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Lots of hype, but what鈥檚 actually new here?
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Winter looms for Chinese smartphone vendors. I could feel the chill while attending a series of recent industry events held to introduce or promote new products. Innovation seemed to be in deep freeze.
The global smartphone industry is rounding out the year with its first single-digit annual growth on record, according to research firm International Data Corp (IDC).
The admonition voiced by Yu Chengdong, consumer business group leader of Huawei Technologies, China鈥檚 No. 1 smartphone brand, reminded me of Dickens鈥 ghost of Christmas future.
鈥淥nly two or three smartphone vendors (Apple, Samsung and Huawei) will survive,鈥 he said in recent interviews. 鈥淥ther players will be phased out in three to five years.鈥
For top Chinese vendors like Huawei, Xiaomi and Lenovo, the temperature is dropping.
At the Xiaomi conference in Beijing last month, Lei Jun, the company鈥檚 founder and chief executive, recalled with nostalgia the initial stages of creating the electronics company and developing the first-generation phone model.
As one of the audience, I was moved by his emotional words. Lei is, after all, one of China鈥檚 most successful entrepreneurs. But that didn鈥檛 change my attitude toward Xiaomi鈥檚 latest products.
At the event, Xiaomi launched three new products, including the Redmi Note 3 at a price of less than 1,000 yuan (US$156), a new tablet computer with upgraded hardware, and an air purifier.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a very, very, very competitive market,鈥 Lei said with a heavy sigh.
Xiaomi didn鈥檛 give any clues about its flagship model Mi 5. That had been expected since the model Mi 4 debuted in June of 2014.
Lenovo Group Ltd, which used US$2.9 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility from Google Inc, posted a loss of US$714 million in its fiscal second quarter ended September 30. The company blamed the loss largely on clearance of a backlog of smartphones and said it might take 鈥渇our to six quarters鈥 to turn the money-losing handset business to the black.
Two days after Xiaomi鈥檚 conference, Huawei held an event in Shanghai to unveil its new flagship model Mate 8 and a round smartwatch. It was the company鈥檚 first global debut of high-end models on the Chinese mainland.
The Mate 8 features full metal design, fast fingerprint recognition and internatonal roaming services. With a pricetag of more than 3,000 yuan, it is targeted at the so-called 鈥渂usiness elite.鈥
Huawei has been criticized for a lack of 鈥渟urprises鈥 in the new flagship model. Fingerprint recognition and metal design are already features of entry-level models costing less than 1,000 yuan.
In the circle of journalists who cover these IT events, it鈥檚 not uncommon to hear grumbling like: 鈥淲e attend a dozen smartphone debut events a month, but they are almost always the same.鈥
Indeed, the high frequency of smartphone conferences underscores the need for spin-doctors to keep brands in the public eye amid cutthroat competition.
I came away from the past month鈥檚 events staged by Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo and Coolpad with a set of recurring buzzwords spinning in my head: metal design, fingerprint biometrics and security, long battery life and selfie-friendly camera.
Industry executives at these conferences seemed abnormally preoccupied with which brands would emerge the winners in sales during the Single鈥檚 Day online shopping sweepstakes on November 11.
What excitement exists in the industry seems to be coming from offshore. Users are buzzing about Apple鈥檚 Force Touch technology, HTC鈥檚 virtual reality expansion, Yota鈥檚 dual-screen design and Samsung鈥檚 edged screen display. But I haven鈥檛 seen much enthusiasm swelling around domestic brands.
As slower global growth damps sales of smartphones, manufacturers and vendors are looking to the sheer size of the China market to help rescue the industry. However, sales in China are forecast to be in the low single digits in 2015, according to IDC.
That compares with the heyday of smartphone sales not all that long ago, when growth rates were 15 to 20 percent annually. If IDC is right, this year will be the first when the rate dropped from double digits.
Worldwide this year, smartphone sales will increase 9.8 percent to 1.43 billion units, IDC predicts. Slower growth is expected to intensify slightly over the 2015-2019 forecast period, the research firm said.
Among Chinese brands, Xiaomi now expects 2015 sales of 80 million units, lower than its previous forecast of 100 million.
OnePlus, a start-up firm with business overseas, shuttered its classy 鈥渆xperience stores鈥 in Shanghai and other major cities recently, just several months after opening.
Still, not all is gloomy for China鈥檚 smartphone vendors. Huawei鈥檚 self-developed mobile chip and Vivo鈥檚 Hi-Fi music experience and 3D display screens possibly portend the advent of 鈥渟pring鈥 just around the bend for the industry.
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