Domestic mobile phone manufacturers are going through their toughest times.

Some distributors revealed that Huawei has set a target for them to increase their ST (purchase volume) by at least 40% compared to last year.

After the first wave of mobile phone price hikes in March, the sales volume of Hu Meng's mobile phone store in Fujian dropped by about 20%. Similar situations have been verified among many distributors. After the Spring Festival, it is usually the off - season for mobile phone sales, but such a cold market situation really caught him off guard. "The higher the price, the stronger the consumers' wait - and - see attitude." Hu Meng told Digital Intelligence Frontline.

Since this week, a new round of offensive has been launched. Domestic mobile phone brands have concentrated on releasing models targeting the mid - end market, including the Honor 600 series, OPPO Reno series, vivo S60 series, and Huawei Nova 16 series. Judging from the actions of OPPO and Honor that have been released so far, without exception, all of them have raised prices. Moreover, compared with the previous generation of products, the price increase before national subsidies ranges from 500 to 1000 yuan.

Compared with the competition in flagship phones, mid - end models priced between 2,000 and 4,000 yuan have always been a touchstone for domestic manufacturers. As the basic sales volume of domestic mobile phone brands, the performance of mid - end models directly determines the annual market share. All the models released at the end of May are in this price range. The core target group of these models is students. Both the form of the press conference and the phone color schemes are catering to young people.

Now, with the overlap of the 618 e - commerce promotion and the summer mobile phone purchase boom, manufacturers are all pinning their hopes on the market performance of this generation of mid - end models. However, this year is different from previous years. On the one hand, the industry generally believes that the shortage of storage will not be alleviated until 2027. On the other hand, the price increase of mobile phones has cast a shadow over the already sluggish mobile phone market.

01

Is it a price increase or a price cut?

Last week, there was a hot search on Weibo, "Domestic mobile phones suddenly dropped in price by 2,000 yuan." This is very different from what many people perceive. You know, the mobile phone market just experienced a rare price hike two months ago.

In fact, this round of price cuts before the release of new models is not the mainstream. It not only includes some subsidies from the platform, but also the models that manufacturers choose to cut prices are very particular. Either they are high - end models priced at several thousand or even tens of thousands of yuan, such as the iPhone 17 Pro and Huawei Mate X7, whose price cuts exceed 1,000 yuan; or the popularity of the products has long passed, such as the Huawei folding - screen Mate X6 and Xiaomi 15 Ultra, which were released more than a year ago; or they are models that were raised in price but couldn't be sold and then readjusted, such as the REDMI Turbo 5 Max.

The price hikes in March were concentrated in mid - and low - end models. However, many distributors revealed that they couldn't sell the products after the price increase, which directly affected the store sales. Soon, mobile phone manufacturers introduced promotional policies for offline channels. They offered an additional 100 - yuan rebate for each SO (activation volume). "It started with Honor, and then OPPO and vivo also followed suit in this price range." A mobile phone distributor in Liaoning told Digital Intelligence Frontline.

Actually, compared with the price - cut actions of some manufacturers, price hikes are undoubtedly the current main theme of the mobile phone market.

This is verified by the latest product releases. The starting price of the OPPO Reno 16 standard version is 3,499 yuan, a 500 - yuan increase compared to the previous generation. The starting price of the Pro version is 5,299 yuan, a full 900 - yuan increase compared to the previous generation. OPPO even cancelled the 1TB version of the Pro version. Obviously, if the 1TB version were to continue, it would mean that the highest price of the mid - end Reno would seriously overlap with that of the flagship - level Find X9.

Huawei has also had such price conflicts. The standard version of Huawei Pura 90 and the Ultra version of Nova 15 have similar performance configurations, and the price of the Nova 15 Ultra is even lower, which has greatly affected the sales volume of the Pura 90 standard version.

Compared with OPPO's strategy of significantly increasing the price while ensuring performance, Honor has a different approach. The Honor 600 series maintains the price basically the same as the previous generation while appropriately reducing the configuration of chips and other components. For example, the standard version of Honor 500 uses the Snapdragon 8S Gen4, while the Energetic Edition and Super Edition of Honor 600 both use the Snapdragon 7 Gen4. The Honor 500 Pro uses the Snapdragon 8E, while the Honor 600 Pro of this generation uses the Dimensity 8550E.

