Ch 4. Customer-oriented Innovation by Chinese Smartphone Brands - AMORE STORIES - ENGLISH

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#Michelle Ma
2017.12.04
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Ch 4. Customer-oriented Innovation by Chinese Smartphone Brands

Introducing the columns written by members of Amorepacific Group

ColumnistMichelle Ma
APC Marketing Strategy Team


 The last chapter was about bicycle-sharing services in relation to Chinese corporate innovation. This time I would like to take a look at smartphone manufacturers in China together with you. The results from smartphone sales research by numerous institutions for the second half of 2017 point out that Chinese smartphones are a big trend as all top 4 companies in the smartphone market turned out to be Chinese. According to data from global research institute Counterpoint Research, the amount of Chinese smartphone shipments in the second half of 2017 increased by 3%, compared to the previous year, with Huawei, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi together occupying 69% of the market share. Apple had the 5th largest share with 8.2%.
 Chinese smartphones were once labeled as "copied" products, but in recent years they have been able to upgrade themselves with higher quality and better prices. The largest driving force that led Chinese manufacturers to surmount the controversy surrounding copies and take up more than half of the domestic smartphone market was in the friendly innovation made by Chinese brands. This is our topic today.

# Chinese smartphone brands?

 Other than the top 4 brands announced by Counterpoint Research, major Chinese smartphone brands in the market include LeEco, Smartisan, ZTE, Gionee, Meizu and TCL, which we are all familiar with. Plus, most of these market leaders in the country are based in Guangdong, making the region the mecca of the Chinese smartphone industry.

 Chinese smartphone makers are investing at a large scale to sign with famous celebrities that can help them to raise their brand awareness. But, thanks to soaring sales, they have been able to avoid a fund deficit. Among those brands, Oppo boasts the strongest model power. Its catchphrase "5 minutes of charging supports 2 hours of talk time" has likewise captured the minds of large crowds of people.
[Table 1] Top 4 smartphone brands in China
Brand Market share in China Product series Advertisement model Main product / catchphrase HQ location
Huawei 20.2% Mate/P/G
/Y/Maimang
/Nova/Honor/		 P9 (Scarlett Johansson)
Nova (Lay, Guan Xiaotong) 		Edge display
AI (Artificial Intelligence)
Leica lenses 		Shenzhen
OPPO 18.8% Find/N/R/A Yang Mi, Li Yifeng, Chang Chen, TFBoys, Dilireba, William Chan 5 minutes of charging supports 2 hours of talk time →20-megapixel front and rear cameras Dongguan
VIVO 17.0% XPlay/X/X Short/Y Song Hyekyo, Song Joongki, Eddie Peng, Ni Ni, Stephen Curry, Luhan, Zhou Dongyu 20-megapixel dual camera Radiate your beauty Dongguan
Xiaomi 13.0% Xiaomi/Note
/Max/Redmi 		Kris Wu Beautifying camera Beijing

Source : Counterpoint Research, 2Q 2017 Chinese Smartphone Industry Report / Baidu


# Huawei

 China's proud Huawei is globally well-known.

 It's four early product series were D (Diamond), P (Platinum), G (Gold) and Y (Young). Among them, D is a high-end series with releases of D1 and D2. However, Huawei soon concluded that their carrier wasn't able to adapt to technological trends in the service and replaced D with the new Mate series. At each end of the year, Huawei held an unveiling event for its new Mate products that feature high productivity and durability for middle-aged office workers and businessmen. The P series held its showcase every beginning of the year, fascinating young workers with its focus on the latest trends, camera technology and software innovation. On the other hand, the mid-end series G and Y suffered from multiple hacking incidents along with intense criticism upon release for the relatively poor performance of its technological features considering the price. Huawei also projected the future of the high-end market with a pessimistic view and gave up on its D series. Instead, the company released the new Honor series, which has sold more than the Y series. Among D, P, G and Y series, only the P and G series remain.

