Editor/Huang Yiting
On June 1 1, the long-lost Nokia mobile phone had a new dynamic: HMD, the exclusive brand licensor of Nokia, released a new machine called Nokia C20 Plus.
The issue price of 699 yuan indicates its low-end market positioning. This is the Nokia low-end smartphone released by HMD again after half a year.
From the performance configuration point of view, whether it is chips, cameras or screens, the new machine has a flat performance, and has no outstanding advantages compared with competing products of glory and Xiaomi.
From dominating the global mobile phone brand to missing the decline of the intelligent age, Nokia's experience has made countless people sigh.
However, the smart phone market is difficult to open, and Nokia has gained a firm foothold in the functional machine market that the elderly love. This is also the secret of Nokia's survival to this day.
Counterpoint Research data shows that in 20021year, the shipment of Nokia function machines was 1 1 10,000, and the shipment of smart phones was only 2 million, the latter was not as good as the former's 1/5.
According to the Finnish media mobiili, in 2020, after taking over the Nokia brand for four years, HMD's financial situation finally improved, from a loss of 295 million euros in 20 19 to a loss of 47 million euros in 2020. The CEO of HMD Global said, "We have been making a profit since June 2020."
Feature phones hold up half the sky of Nokia phones, and Nokia still holds a large share in the global feature phone market. According to the data of Counterpoint Research in the third quarter of 2020, in Europe and Asia, Nokia occupies 40% and 265,438+0% respectively, ranking first.
However, compared with the smart phone market, the market scale of functional machines is small after all. In the third quarter of 2020, according to the data of Counterpoint and IDC, the global shipment of feature phones was 74 million, only 2 1% of that of smartphones.
Therefore, on the one hand, it is to hold the function machine market with limited space, on the other hand, it is to continue to survive in the highly competitive smart phone market. Where is the future of Nokia mobile phones? Can it keep up with the times again?
At the Nokia C20 Plus conference, which lasted nearly 30 minutes today, the configuration of Nokia's new mobile phones was exposed one after another. Its processor adopts purple light Zhanrui, equipped with 4950 mAh battery and 6.52-inch LCD screen, which are standard on low-end mobile phones.
As a low-end mobile phone with a starting price of 699 yuan, the price/performance ratio does not have much advantage. Referring to peers, many low-end competing products have better performance than Nokia C20 Plus, but their prices are lower.
For example, the mid-range mobile phones released by Vivo Z3,2018 and 10 are equipped with Snapdragon 7 10 processor with160,000+2 million pixels. Now the price in JD.COM has dropped to 678 yuan. VIVO Z3 outperforms Nokia C20 Plus in camera, processor and screen.
However, low-end smartphones are no longer the backbone of Nokia phones, but function machines are.
In the global function machine market, Nokia mobile phones occupy an important market share.
According to the survey data of Strategy Analytics, in 2020, the global shipment of function machines will be nearly 420 million units, among which the market share of the top three mobile phone brands is voice 24.9%, Samsung 14.5% and Nokia 6.3%.
Nokia's performance in the function machine market in China is also quite bright.
In 2020, Nokia released low-end functional machines including Nokia 220 in April 2020, Nokia 225 in June 2020 and Nokia 6300 in February 2020.
With these mobile phones, Nokia said at the end of 2020 that its "classic 4G mobile phones" (function phones) in the China market have reached the first sales volume.
Take JD.COM as an example, some Nokia feature phones have accumulated tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of user comments. Among them, a Nokia 220 released by Nokia mobile phone in April 2020 has accumulated more than 654.38+million comments, which has surpassed most one plus mobile phones and all Meizu mobile phones.
Nokia's strong performance in China market is mainly due to its "lack" of competitors in the function machine market in China.
Domestic mainstream mobile phone brands, such as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO and so on. , has turned its energy to the competition of mid-to high-end smartphones. Even if low-end smart phones are deployed, the prices are generally higher than those in 500 yuan.
In contrast, the price of feature phones is concentrated in 0-500 yuan, which makes Nokia stagger the competition with domestic mainstream mobile phones.
On the other hand, Nokia's competitors in the function machine market, Voice and Samsung, are not concerned about the China market.
Take voice as an example, most of its functional machine markets are concentrated in Africa and India. According to the Q3 data of Counterpoint Research 2020, the shipment of sound transmission function machine accounts for 22% of the local market share, and it is the largest function machine brand in India.
How big is the functional machine market in China? Li Sha Zi, the chairman of Spreadtrum Communications, a wireless communication chip manufacturer, once said in an interview with the media that there are still hundreds of millions of "stubborn users" in the function machine market in China, mainly the elderly and students of K 12. From the perspective of regional distribution, it is mainly concentrated in counties and townships. "This market is big enough," said Li Shazi.