It is not yet known which of these two strategies will be more effective. Judging from the actual feedback, consumers' resistance to mobile phone price hikes still exists, but there are also some problems with the practice of cutting configurations.

Hu Meng told Digital Intelligence Frontline that Honor released a mobile phone called Play 80 in April, with a price of less than 1,000 yuan, but the lowest memory version is only 4 + 128GB. This is basically the memory configuration of an entry - level mobile phone ten years ago. "It can't be sold, and customers will complain a lot. When customers come to exchange phones, their old phones may even have better configurations."

In addition, there were reports before that in the first quarter of 2026, the inventory backlog in the mobile phone industry was nearly 200 million units, and the price cuts of manufacturers were attributed to the high inventory. However, there is no authoritative source for such data.

Even many distributors told Digital Intelligence Frontline that many models are now out of stock. "Models priced at one or two thousand yuan should stand out." A distributor in Liaoning is planning to do the opposite. He is going to stock up on some old models before the release of new models. In the mobile phone market where people always advocate "buying new rather than old", it often happens that when a new model is released, the old models are in short supply.

However, this approach is not very feasible. Although the price has increased, the supply of many old - model products is not sufficient. "Except for Huawei, which may have more inventory, the inventory of other brands is very limited."

02

Some tricks of the manufacturers

When price hikes are inevitable, everyone is trying various ways to hedge the impact of price increases. For example, manufacturers are starting to work on configurations and naming.

The Honor 600 series has launched the Energetic Edition and Super Edition, and the vivo S60 series, which will be released a few days later, will also specifically launch an Energetic Edition with a lower price. These are product models that did not exist in the previous generation.

There is not much difference between these versions. This phenomenon can be seen at the Honor press conference. Different from the previous press conferences where each model was introduced in detail, Honor did not introduce the Energetic Edition and Super Edition separately and almost glossed over them.

A distributor told Digital Intelligence Frontline, there is a rather peculiar phenomenon this year. Manufacturers have significantly increased some brand - new models, such as the Xiaomi 17 Max and iQOO 15T, but the products themselves don't have many features.

Behind this is that manufacturers re - define new products by adjusting configurations (usually reducing the configuration of the same model, including but not limited to downgrading the processor, reducing the configuration of the telephoto lens, reducing the battery capacity, changing the ultrasonic fingerprint to a short - focus fingerprint, etc.). This not only reduces the cost but also avoids directly raising the price of the already - released models.

Moreover, since they are using mature molds, there is no need to pay too much extra design cost or purchase special components. They only need to flexibly adjust the configuration of the mobile phone.

In addition to the tricks in naming and product definition, almost all manufacturers write the price after national subsidies in the most prominent position to avoid stimulating consumers' sensitive nerves.

"Fortunately, there are national subsidies. Without them, it would really be a disaster." Hu Meng said. The price increase part of the manufacturers is basically the same as the amount of national subsidies. It's equivalent to mobile phone manufacturers using the national subsidies that were originally meant to stimulate consumers to cover the part of the storage price increase. "After the manufacturers calculate the national subsidies, the price may be similar to that of the previous generation."

However, the enthusiasm for consumption driven by national subsidies is also fading. Hu Meng told Digital Intelligence Frontline that the national subsidy policy has been implemented for a relatively long time. Consumers' mentality is changing, and they all default that national subsidies are a necessity. "If the national subsidies disappear one day, we will have a hard time for a while."

03

Where is the market heading?

This wave of price hikes started from the shortage of upstream storage. According to the latest data released by TrendForce in May, the contract price of 64GB (8GB capacity) LPDDR4X has reached $100. About one - third of the cost of a mobile phone comes from memory, and this proportion was about 10% to 15% before. With the significant change in the cost structure, new mobile phones priced below 1,000 yuan have almost disappeared from the official websites of various manufacturers.

