Rebirth of the Wild Age

Regardless of the field, the response of foreign brands in China is very slow.

The rush to buy mobile phones in chain malls such as Gome and Suning did not wake up foreign mobile phone manufacturers until the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and Motorola was the first to respond.

Motorola is now the runner-up in China's mobile phone sales. It has three magic weapons: rapid launch of new products, accurate market positioning, and localization in China.

Among them, "localization" is the most commendable. Motorola not only builds factories in China, but also continuously promotes upstream manufacturers to build factories in China, which makes the "Chineseization" of its spare parts more and more obvious. Even in the first two or three years of the 21st century, Motorola was even more "Chinese" than many domestic mobile phones, and finally realized that most of the mobile phone spare parts were produced or purchased in China.

However, although Motorola was the first to react, the first foreign brand to cooperate with Suning and Gome was Nokia.

Because Motorola has a national general agent and a regional general agent in China, for example, all mobile phone sales in Beijing are given to the general agent in Beijing. Gome wants to bypass the general agent in Beijing and directly obtain goods from Motorola at a low price. This is simply impossible, and Motorola must first communicate and negotiate with the agent.

Why did Nokia catch up from behind in China and become the champion of mobile phone sales in just a few years? It also has three magic weapons: price wars, low-end routes, and channel construction.

Nokia is constantly shortening the supply chain, and after learning that Gome and Suning also sell mobile phones, it quickly reached cooperation with these chain malls. So on the eve of the Lantern Festival, Nokia suddenly entered the major chain malls, and set up special counters in the most conspicuous positions, instantly comparing all the domestic mobile phones.

At this moment, Motorola is still communicating with the agent. It was not until one month after the Spring Festival that the national general agents and local general agents signed agreements one after another. These agents will directly supply the chain malls and give the chain malls the maximum price concessions.

As for Ericsson, which has the third largest market share in China, its positioning, publicity and channels are all in chaos, and it didn't enter major shopping malls until summer. By the way, Ericsson has almost fallen out of the top three. Since 2000, there has been a large backlog of inventory. In 2001, when domestic and foreign manufacturers made a lot of money, Ericsson’s mobile phones continued to lose money. In the end, they had to merge with Sony to become "Sony Ericsson".

Some friends may say that at that time people were superstitious about foreign brands, and would rather spend more money to buy foreign mobile phones.

This statement is true, but it is also false.

From the perspective of the market share of domestic mobile phones over the years, 1997 (0%), 1998 (5%), 1999 (6.4%), 2000 (12.3%), 2001 (19.8%), 2002 (33%)...

The previous set of data does not include a large number of counterfeit mobile phones. If counterfeit mobile phones are counted, the domestic mobile phone market accounted for at least 50% in 2002.

Two words: cheap!

At that time, the consumption level of Chinese people was not high, as long as the mobile phone could make calls, there was no difference between a 1,000 yuan mobile phone and a 3,000 yuan mobile phone. Therefore, after the domestic mobile phone has freed up huge profit margins for the distributors, the distributors and retail stores are more willing to sell domestic mobile phones to customers, because they can earn more by selling a domestic mobile phone.

Such a brutal and savage marketing method directly defeated foreign brands, so that Nokia took the lead in shouting the slogan in 2002: learn from Chinese mobile phone brands!

As a result, Nokia also began to develop wildly, continuously shortening the supply chain, continuously increasing the profit margins of channel providers, and continuously launching a variety of low-end models. Although this product is a foreign brand, its marketing is fully "Chinese" and has always maintained its dominant position in mobile phones in China.

In fact, the quality of domestic mobile phones is very poor. For several consecutive years, only Kejian mobile phones have passed the ISO9001 certification, which shows how bad the quality control of other domestic mobile phones is, and the repair rate is generally twice as high as that of foreign brands!

Even so, with the increase of mobile phone supporting factories in mainland China, domestic mobile phones are getting cheaper and their market share is getting higher and higher. Consumers are willing to buy domestic low-end phones. This can also explain why Nokia is popular, the price is cheap and the quality is excellent, it is simply tailor-made for the Chinese.

To sum up, let's take a look at China Mobile.

Although Shenzhou's slider phone has caught the eye, the sales volume during the Spring Festival is only one-twelfth of that of China's low-end mobile phones.