It is these "stubborn users" that make Nokia a good mobile phone. According to the public speech of the CEO of HMD Global, HMD began to make a profit in the second half of last year.
Choosing the function machine market is behind Nokia's bumpy fate.
Back in 20 13, Nokia was in a quagmire.
Since the rise of smart phones, Nokia has always adhered to the closed Saipan system and had to retreat. Not only has the sales of smart phones not improved, but the overall business sales of mobile phones, including functional machines, are declining. Nokia issued a series of profit warnings, which eclipsed the former mobile phone overlord.
In 20 13, Nokia met its first buyer, Microsoft.
According to the internal information disclosure at that time, Nokia could not raise funds in the open market, and Microsoft gave it a loan of 65.438+0.5 billion euros, with conditional acquisition negotiations. In the end, Microsoft spent about $7 billion to acquire most of Nokia's mobile phone business and its patent licenses.
Microsoft intends to bring Nokia back to the era of smart phones by laying off employees and terminating its cooperation with Google Android, but only if it installs the Windows Phone operating system with a market share of only about 1%. Due to Microsoft's selfishness, Nokia's subsequent Lumia phone was unsurprisingly defeated under the cover of iOS and Android.
In 20 15, Microsoft reported a loss of $7.6 billion in the second quarter, which is almost equal to the sum of $5 billion in the acquisition of Nokia's mobile phone business by Microsoft and $2.2 billion in Nokia's mobile phone patent portfolio.
This is equivalent to the death penalty for Nokia's smartphone business.
By 20 16, Microsoft agreed to sell the mobile phone division acquired from Nokia to Taiwan Province Science and Technology Group Foxconn for 350 million dollars.
Later, Foxconn and Nokia jointly established a new company HMD and sent employees to settle in. At this point, the manufacturing of Nokia brand mobile phones and tablets was taken over by HMD.
HMD's plays are much more conservative.
This "conservatism" is reflected in the fact that when major mobile phone manufacturers aim at the smart phone market and frequently launch new products to grab consumers' attention, Nokia's smart flagship machine and 5G mobile phones are always delayed, and the mass production time is repeatedly postponed, while most smart phones are still in the low-end positioning.
At the same time, Nokia continues to reproduce the classics and return as a functional machine.
After HMD took over Nokia, the first mobile phone was a engraving machine. In 20 17, Nokia revived the classic 33 10, as well as countless "snake eaters" who were familiar after 1980s and 1990s. Later, Nokia copy version 8 1 10 was also released in February 20 18. In the past 2020, Nokia also introduced three engraving machines.
Most of these phones retain their original styles and functions, and on this basis, their performance is optimized. This kind of functional mobile phone with a strong retro style and nostalgic atmosphere just pokes the needs of some groups, who hope to get a break in the era of information bombing. At the same time, hundreds of millions of middle-aged and elderly people still need functional machines in this era.
As a result, HMD bet on the functional machine market unexpectedly. Counterpoint data shows that since the fourth quarter of 20 17, the growth rate of global smartphone shipments has turned from rising to falling. On the contrary, in 20 17, the global shipment of functional machines reached 450 million units, up 5% year-on-year.
Until now, in Japan, the Middle East, Africa, India and other countries or regions, functional machines still have a very large market. For example, the penetration rate of smartphones and Internet in Africa is low, while in developed countries like Japan, there is no shortage of infrastructure, but the problem of aging is serious. For them, the function machine is just needed.
Therefore, Nokia came back to life. According to the financial data released by HMD, the global shipment of Nokia reached 80 million units in 20 17, an increase of100000 units compared with 20 17.
However, perhaps it is the impact of the epidemic, perhaps the function machine market has been seized by other players. Counterpoint Research data shows that in 20 19, Nokia's global shipments fell again to 70 million units, and in 2020, it fell sharply to 46.6 million units.
At present, many giants and mobile phone manufacturers are also seizing this market. The Indian brand Jio phone constantly combines functional machines with smart phones to launch new products. American technology company Google and French operator Orange SA are also investing in this market.
Although HMD has maintained a certain momentum and become a market leader through function machines, as more and more enterprises realize the huge market behind function machines, HMD and Nokia may encounter more challenges while waiting for the revival of function machines.
HMD can no longer be "conservative". Nokia needs to continue to attack on feature phones, but if it wants to return to the mainstream vision and become a head phone manufacturer, it can not only rely on feature phones, but also need to come up with competitive smart phone products.
Nokia, which sells nostalgia, has never given up the smartphone market.
20 17, 1 in June, an interesting scene was staged at the launch of Nokia 6, HMD's first Nokia smartphone: on the one hand, the emotional card played by the CEO of HMD Nokia: "I have known Nokia since I was a child", on the other hand, the product team still boasted: "We are not old people, and we will be on the top of the world in three to five years."
