ZTE mobile phone decline Zeng Xuezhong revival winning geometry?

Once upon a time, "China Cool Alliance" was almost synonymous with Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. Nowadays, in the smart phone market, Huawei has ranked third in the world and China in the first place, and has greatly surpassed the trend of Samsung. Lenovo is also the top five in the world, and the former king, ZTE, can barely keep the world. ten.

Why did ZTE decline in the era of smart phones? ZTE's executive vice president and terminal CEO Zeng Xuezhong issued more than 3,000 words of internal mail inside the company on the night of January 20, 2016. He deeply rethought the pros and cons of ZTE's mobile phones in these years and sought revival. Road. Zeng Xuezhong’s internal letter has spread throughout the industry overnight.

Huawei mobile phone also suffered a survival dilemma in 2012, but Yu Chengdong, who was "out of the box" in 2011, painstakingly thought about it, cut off 80% of the terminal product line at that time, and completely changed his channel strategy, and gradually embarked on the high-end line, and even today's situation. . Will Zeng Xuezhong’s internal letter be an opportunity for Huawei’s brother-in-law, ZTE, to embark on a Huawei-style road to revival?

"Lost three years" became a second-line brand

Zeng Xuezhong disclosed the performance of ZTE's mobile phone from different angles in his internal letter.

According to the data, the actual shipments of ZTE smartphones in 2015 were 56 million units, and there were 4 million units away from the 60 million targets set at the beginning of 2015.

In the international market, ZTE Mobile sold 15 million smartphones in the United States in 2015, up more than 30% year-on-year, maintaining its fourth position in the industry; sales in the Asia-Pacific market reached 11 million units, up 120% year-on-year; The European and African markets grew by 400% and 100% respectively, and in the South American market, they also increased by 40%.

The domestic market has become the worst performing market for ZTE. According to Zeng Xuezhong, the shipment of ZTE mobile phones in China was only 15 million in 2015. This score is not only far from Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi, but also far from the domestic emerging mobile phone manufacturers OPPO and Meizu. Zeng Xuezhong said frankly in the internal letter that the reason why ZTE did not complete the sales target was mainly in the domestic market.

However, some industry insiders have questioned the performance data disclosed by Zeng Xuezhong. Internet commentator and iDoNews contract writer Jiang Bojing said in an interview with the China Business Journal that the global market research firm TrendForce reported that global smartphone shipments in 2015 were 1.293 billion, of which ZTE ranked 3.1%. In the tenth place, ZTE’s sales in 2015 should be more than 40 million, which is far from the 56 million disclosed by Zeng Xuezhong.

At the same time, according to comScore data from foreign statistical agencies, as of the third quarter of 2015, the US smartphone market share was 44.1% for Apple, 28% for Samsung, 8.3% for LG, 4.9% for Motorola and 3.4% for HTC. ZTE is not among the top four. According to this, Jiang Bojing raised the question. Is ZTE Mobile's counterattack in the US market in the fourth quarter of 2015?

The statistical caliber is likely to be the main cause of this difference. However, one thing is certain. The main problem of ZTE's mobile phone is indeed in the domestic market. The local sales volume of 15 million units is only comparable to that of the US market. It is not only difficult for Huawei, Lenovo, Xiaomi and other domestic mobile phone manufacturers to be backed up. An emerging mobile phone force -- Meizu catches up.

Therefore, although ZTE has completed the established goal of “double billion” in revenue and collection in 2015, Zeng Xuezhong, the “big boss” of ZTE’s terminal, deeply felt that “because we did not complete the goals set at the beginning of the year”, Make "I and the terminal team management pressure".

In this context, Zeng Xuezhong also disclosed the sales target of ZTE's smartphone in 2016 – 70 million in the internal letter. In this regard, some insiders said that the past three years is the three years of the domestic smartphone brand explosion, and for ZTE, this is undoubtedly "lost three years", ZTE sees the former friends Huawei, Lenovo gradually drifting away, Also seeing the emerging forces Xiaomi, Meizu, etc. beyond themselves, I hope that today's ZTE can be as painful as Huawei's second-tier camp in the domestic market.

Why are you not waiting for the market?

For the loss in the domestic market, Zeng Xuezhong said: "The reason can be found a lot, but in one sentence, we are not doing well enough! Therefore, we need to repeat, but do not explain."

Zeng Xuezhong reflected and summarized the reasons for the loss. In Zeng Xuezhong's view, ZTE's biggest mistakes have two points: First, strategic mistakes, no early insight into consumer conversion trends and channel conversion trends, missed the conversion of functional machines to intelligent machines, upgraded two exchanges; inherent operations Shortcomings such as business management and control, brand building, etc., need to be improved in the supply chain and brand communication.

