cross the physical gap, another "intelligent" revolution is quietly taking place inside mobile phones.

AI is changing all industries, including improving the user experience in the mobile phone industry. A survey released by Counterpoint Research shows that generative AI is changing the pattern of the smartphone market at an unprecedented speed, and consumers' interest in mobile phones with AI functions is increasing. Mobile phone manufacturers are increasing their investment unprecedentedly, and the implementation scenarios have become the focus of competition.

Huawei deeply optimized the energy efficiency of the AI subsystem of HarmonyOS 5.1 and strengthened the edge - side large - model capabilities. The Xiaoyi Assistant improved its capabilities in semantic understanding and complex task processing (such as travel planning and document summarization). Combined with the NPU computing power of the Kirin chip, it achieved a smoother local AI experience (such as enhanced document scanning and real - time multilingual subtitles), becoming an important selling point for Huawei's high - end phones.

Xiaomi's Pengpai OS introduced an AI subsystem and launched a chip (such as Pengpai T2) to improve the edge - side AI computing power. At the same time, AI was applied in imaging (such as AISP), voice assistants (Xiaomi's Xiaoai classmate connected to a large model), and creative tools (AI portrait, AI image expansion). Especially in the SU7 owner ecosystem, the AI collaboration between the mobile phone and the car infotainment system (such as intelligent scene linkage) was taking shape. However, the challenge was how to make users use it frequently and perceive its core value, and how to solve the problem of insufficient openness of the AI ecosystem of Pengpai OS.

Vivo's BlueHeart large model continued to iterate, and the combination of edge and cloud had certain results. BlueHeart AI was deeply integrated into the mobile phone, providing practical functions such as multilingual translation, intelligent recording, and file management (such as automatic meeting minutes generation), and document summarization, performing prominently in the X200 series. However, it still had limitations. Complex tasks required cloud collaboration, and the delay in multi - round dialogue was relatively high.