Although the slogan is loud, HMD's pace towards smart phones is still conservative.
The first smart phone, HMD chose to enter the low-end market of 1500-2000 yuan. At the same time, due to the weak foundation of offline channels in the past, HMD could not bear the financial pressure of resetting channels in a large area, so it chose to cooperate with JD.COM to sell online omni-channels when entering the China market.
Today, Nokia still has no offline stores in China, and there is almost no news about the new development of offline channels.
Judging from the release rhythm of Nokia's new machines in recent years, only 2-3 smartphones are released every year, usually one in spring and one in winter. Compared with the rhythm of Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO and other brands producing 10 new machines every year, Nokia's speed is much slower.
In April this year, Nokia released a set of pictures on Weibo. Nokia said that it will re-divide its product line into three series of smartphones, X, G and C, each series covering nine models.
Among them, the C series is a low-end machine, focusing on the 3G and 4G markets below 1,000 yuan; G series is positioned in the mid-range market of1000-20 million yuan, with large batteries and high pixels; The price of X series is below 5,000 yuan, which is the highest-end product series of Nokia.
After connecting with Insight, we found that the X20 model with the highest configuration in Nokia currently uses Snapdragon 480 processor, and is equipped with a 48-megapixel lens and a 5-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens, which is basically at the level of domestic mid-range computers.
Positioning at the low end and slow release of new machines make it difficult for Nokia to break through in the mobile phone market where giants are everywhere.
According to the data released by Counterpoint Research in Q 1 in 20265438, the shipment of Nokia smartphones is 2 million, which is less than 1% of the global shipment of 354 million smartphones. Compared with the sales of more than 35 million units from Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO and other manufacturers, Nokia's volume is far from the same.
However, Nokia's efforts in the field of communication have given some support to the mobile phone business.
Patents are the "legacy" left by Nokia Empire to the mobile phone business. No matter in 3G or 4G fields, the technology accumulation of Nokia Communications services is relatively deep, with 1.6 million items in the United States and nearly 20,000 items in Europe.
Nokia holds a large number of patents, which has repelled many competitors for its mobile phone business and brought rich patent income for itself.
On 20 13, a patent dispute occurred between Nokia and HTC. Nokia sued HTC for infringing more than 50 patents on "terminals, methods and computer programs interacting with signal tags". The lawsuit 20 14 was settled, and HTC had to pay huge patent fees, which caused great damage.
Since then, mobile phone companies such as Apple and Blackberry have had patent disputes with Nokia, all of which ended in failure. In navigation systems, communications and other aspects, it is difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to avoid Nokia patents and have to pay compensation.
Although the fees paid by Nokia and major companies for technology patents have not been disclosed in detail, according to its 2020 financial report, technology business income accounted for 6.4%, reaching11.90 billion yuan, which may be one of the evidences of patent income.
In the 5G business, Nokia's strength should not be underestimated.
Since 20 13, Nokia has spent tens of billions of euros to acquire Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, a telecom equipment manufacturer owned by Siemens, and even invested in various large-scale 5G projects in the European Union early in an attempt to share the 5G market.
By 202 1, the German consulting organization IPlystics published "Who is leading the 5G patent competition? According to the report, Huawei ranked first with 65,438+05.4% of the essential patents of the 5G standard, while Nokia ranked third with 65,438+03.2% of the market share.
5G patents have once again become Nokia's trump card. According to the patent fee charging standard published by Nokia 20 18, it charges a fixed 5G patent fee of $3.43 per mobile phone, which is quite competitive with the patent fee of $5 per high-end mobile phone of Ericsson and $2.50 per low-end mobile phone and the patent fee of 5% per mobile phone of Qualcomm.
Several 5G mobile phones released by Nokia are also equipped with their own communication patents. Although the specific cooperation price has not been announced, it is not difficult to infer that Nokia mobile phones will enjoy many technical preferential conditions.
Not long ago, Nokia also launched a research on 6G technology with Japan, vowing to win the patent market of 10%, which may open the way for Nokia mobile phones in the 6G era.
At present, Nokia mobile phones are not only alive, but also a bunch of "backers". In August 2020, HMD announced a new round of financing, amounting to 230 million US dollars. Investors include not only Nokia, but also partners such as Google and Qualcomm. With the latter's technical blessing in operating system and chip, it will be more conducive to improving the performance and experience of HMD smartphones.
However, the competition in the mobile phone market is still fierce. The competition among Huawei, Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi and other manufacturers has already heated up. HMD needs not only help, but also brand, market and R&D strength.
In the past few years, Nokia has been able to settle down by relying on the legacy of the old times-the function machine. However, the smartphone market is destined to be dominated by young people. This market is already the Red Sea. Every step forward requires determination and courage, but this is what Nokia must do if you want to keep up with the times again.