 * High-end/ mid-end/ low-end: Classifies high, middle and low level in terms of price, performance and design of a product
[Table 2] Huawei smartphone series
Series Device model Price range Description Image
Ascend Mate
(Replacement for D series) 		From CNY 3,500 High-end/ business (Competitors : Apple, Samsung Galaxy Note) Mate 10 Pro
P From CNY 3,500 High-end / trendy (Design, camera) (Competitors : Apple, Samsung Galaxy S) P10
Nova
(Replacement for G series) 		From CNY 2,000 Mid-end / young (Competitors : Oppo, Vivo) Nova2 Plus
G-Maimang* Carrier exclusive line for G series Maimang 6
Enjoy From CNY 1,000 Mid- and low-range price / entry product Enjoy 7
Honor Honor
(Replacement for Y series) 		From CNY 2,299 to CNY 2,599 Online exclusive / cost-effective / good quality Honor V9
Honor From CNY 799 to CNY 999 Low-range price phone Honor 6X

Source : Huawei official website

 Saying that the open-source operating system of Android saved the Chinese entry-level smartphone market is no exaggeration. Chinese smartphone companies have made a good use of open-source Android platforms while showing their capabilities in specific areas of their own to create local smartphone brands, which in turn led to other various 'small innovations' and 'small changes' customized for local customer needs. In other words, they astonished the world by focusing on little functions to realize Chinese customer demands.

Consumer : "I wish human-computer interaction would become faster."
Huawei : "We have AI and smart multi-window functions!"

 As the standard of living has increased, people have begun to have larger desires and a faster rhythm of life. Raising the level of efficiency became the key solution to satisfy consumer needs. As global smartphone manufacturers began to introduce AI functions one after another, Huawei released Mate 10, a differentiated AI compared to Siri or Bixby, offering competition for Apple and Samsung.

 Compared to AI solutions by competitors that focused on the software, Huawei's AI was mainly applied to fix smartphone buffering, which was a common concern for Android users. Built-in chip combined algorithms were based on user behavior to improve hardware throughput.
 Smart multi-window was a function desired by users who process multiple tasks at the same time. We can easily find people on the street immersed in playing games or watching videos with their phone, and many of them are annoyed by message alerts that interrupt their concentration. Repeated closing and reopening of the apps also result in lower efficiency.

 Chinese manufacturers began to recognize that they had to solve problems that interrupt tasks, and started to release products with multi-window functions. As you can see from the image, you can reply to a message without having to stop the video, and a single touch has enabled users to take care of complicated operations in a simpler and more efficient way.

User : "It is cumbersome to carry a camera but photos taken by smartphone cameras look too realistic."
Huawei : "We have the Leica dual-lens camera!"

 Huawei has been confident in claiming that its Mate 10 Pro outperforms Apple's iPhone X. In fact, in a recent smartphone test by DXO Mark, a website that provides ratings for cameras, the Mate 10 Pro scored a 97, which surpassed Apple's new iPhone 8 Plus and Samsung smartphones.
 In addition, Mate 10 enables efficient photographing with embedded AI, where the AI automatically identifies objects from the background and adjusts camera settings using smart algorithms after having learned from 100 million images.

Consumer : "The signal is poor when taking the high-speed rail, which is frustrating."
Huawei : "We have high-speed railway mode!"

 You must be familiar with the airplane mode, which suspends signals that could interfere with flight operations through a lock setup. So, have you ever heard of a 'high-speed railway mode'? This mode is a stable signal enhancer that enables access to phone calls and the Internet even in a high velocity environment, such as in high-speed rail.

 This original technology by Huawei, called Signal+, doesn't require pressing a button like the airplane mode. According to a user who tested Huawei Honor and iPhone 6 at the same time on a high-speed rail, Honor only showed 1.67% failing rate in both Internet access and phone calls. This is an innovative Android function for workers and businessmen who work on high-speed rail.

# OPPO

Consumer : "High-speed battery charging is already possible. Is there room to go even further?"
Oppo : "Now is the best time to try new things!"

