news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

recently, the international research organization idc released its latest report. the report mentioned that in view of the obvious recovery of the global mobile phone market in the first half of 2024, it announced an increase in the forecast for mobile phone delivery in 2024.it is estimated that this year's mobile phone delivery volume will increase by 5.8% year-on-year, and the delivery forecast will be raised to 1.23 billion units, a year-on-year increase of 4% compared with the previous estimate of 1.21 billion units.

image source: idc

for major mobile phone manufacturers, the idc report is undoubtedly good news. after experiencing a comprehensive recession in the mobile phone market in 2023, a recovery finally came in 2024.

mobile phone sales rebounded.

ai mobile phones become the core driving force

judging from the data from the past two quarters, the recovery of the mobile phone market in 2024 will be faster than expected at the beginning of the year. in the first quarter report released by counterpoint, global smartphone shipments reached 296.9 million units, a year-on-year increase of 6%.

in counterpoint's second quarter report, the data given was 289 million units. although the overall shipment volume decreased slightly compared with the first quarter, the year-on-year growth still reached 6.5%, exceeding the growth rate in the first quarter. the growth for several consecutive quarters has also given the market more confidence.

image source: counterpoint

idc raised its full-year mobile phone shipment forecast this time, citing the following reason: "driven by the strong growth of android devices in china and emerging markets." according to foreign data, 71.58 million smartphones were shipped in the chinese market alone in the second quarter of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 8.9%, significantly exceeding the growth rate of the global market.

it is worth noting that in the forecast report given by idc, the growth rate of android devices significantly exceeded that of ios devices, reaching 7.1%, while the growth rate of ios devices was only 0.8%, a difference of nearly 9 times. judging from past data, the main reason for the slowdown in ios growth is the significant decline in its market share in china.

in the second quarter of 2024, apple's shipments were only 9.5 million units, down 3.1% year-on-year, and its market share dropped to 13.8%, falling out of the top five in the chinese market for the first time. in emerging markets, ios devices are growing much slower than android devices due to their high prices. after losing the support of two major growth markets, the growth rate of ios devices is naturally far lower than expected.

image source: idc

however, idc remains optimistic about apple's growth rate in 2025, predicting that under the influence of new features such as ai, the growth rate of ios devices is expected to reach 4% next year. in addition to new features, the iphone se 4, which has been exposed for a long time, is expected to become a new driving force for the growth of ios devices with a large number of upgrades and a lower price.

in addition, as major mobile phone manufacturers integrate ai functions into their flagship phones, the proportion of ai phones in overall sales has increased significantly. idc predicts that by the end of 2024, generative ai smartphones will achieve explosive growth of 344% and their market share will reach 18%.

as the core selling point of this year's new generation of smartphones, generative ai has obvious differences in performance between old and new phones. old phones are often limited by the lack of ai computing power in old model processors and can only implement some functions through cloud ai, while the new generation of ai phones have sufficient local computing power and can call the underlying functions of the phone by deploying local ai models.

image source: veer

although the difference may seem small, there is a significant difference in the actual experience. first of all, the locally deployed ai model can provide personalized ai assistants based on the user's usage habits and provide users with personalized service support. this alone is difficult for cloud-based ai models to achieve (or the cost is too high).

in addition, the local ai model can also be deeply integrated with the local system services, allowing users to quickly call different functions and services through voice, gestures, etc. for example, the vivo x fold 3 uses the visual assistance of the local ai large model to realize functions such as air operation of tiktok. although this function is not new, similar functions in the past often require multiple perception modules to achieve, but now only the camera is needed.

by leveraging the processing capabilities of ai big models in text, vision, etc., the new generation of ai mobile phones can realize more convenient functions without significantly increasing hardware costs. this also allows mobile phone manufacturers to provide ai phones with a completely different experience from traditional phones. with the innovation in experience brought by ai phones, ai phones are expected to set off a wave of phone replacement in the next two years.