This is the first domestic mobile phone under 1,000 yuan. Let alone the performance, the exterior design can beat foreign brands of the same price by a few blocks! Because these foreign brands that sell for less than 1,000 yuan are all old models two or three years ago. The overall look is outdated and clumsy, and they don’t even have SMS function!

Therefore, Shenzhou d210 has become the only mobile phone below 1,000 yuan in China that has the function of sending and receiving SMS!

This is called a price war, and it is simply turning the table.

Shenzhou d210, a low-end mobile phone, is purely launched by Shenzhou Technology, which has just entered the field of mobile phones, in order to increase market share and industry reputation. Every time a Shenzhou d210 is sold, the net profit brought is less than 60 yuan, and Shenzhou Technology has not earned as much as those agents and retailers!

For mobile phones of the same grade, the price of domestic brands is at least 1,300 yuan, and that of foreign brands is at least 1,100 yuan.

So the sales went crazy, not only Suning, Gome and other chain malls were selling them, but also distributors from all over the world rushed to purchase them. In the one month before and after the Spring Festival alone, the sales volume of the Shenzhou d210 reached 60,000 units, and the sales of a single model directly pulled Kejian down, becoming the leader of domestic models during the Spring Festival.

The domestic mobile phone industry is changing rapidly. Kejian mobile phone is still the first, Shenzhou mobile phone ranks second, Bird mobile phone ranks third, tcl mobile phone ranks fourth, Eastcom mobile phone directly falls from second to fifth, and may be taken by the mobile phone at any time Haier mobile phone overtakes.

However, it is very embarrassing that although China's low-end models are popular and high-end slider models are also famous, the sales of China's mid-range models that sell for more than 1,000 yuan are mediocre. Because this mid-range model has no bright spots, its quality and performance are better than domestic models of the same price, but the quality and performance cannot be seen in a short period of time.

Of the three mobile phones launched by China, two were successful, and one was a complete failure!

It's a pity that those chain malls who have milk are mothers. After reaching cooperation with foreign brands such as Nokia, they immediately regarded domestic mobile phones as if they were born by girls. If you walk into any Gome or Suning mobile phone area, Nokia will always be in the prime position, followed by Motorola, and China's low-end phones can only be sold at the bottom.

Fortunately, Shenzhou has gained influence through slider products and low-end models, and is rapidly building its own sales channels. Many partners who used to represent Shenzhou repeaters and USB flash drives have transformed into selling Shenzhou mobile phones, so that the channels of Shenzhou mobile phones have come from behind. In just a few months, it was on par with Kejian, Bird and tcl.

Due to China's technology disruption, in the first quarter of 2001, the domestic mobile phone market share soared to 7.9%, an increase of 0.5 percentage points over the same period of the original time and space.

The media even exclaimed: The era of domestic mobile phones is coming!

After the market statistics of the first quarter came out, Motorola took the lead in cutting prices significantly. Nokia's price war lies in a wide variety of low-end models, while Motorola is frantically launching new phones, and most of them are mid-to-high-end products. So Motorola also likes to fight price wars, because it has a lot of room for price cuts!

After Motorola cut the prices of several mobile phones, Nokia followed suit and directly lowered the price of two mobile phones below 1,000 yuan. Their attacking goal was directed at Shenzhou d210. It was not until this time that the soaring sales volume of Shenzhou d210 was curbed. Under the premise of the same price and the same performance, consumers still prefer foreign brands.

This has led to a chain reaction in the market. Many mobile phone brands have cut prices one after another. Among them, tcl9980 has become the second domestic mobile phone with a price of less than 1,000 yuan.

Ericsson is the most powerful. It directly lowered the price of the new machine launched half a year ago to 760 yuan. This price is tantamount to not making money, and it is not bad if it can pay back. Anyone with a discerning eye knows that Ericsson can no longer sustain it.

However, Ericsson's behavior of smashing the table has caused embarrassment to other brands, and the sales of low-end models have been greatly reduced. Shenzhou is also the most affected brand.

But, the more the price of mobile phones is reduced, the better the business of China Electronics will be.

TCL, Haier and Konka, as well as many miscellaneous brands, have successively chosen to purchase mobile phone motherboards and radio frequency chips from China in order to lower production costs and fight price wars.

The butterfly effect brought about by Song Weiyang's mobile phone production has caused the price of mobile phones in China to drop by about 100 yuan compared with the overall price in history. The culprit is the low-end phone Shenzhou d210.