 The "5 minutes of charging for 2 hours of talk time" record was beaten by the very brand itself recently. That's probably the reason they changed their advertising slogan. At MWC 2016 held in Barcelona, Oppo presented its new high-speed charging technology titled 'Super VOOC', which supports 10 hours of talk time with just 5 minutes of charging. It is said that Huawei has made great progress in high-speed battery charging, but still it seems like the real problem solver that quenched the high-speed charging needs by Chinese customers is Oppo.

 After learning that customer demand had moved on to high performance cameras from telephone functions, Oppo began to innovate its appearance design. Generally, typical smartphones have a better rear camera compared to the front camera in terms of pixels. In this situation, Oppo's 20-megapixel + 20-megapixel was a tremendous announcement. On October 22, Oppo lighted up digital billboards around nine major cities in China including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to announce the release of its new model R11s.

# VIVO

 In line with the edge display trend, Vivo released its new model X20 on September 30. Like other smartphone makers, Vivo had its own conviction.

Consumer : "It's too cumbersome to capture and send one image at a time!"
Vivo : "We provide a function that captures and sends 15 images at a time!"

 We often capture and send screenshots during work or a chat with friends to inform them about the situation. Vivo prepared a function that captures and sends 15 images at a time for users who like to chat on their smartphones.
 Besides this convenient function, Vivo also introduced the aforementioned multi-window function to keep its users uninterrupted while they are enjoying mobile shopping, news articles or videos.

# Smartisan

 Next up we see Smartisan smartphones which have actually not yet been acknowledged in the market. Smartisan CEO Luo Yonghao is also being condemned that his words about smartphone technology on the media are only idealism.
 The idea of producing a smartphone first occurred to Luo when he visited Xiaomi headquarters and met the CEO Lei Jun in November 2011. And, just two years later in March 2013, the Smartisan ROM was created, which was then released to the market on May 20, 2014.
 It appealed to the customers as a unique and friendly smartphone with Smartisan OS, which was based on Android.

Consumer : "It is troublesome when the phone turns off during a call!"
Smartisan : "We have auto-reply mode!"

 It doesn't sound so special when you first hear about it but this small function has made its smartphone more edgy. Developing an auto-reply function helped reduce user inconveniences in situations where the power suddenly goes out during a call embarrassing many workers or couples.

  • Image description : Auto-reply function by Smartisan; it automatically sends a message to the other caller's smartphone when the smartphone is turned off during a call.
    Source : Smartisan's official Weibo account,
    https://weibo.com/2968634427/FljGnagjf?type=comment


Consumer : "I forgot to disable mute mode and my client thinks that I didn't take the call on purpose!"
Smartisan : "We have a timer for mute!"

 You might have experienced a situation where you forgot to disable the mute mode and couldn't answer an important call or a message after work. In order to solve this problem, Smartisan developed a function called 'mute timer.' You can set the time for mute for your working hours or a meeting. The length can be set as you require, ranging from 2 hours to up to 8 hours. This way, users can avoid difficult situations cause by forgetting to disable mute mode.

Consumer : "I think I write addresses like ten times a day."
Smartisan : "Use the auto-complete function!"

 Smartisan observed user language commonly repeated in every day life, and added an auto-complete function to its smartphone. For instance, when you need to send a postal address, email address and phone number to someone else, Smartisan products can help you select and send the information saved in the phone.

Consumer : "I need faster payment options."
Smartisan : "We have speed fingerprint payment!"

 Smartisan's small idea stands out when it comes to fingerprint payment and could save time for the users when making mobile payments, for which there is a growing trend in our lives. Fingerprint security is not something amazing anymore, but Smartisan's fingerprint-specific payment function may bring about a new way of paying, and using a particular fingerprint to unlock a payment password is still very innovative. The brand recently demonstrated the function via WeChat by using Alipay with the index finger of the right hand and the little finger of the left hand to use WeChat Pay, making iOS users jealous as they still require several clicks to reach the payment screen.

  • Image description : Fingerprint-specific payment function by Smartisan
    Source : Smartisan's official Weibo account,

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