But the embarrassing reality behind this is that high - end positioning is still the Achilles' heel of domestic Android manufacturers. Although three of the top five global mobile phone shipment manufacturers are domestic enterprises, in the high - end market above $600, it is still mainly dominated by Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, and the market share of other manufacturers is still very limited. In the first half of 2025, Apple's market share in this market was as high as 62%.

Therefore, when the market experiences an extreme situation like a significant and long - term price increase in storage, domestic Android manufacturers have to passively bear the huge pressure brought by price hikes. Apple, which has always been in the high - end market, not only did not raise prices but even chose to cut prices to gain a larger market share.

Domestic mobile phone brands are going through a difficult time. In addition to Meizu, which has withdrawn from the mobile phone market, in Hu Meng's view, in the next one or two years, even the top five domestic manufacturers will face a reshuffle of market shares. The Counterpoint report shows that the global smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2026 decreased by 6% year - on - year.

Xiaomi has already felt the pressure from the market. In the first quarter of this year, Xiaomi's mobile phone sales volume declined the most, with a 35% year - on - year decline in the domestic market. According to an unnamed source quoted by Caijing magazine, Xiaomi internally expects its mobile phone business sales volume to decline by 13% this year. It is adjusting its offline store strategy, shifting the revenue focus to the home appliance business, stopping the expansion of offline stores, and transforming offline stores from "business - oriented" to "operation - oriented" to improve efficiency.

Huawei is one of the domestic mobile phone brands with relatively small price hikes. Except for some price increases in some low - end models, some flagship models and folding phones even had price cuts.

Behind this, in addition to Huawei's mobile phones having a relatively high gross profit margin, Teng Nan, a Huawei distributor in the southwest region, told Digital Intelligence Frontline, Huawei is now very concerned about sales volume, one of the reasons being for the HarmonyOS. The HarmonyOS ecosystem is still in the construction period and there are still many deficiencies in the user experience. Only by increasing the sales volume first can the enthusiasm of application developers for adaptation be higher.

According to him, Huawei has been pushing hard on inventory this year. Huawei has set a target for them to increase their ST (purchase volume) by at least 40% compared to last year. Judging from the current market performance, Huawei is very likely to become the number one in domestic market sales this year.

But the leading distributors have also had a hard time in the past two years. The above - mentioned distributor Teng Nan revealed that since last year, Huawei has required distributors to offer discounts and bear higher inventory pressure. In addition, Huawei is also promoting dealers to operate offline experience stores, but these stores have high requirements for area and personnel, and the costs are high. As far as he knows, few Huawei experience stores in the local area are doing well. "The profit model is not good."

The profit margin left for distributors by manufacturers has not changed. Among many mobile phone manufacturers, the profit margin of Huawei mobile phones has always been lower than that of other brands. For example, the Nova series has a profit margin of seventeen or eighteen points, the Pura series about sixteen points, the Mate series only fourteen points, and the Enjoy series is a bit higher. The mid - range products of OPPO, vivo, and Honor leave a profit margin of nearly 20 points for distributors.

But for merchants, the profit margin is not the only consideration. Huawei mobile phones have better liquidity. "They have a high sales speed. What's the use of leaving a large profit margin if you can't sell the products?" said the above - mentioned mobile phone distributor in Liaoning.

Merchants are also in a dilemma: manufacturers require an increase in sales volume, but price hikes are dampening the market enthusiasm.

"There is no good way now. We still need to do a good job in expectation management. The manufacturers have this pressure, and I also need to assess my own ability to bear it." Teng Nan, a Huawei distributor in the southwest region, said. On the other hand, he is also trying every means to increase sales volume. He knows that if he doesn't increase sales volume, the manufacturers will push other merchants to do so. In this market where the overall volume is declining, an increase in competitors means a decrease for himself. So in addition to price cuts, Teng Nan is also doing online and offline promotion and joining instant retail. "The current methods are the ones we used in the past. It depends on who has higher execution ability."

(Note: All mobile phone distributors in this article are aliases.)

This article is from the WeChat official account "Digital Intelligence Frontline" (ID: szqx1991), written by Zhou Luping and edited by You Yong. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.