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in september, the annual launch of the new iphone became extremely lively because of the huawei mate xt extraordinary master.

this battle for the top spot in the high-end mobile phone market reflects the different product trends of huawei and apple. due to the hot pre-sales and the rampant scalpers, huawei's new tri-fold phone has a strong "luxury" color.

the biggest change in the iphone 16 series comes from the a18 series chips and ai capabilities. at a time when performance is overflowing, the performance improvement brought by the a18 series chips is not very noticeable to consumers, and apple intelligence in china is still in the "futures" state. fortunately, apple products are mature, and the addition of "camera control" may provide a new way of user interaction.

on the surface, it is a confrontation between huawei and apple, but beneath the surface, the two manufacturers are also competing in channels, and a major battlefield is instant retail.

apple's cooperation with instant retail vendors is nothing new. for example, this year, nearly 7,000 apple authorized stores have joined meituan flash purchase, and the number of stores supporting the first batch of pre-sales has doubled compared to last year. the number of huawei authorized experience stores in meituan flash purchase has increased sharply from 62 cities and more than 1,000 huawei authorized experience stores last year to more than 4,300 stores in 343 cities. in addition to huawei and apple,OPPO、vivo、millet、meizumobile phone manufacturers such as are also continuing to increase their cooperation with instant retail platforms.

taking consumer electronics as an entry point, the dimension of instant retail has gradually surpassed timeliness itself and moved towards more possibilities.

how did the “takeout phone” become popular?

before 2020, instant retail was in its infancy, and there were two representative events.

the first was the opening of a pop-up version of the meizu real store in wanda plaza, panyu, guangzhou, around christmas 2018. the new thing of "takeout mobile phone" was obviously a successful marketing. the other was the launch of iphone 11 the following year. after placing an order on tmall, ele.me delivered it. at that time, a user in xiasha, hangzhou became the first user in china to get the new phone.

in 2020, instant retail ushered in an explosion, and related platforms found the correlation between new product releases and instant delivery. that year, meituan and ele.me both took overiPhone 12, huawei mate 40, and huawei p40 were released. instant retail, represented by meituan and ele.me, entered the development stage of "instant delivery" this year.

one year later,iPhone 13with the launch of the iphone 11, meituan extended its reach to the supply side. that year, a total of 498 apple authorized stores in 117 cities across the country were connected to meituan. within a 10-kilometer radius, as long as you grab it online, you can receive the new phone within 1 hour. "hourly delivery" has now become a standard feature of new platforms that are involved in instant retail.

2022 is a turning point for consumer electronics and instant retail to explore the release of new phones. its symbol is that platforms have expanded their supply and inventory, and many electronic consumer brands have also launched new products on instant retail platforms. for example, jd.com has become the only instant retail platform with apple brand pre-sale qualifications, relying on jd.com's accumulation in 3c e-commerce.

this seems to be somewhat similar to the cooperation between tmall apple flagship store and ele.me three years ago, but in fact there are essential differences. three years ago, users placed orders at tmall apple flagship store, and ele.me only played the role of delivery. three years later, jd daojia tried to complete the closed loop of pallet and fulfillment, that is, users placed orders at jd daojia and finally completed local delivery.

meituan has just completed a strategic upgrade from "food+platform" to "retail+technology", with retail becoming the focus. this year, more than 1,000 apple authorized stores in more than 200 cities across the country have joined meituan. the growth of the supply side and the maturity of the business have enabled meituan to shorten the delivery time from 1 hour last year to half an hour, and to complete the installment service.

in order to consolidate the image of “takeout phone” in people’s minds, meituan also deployed drones for delivery, and made a “bonus” of delivering the first iphone 14 order in 5 minutes and 56 seconds.

last year, the pattern of three instant retail platforms, meituan flash purchase, ele.me, and jd daojia, competing for the sale of new phones continued. the most notable feature of this stage is the focus on the supply capacity of coupons instead of the timeliness of coupons. combining the data of the three companies, it can be seen that the number of apple authorized stores connected in 2023 will be nearly 5,000, over 4,600, and nearly 3,000, respectively, according to the number of meituan flash purchase, jd daojia, and ele.me.

not only has the number of authorized stores continued to grow, but the coverage has also spread from high-tier cities to low-tier cities. according to meituan flash purchase data, among the nearly 5,000 stores on the platform, 30% are in first- and second-tier cities, 20% in third-tier cities, and half are in fourth-tier cities and below.

as of last year, the repeated collisions between instant retail and consumer electronics have established the mindset of "takeout mobile phone", but there are still two differences. one is how to solve the problem of mismatch between offline store inventory and online demand, and the other is how to narrow the price gap between instant retail prices and e-commerce promotions more than a month later. earlier, e-commerce platforms had already released pre-sale orders and rumors of double eleven price subsidies.

this year, when delivery within 14 hours has become the standard for the first release of new phones, the number of stores connected to instant retail platforms has continued to grow. for example, meituan flash purchase has connected to nearly 7,000 apple authorized stores, covering 2,000 counties, districts and cities. in terms of rights and interests, due to the launch of the god membership system, consumers who buy new phones on meituan will also be given god membership to use for food, drink, entertainment and other consumption. instant retail platforms have gradually become competitive in terms of new product rights and interests.

why do consumer electronics channels need to transform?

mobile phones and food delivery continue to resonate, driving the integration of consumer electronics and instant retail in all aspects.