domestic brands are stepping up their strategy of flooding the market with machines.

significant growth in overseas share

since the beginning of this year, the number of product launches by domestic mobile phone brands has increased significantly. at the same time, the market share of xiaomi, vivo, oppo and other manufacturers in overseas markets has also increased significantly.

according to data from counterpoint research, xiaomi has jumped to third place in the european market, second only to apple and samsung. this is also the best result ever achieved by domestic manufacturers in the european and american markets. among them, the xiaomi mi 14 series has received good reviews in the reviews of overseas digital websites, and with the overseas versions of models such as the redmi k70, it has achieved significant growth in the western european market.

as xiaomi's annual digital flagship series, xiaomi mi 14 not only won a large number of orders for xiaomi overseas, but also performed outstandingly in china, ranking among the top in both market share and sales in the flagship market. from a product perspective, the success of the xiaomi mi 14 series is mainly due to two points: first, the standard version has almost no shortcomings in hardware parameters, and second, as the only small-sized straight-screen mobile phone in the flagship market, it has won the favor of a large number of female users.

image source: counterpoint research

some people believe that the xiaomi mi 14 series has snatched away a lot of market share originally belonging to the iphone with its small-size straight-screen design, and has also made mobile phone manufacturers pay attention to the market demand for small-size straight-screen mobile phones. therefore, among the many flagship mobile phones that have been exposed recently, manufacturers such as oppo and vivo have followed up on this design and added small-size versions to the new series.

although xiaomi's sales volume is the highest in the flagship mobile phone market, its performance in the mid- and low-end markets is slightly inferior. the reputation of the redmi k70 series has slightly declined compared with previous years. in addition, brands such as vivo, iqoo, and realme have launched a large number of products in this price range, grabbing a lot of market share.

it can be said that this year's competition in the mid- and low-end markets is far more intense than in previous years. vivo, which ranked first in shipments in the second quarter, has launched at least five new products in the past three months alone, with targeted new products launched in the price range of 1,000-3,000 yuan. in addition, vivo x100 ultra was launched in may to supplement its flagship product line, making vivo's shipments in q2 significantly higher than other brands.

image source: lei technology

vivo's strategy of launching a large number of products has been very effective, and some brands have begun to follow suit. previously, a netizen on weibo revealed that realme is planning 10 different products, which are expected to be released in the fourth quarter of this year and the first and second quarters of next year. if the news is true, this will be the second brand to join the battle of launching a large number of products.

providing consumers with mobile phones that better meet their requirements through more segmented product lines will never be out of date. if the share of the mid- and low-end market continues to tilt towards brands such as vivo, it is estimated that brands such as xiaomi will also consider joining this battle.

for consumers, the fierce competition among manufacturers also provides us with more choices, and we can choose more suitable products according to our own functional needs. moreover, as competition in the mid- and low-end markets intensifies, the average price of high-performance mobile phones has also dropped significantly.

for example, the redmi turbo3 released by redmi earlier uses the third-generation snapdragon 8s chip, which has performance very close to the second-generation snapdragon 8, and its supporting hardware parameters are also quite impressive. now the price has dropped to around 1,500 yuan, which is much lower than the sub-flagship phone using the second-generation snapdragon 8.

judging from the current situation, the competition in the low-end and mid-range market next year may be even more intense than this year, and redmi will certainly not sit back and watch its market share being eroded by other brands. as the product strength of mobile phones in the low-end and mid-range market improves, it is estimated that more users will upgrade their phones, which will also provide more support for the recovery of the mobile phone market next year.

overall, the global mobile phone market is experiencing a significant recovery in 2024, especially driven by china and emerging markets, the market recovery is faster than expected. among them, the rise of ai mobile phones has become the highlight of this round of recovery. major manufacturers are competing to launch smartphones equipped with generative ai technology, which brings users a more personalized and intelligent experience and stimulates users' desire to change their phones. with the maturity of ai technology, the market share of ai mobile phones will increase significantly in the future.