The latest statistics from Counterpoint show that with a 22% market share, Vivo successfully topped the number one position in China’s cell phone market share in 2021, with a 21% year-on-year increase in shipments.
Although the achievement is already outstanding enough, especially under the COVID-19 epidemic, Vivo did not choose to take a rest but re-integrated its high-end product line to achieve a new round of breakthroughs in the high-end market.
On March 30, Vivo announced that it will participate in the event as a strategic partner of Boao Forum for Asia. At that time, the soon-to-be-released Vivo X Fold and X Note will also be presented at the conference as officially designated phones.
As a representative of Chinese technology enterprises, Vivo will use Boao Forum for Asia as an international platform to deliver information about the company’s technological innovation capability and show its cutting-edge innovation power. Meanwhile, the two new X series models will also radiate high-end business people through this conference and convey Vivo’s technological power and brand power through its products.
In an environment where the overall competitive strategy of the industry is conservative, especially under the concerns of pressure from the US, between the two forks of the road of sticking to the market and tough exploration, Vivo chose the latter without hesitation and launched an impact on the high-end market by opening two new flagship models. The current Vivo is more like a mirror that maps the relentless pursuit of Chinese enterprises in technological innovation.
Continuing to create demand without fear of market challenges
At the beginning of 2021, the Chinese market showed significant growth in the first quarter against the backdrop of relevant policies to stimulate consumer demand, while in the following three quarters, shipments began to decline due to industry chain supply disruptions and an early market overdraft.
This also makes a kind of pessimism begin to spread in the industry, after the cell phone replacement trend credit to the 5G, the market demand seems to have been tapped out.
This view ignores the fact that market demand may be saturated, but the market can be created. Looking back at the history of smartphone development for more than ten years, the market has never been static, and every major innovation has greatly stimulated people’s demand and also given birth to new markets.
Before the launch of Vivo NEX elevated camera, consumers would not have thought that smartphones could achieve a true sense of borderless full-screen. Likewise, after the launch of Vivo X50 series, the industry derived from the segment of micro cloud platform anti-shake.
In his 2021 annual meeting speech, Shen Wei, founder, president, and CEO of Vivo, pointed out that at any time, user orientation has to be the first consideration. Meanwhile, an enterprise should not only focus on the current market but also should explore the foresight of the future and become a follower in the market. Therefore, Vivo has written design-driven into its corporate values in 2021, insisting on user orientation while bringing new meaning to users and technological innovation to the industry.
Under the guidance of this concept, Vivo released the first self-researched chip V1 at the technical level. With the powerful arithmetic and throughput capacity of this chip, Vivo X70 series models were able to enhance the image performance while significantly reducing the power consumption of the phone in the image scenario, which gained wide recognition from users and the market.
On the design level, Vivo launched OriginOS Ocean, a new cell phone operating system, which attempts to establish an emotional bond between users and the machine through significant upgrades in visual effects and interactive experiences, and provides users with the pleasure of exploration.
Now, in the face of sluggish demand, Vivo has opened up a new line of terminals, the folding screen model X Fold and the large-screen flagship X Note.
As a new force in the folding screen market, Vivo has shown its strong technical transformation strength. It is reported that this time Vivo not only introduces UTG glass cover technology into the new model but also equips it with a new hinge that adds multiple technological materials, all to eliminate the crease as much as possible.
An example of an effective path to enhance the competitiveness
With 27 years of hard work, Vivo has accumulated more than 400 million users worldwide and become the backbone of China’s cell phone industry, and the company’s layout in corporate strategy has also touched the nerves of the industry.
In 2020, Vivo and Zeiss reached a strategic cooperation, and in the following year, many high-precision technology processes came to the fore through the joint laboratory of both sides, and the support of Vivo’s global R&D network is indispensable behind these technical achievements.
More than 75% of Vivo’s global employees are R&D personnel, focusing on imaging, design, system, and performance, to always stay at the forefront of industry technology. Technology innovation is a marathon that tests perseverance, and what Vivo wants to do is to become the top runner on the track through continuous and long-term investment.
On the road to impacting the high-end cell phone market, Vivo firmly believes that this is a key step in reshuffling the market competition. For this reason, Vivo focused its resources on the two-year efforts of more than 300 R&D teams, and this groundbreaking chip was launched.
The significance of the self-research chip is not only that. In recent years, the problems of chip supply and technology blockade further illustrate the importance of self-sustainable and self-improvement technology. If it loses the determination of scientific and technological innovation, then a company will only be restricted everywhere in the market competition. Especially in the context of global digital upgrading in the past two years, the ability of science and technology innovation has become the core factor for considering enterprises. The only way to survive in future market competition is to continue to innovate and find a more resilient way of development.
This also raises new requirements for enterprise innovation methodology: how to push back the present to predict the future? In this regard, Vivo has proposed a golden triangle system, namely product planning, technology planning, and technology pre-research. The core of this system is based on user insight and the establishment of a product development process that covers the entire technical cycle.
In essence, this is a kind of technology prognosis that plans for the future and uses a more targeted approach to guide the immediate development of technology innovation. As Shen Wei said, “Adhere to the long-term and dare to embrace uncertainty.” Vivo hopes that the innovation methodology will bring about a long-term, deep-seated, and leading transformation.
The insistence of Vivo on technology innovation is more like the epitome of Chinese technology enterprises nowadays. Through the path of independent research and development, Vivo takes the initiative to participate in global competition, so that technology enterprises can truly become the carrier and driving force of technology innovation, and in this process, the label “Made in China” will become more resounding.
(Source: Global Times, Ctocio, Vivo)
