中国智能手机品牌争夺低端市场

    中国智能手机厂商之间的逐底竞争已经开始。

    联想公司的一位部门主管告诉《华尔街日报》：“你可以用别人的模式来打败他。”他所指的是走低成本路线的小米品牌。小米一直以模仿苹果手机为傲，其售价仅为后者的一半。现在你会发现，几乎所有中国手机厂商都加入了这场竞争。

    低端市场之争已经持续了一段时间。早在去年，华为和中兴等中国著名手机厂商便公然模仿小米，特别推出了“仅接受网络预订”的手机型号。小米公司凭借精明的营销和低廉的价格，获得了450亿美元的估值。如今，中国智能手机销售增长已达到顶峰，新一轮竞争周期已经开始，在此轮竞争中，手机厂商已经微薄的利润将遭到挤压，要想生存下来，只能依靠新的创新或市场份额。在这种形势下，几乎所有厂商都希望在尚有余力的情况下尽可能争夺低端市场的份额。

    就连互联网电视公司乐视网和杀毒软件公司奇虎360这些与手机不相干的公司，也在今年推出了廉价手机。

    对廉价市场的竞争明显是在押注中国这个世界最大的市场。虽然中国市场智能手机的平均售价在去年已经有大幅上涨（达到约250美元），但依旧远远低于全球平均水平。有条件的中国人愿意购买iPhone等高端手机，但大多数人仍不具备这样的经济实力，这便导致廉价手机市场的竞争异常激烈。与此同时，华为、中兴和其他品牌正尝试在美国等海外市场销售高价手机。

    这种竞争应该不会影响到苹果公司在中国的高售价（iPhone 6的价格超过1000美元），因为在大城市和富有阶层眼中，苹果是一个奢侈品牌，高价格是理所当然的。但三星电子却肯定会成为中国手机品牌的目标，因为中国手机品牌同样采用安卓操作系统，对买不起苹果手机的消费者很有吸引力。去年，三星在这个世界最大市场的份额减少了一半，现在仅占10%。

    廉价手机品牌的群雄并起，将使中国智能手机业回到从前的状态。在安卓和智能手机到来之前，中国有数百个小品牌以最低的价格在中国销售直板“功能手机”。但当智能手机到来之后，这些厂商纷纷倒闭，因为他们只是削价竞争，却不思创新。

    对于中国智能手机品牌而言，至少在政治方面，现在是一个绝好的时机。最近，在苹果推出iPhone 6S不久前，中央电视台在报道中批评了iPhone 6和三星Galaxy S5的摄像头性能，但却并未提到小米和华为。与此同时，一些中国社交媒体用户称苹果是美帝国主义的工具。

    现在是中国品牌的好时代，但前提是它们有能力参与低端市场的竞争。（财富中文网）

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    审校：任文科

    The race to the bottom has begun in Chinese smartphones.

    When a Lenovo unit head tells the Wall Street Journal, “You can use someone else’s model to defeat them,” and he’s referring to the low-cost Xiaomi brand that prides itself on being an Apple imitator for half the price, you know almost everyone is jumping in.

    This has been building for a while. It began last year when the country’s legacy brands like Huawei and ZTE were rolling out special “available online only” phone-brands in a blatant imitation of Xiaomi, which earned a $45 billion valuation thanks to saavy distribution and cheap phones. Now as China’s smartphone sales growth peaks and the next wave of the competitive cycle begins, one in which already thin margins are squeezed and companies will survive because of new innovations or market share, almost everyone is rushing to capture low-cost market share while they still can.

    Among the unlikely brands unveiling new cheap brands this year are Internet-TV firm LeTV and an anti-virus software company called Qihoo 360.

    The move downmarket is an explicit bet on the Chinese market, the world’s biggest. Even though the average selling price of a smartphone has increased dramatically in the past year (to around $250), it’s still far below the global average. The Chinese will pay up for phones like the iPhone if they can, but most can’t, creating an ultra-competitive market of cheap alternatives. Separately, Huawei, ZTE and others are trying to sell premium-priced phones in overseas markets like the U.S..

    This should have little effect on Apple’s high prices in China (where an iPhone 6 costs more than $1,000) because the company is seen as a luxury brand in the largest cities and among the country’s richest, for which a high price is justified. Samsung Electronics Co. SSNLF , however, is squarely in the crosshairs of Chinese brands that feature the same Android operating system and appeal to the masses that can’t afford Apple. It lost half its market share in the last year and now commands barely 10% of the world’s biggest market.

    The new introduction of cheap brands is really a return to China’s smartphone past, before the arrival of Android and smartphones, when hundreds of small brands sold candy-bar “feature phones” at the lowest possible price. Eventually, they all went bankrupt when smartphones arrived because they only competed on price, not innovation.

    It’s a good time to be a Chinese smartphone brand, politically at least. The state-run CCTV recently ran reports criticizing the camera performance of the iPhone 6 and Samsung’s Galaxy S5, before Apple’s unveils the iPhone 6S. Left unmentioned in the report: Xiaomi and Huawei. At the same time, some Chinese social media users are calling Apple a tool of American imperialism.

    A good time for Chinese brands, but only if they can compete at the bottom.