As Zeng Xuezhong said, in the era of functional machines, the core elements of operators have been seized to achieve "China Cool Alliance"; while in the popularization period of smart phones, cost-effective, good at online marketing has made Xiaomi; since the second half of 2014 Change window, online long-term channel has a long-term precipitation, the pursuit of work "light luxury" step by step [3.72% fund research report], Huawei has also succeeded; and ZTE is still relying on traditional operator channels, abandoned channel construction and brand communication Good opportunities, and more and more can not keep up with the pace of the market.

Zeng Xuezhong’s reflection is sincere, but it may not be enough. Jiang Bojing told the "China Business News" reporter that the reasons for ZTE's failure, in addition to excessive reliance on operators and missed Internet mobile phones and other popular outlets, mainly include: first, the product price is not enough; secondly, the product quality is seriously insufficient, the user experience is not enough For example, "the operating system is not updated in time" has become the focus of consumers' vomiting; the last is the lack of publicity, especially the lack of inflammatory propaganda. This aspect is mainly reflected in the change of ZTE's patents and its own patents and "hands-on". The external image, etc., the propaganda is obviously not enough.

In addition to users of Apple phones and Samsung phones, the price/performance ratio is still the primary factor for other consumers to purchase mobile phones. Global mobile phone manufacturers, even if they claim to be on the high-end line of Huawei, are all working hard to compare the cost.

"China Business News" reporter found on Tmall, Jingdong and other websites, among the top 20 mobile phone products in mobile phone sales, Huawei, Xiaomi, Meizu, VIVO and other manufacturers have several products, but it is difficult to see the ZTE mobile phone. . For example, in the Tmall 1000 yuan ~ 1500 yuan price range mobile phone products, the reporter found a ZTE G719C Qinglan 3 mobile phone, the price is 1390 yuan, running memory RAM is 2GB, body memory 8GB, battery capacity 3000mAh, resolution is 1280×720. The reporter also found a product of a well-known foreign mobile phone brand, running memory RAM is 3GB, body memory is 16GB, battery capacity is 3200mAh, resolution is 1920×1080, other parameters are basically the same as Qinglan 3, the price is 1348 yuan. . However, this foreign brand has always been on the high-end route, not known for its price/performance ratio. It can be seen from this that the price/performance ratio of ZTE's mobile phones is hard to make consumers applaud.

In fact, ZTE mobile phones have their own characteristics and advantages. For example, ZTE has surpassed Huawei in terms of the ranking of corporate invention patents in 2015 and the ranking of corporate invention patent applications in 2015. For example, the expansion of ZTE in overseas markets is also unmatched by many domestic mobile phone manufacturers. However, when Xiaomi set a benchmark for price/performance, Huawei shaped the mid-to-high-end brand image and gradually became popular. The general consumer's impression of ZTE's brand still stayed on the "hands-on".

"LeTV will go beyond Apple and Xiaomi to start playing cards, and Huawei has obvious advantages in patents. These topics are echoing in our ears all day long." Jiang Bojing said that ZTE's branding and publicity are obviously insufficient.

For Huawei and ZTE, who are brothers of the same city, Sun Wenping, president of Shenzhen Mobile Phone Industry Association, has a special feeling. How can the two manufacturers who have been winning each other in the smart phone era pull away so far?

Sun Wenping believes that the main reason is that ZTE's mobile phone market is not sensitive enough to keep up with changes in market demand. "We all say that ZTE has a large number of patents, but most of them are patents in the era of functional machines. There are not enough patents in the era of intelligent machines." Sun Wenping told reporters that some of ZTE’s well-sold products are often sold in terms of shipments. Not on, affecting market performance.

Sun Wenping pointed out that ZTE's mobile phone is not accurate enough in product positioning, and there are nearly one hundred products. The boundaries and differences between them are very vague. In terms of product positioning, Huawei has done a better job --- Huawei mobile phone Mainly in the high-end market, glory focuses on the low-end market.

The domestic mobile phone market is already a market where competition is becoming increasingly hot, and it is really difficult for any brand to stand on its own. Nowadays, Xiaomi, which has experienced a few years of skyrocketing, is recovering. With the continued deep cultivation of international giants such as Samsung and Apple, and the emergence of emerging manufacturers such as VIVO, OPPO and LeTV, whether the domestic mobile phone market is saturated or not is still controversial. Difficult. The mobile phone manufacturers that can't keep up with the pace of the market mean that they are outdated and even eliminated. For example, Nokia and Motorola were the same as the mobile phone market in the past few years.