in march this year, iresearch released the "instant retail consumer electronics industry white paper", which showed that in the past three years, consumer electronics have achieved rapid growth in the instant retail market. it is expected that the compound annual growth rate will reach 68.5% from 2021 to 2026, and the scale of the instant retail consumer electronics industry will exceed 100 billion in 2026.

during the same period, the ratio of online and offline channels for mobile phones in china also fluctuated between 30% and 40% respectively. since instant retail is compatible with e-commerce and traditional offline channels in terms of model, it can benefit from both the price increase of online channels and the improvement of offline channel store services.

online e-commerce and offline channels each have their own biases. according to the survey, nearly 40% of consumers believe that express e-commerce has pain points such as "complex preferential mechanism" and "inconvenient return and exchange", and some platforms are not fully aligned with brand customization services. 50% of consumers believe that offline stores have pain points such as "high prices" and "incomplete products". when new phones are released, the above problems will be further aggravated.

instant retail has the advantages of "full range of new product numbers, fast delivery, and convenient returns and exchanges", as well as the special promotion methods of e-commerce and short video platforms. for example, during last year's double 11, lenovo live-streamed its flash sales on meituan for four hours, and the transaction volume accounted for 44.8% of the total transaction volume of the merchant on that day.

from user characteristics, user portraits, and user trends, we can further see that instant retail and consumer electronics have a strong affinity.

in terms of user characteristics, instant retail digital consumers are mainly young people, among which the penetration rate of post-00s in meituan flash purchases is as high as 48%. the consumption behavior of young people also has a strong "joint" feature, that is, the joint consumption habits of "accessories-mobile phones-computers, digital-home appliances". this feature is highly compatible with the "family bucket" ecology of major consumer electronics manufacturers.

it is worth mentioning that as the replacement cycle in the mobile phone market continues to grow, the annual frequency of mobile phone replacement in the instant retail channel reaches 8%, which is significantly higher than the 4% of non-instant retail channels, and more than 70% of users have expressed their willingness to repurchase in the instant retail channel.

for mobile phone manufacturers, especially offline stores, the young consumers behind instant retail provide pure growth, and the average per capita consumption in this scenario is 5,579 yuan, the highest among all scenarios; for these consumers, instant retail satisfies their demands for trying new things and saving trouble.

in addition to the maturity of user mentality, instant retail has also moved from rigid needs to non-rigid needs, and from emergency needs to normalized needs. simply put, it provides a new consumption scenario.

emergency response, business trips, and social gift giving are the three main driving forces of instant retail. brands such as huarong, xiaomi, and ov have entered the market and use instant retail as a new product launch platform. pursuing new products and finding bargains during big sales have also become typical instant retail consumption scenarios.

in these high-potential scenarios, instant retail mainly expands channels and traffic resources for physical stores. it is estimated that instant scenarios such as big promotions, new product launches and gift consumption can bring potential growth space of 17%, 20% and 16% respectively.

in addition, there are many categories of consumer electronics, and most manufacturers will build a hardware ecosystem. consumers' immediate needs naturally extend from food, daily necessities, department stores, and consumer electronics, and can naturally spread from mobile phones to headphones, ar/vr, pcs and other categories.

“building a house” on instant retail

in five years, "takeout rush" has gradually become the norm, and the integration of consumer electronics and instant retail has also evolved from simple delivery to all-round integration.

the most obvious is that the supply side continues to expand. for example, apple authorized stores connected to meituan, there were 498 stores in 117 cities across the country in 2021, and they were concentrated in first- and second-tier cities. this year, the number has increased to 7,000, covering more rural towns. including supermarket brand stores, small shops in rural towns, third-party authorized points, and even operator stores have entered the instant retail supply pool.

the expansion of the supply pool has also alleviated the problem of too little inventory in a single store at the time of new product launches. a mobile phone distributor once mentioned that he operates more than ten stores. every time a flagship phone is launched, the hot-selling new phones in different stores are uneven. "supermarkets sell out in one minute, while non-supermarkets often have ample inventory, which is very troublesome to allocate."

instant retail is equivalent to giving stores advance payment, providing offline merchants with a flexible channel in the form of fulfillment, thereby alleviating the differences in sales rhythms among different stores.

when transferring channels on both the supply and demand sides, instant retail platforms are also using heavy resources and marketing methods to accelerate channel transfer. for example, meituan flash purchase previously launched a 16-month membership bonus for buying a new phone, which users can receive monthly and use for local consumption scenarios such as platform takeaway dining, food group purchases, hotel accommodation, leisure and entertainment, and daily necessities.

on the basis of instant retail, there is much more to it than just a membership system. although consumer electronics belongs to the retail industry, it requires more offline services than fast-moving consumer goods. on the basis of local fulfillment, the platform can also provide other services such as return, repair, and resale, thereby further expanding the service radius in addition to extending the sales radius for consumer electronics manufacturers.

xu xiu, a clerk at an apple authorized store in beijing, has worked in two stores and witnessed the rapid growth of store sales driven by coupons issued by instant retail platforms. she said, "the company is also paying more and more attention to online sales, and there are assessments on the packaging when sending out and the rate of positive reviews on the platform."

ten years ago, the brand's storefront was a signboard; ten years ago, onlineization made many brands regard e-commerce flagship stores as online storefronts; and now, instant retail may create another mobile storefront. the further fragmentation of electronic consumption channels has given brand manufacturers more opportunities to acquire customers, and prices and services are becoming more transparent, which will also benefit consumers.