Title Another Battle on June 18th Apple’s Sales Champion Position is as Stable as Mount Tai Who Will Be the Dark Horse This Year?

Date June 18th

【PhoneAuto】There are two major online shopping festivals in China: Mid-year 618 and year-end Double 11. They are the two periods with the biggest discounts in the first and second half of each year. As we approach the end of May, the annual Mid-year 618 promotion has officially begun.

Compared to previous years, this year’s 618 promotion will be the largest ever. For example, in Taobao and Tmall, the number of merchants participating in 618 and the number of discounted items are expected to reach a new high, with an estimated 60 million items participating in the promotion and 1.45 million merchants joining. The official announcement also emphasized that “this year’s Taobao and Tmall 618 promotion is the largest investment in history and is expected to be the promotion with the greatest benefits for consumers in history.” Jingdong also announced that it will hold the “largest industry-wide investment in 618” promotion.

PhoneAuto believes that this large-scale shopping festival is not only a financial test for consumers, but also a test of mental strength, with various shopping subsidies, deposits, and discounts making people dazzled. So, what are the worth-attention playing methods and strategies of major platforms for this year’s promotion?

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For “shopaholics”, the mid-year 618 promotion is really tempting. Among many categories, electronic products become the focus of consumers, especially mobile phones and TVs. The 618 promotion can be said to be the last hope for electronic product manufacturers in the first half of the year, and they all hope to seize the opportunity to boost sales. How will the increasingly competitive manufacturers perform during the 618 promotion?

In response to this year’s Mid-year 618 promotion, PhoneAuto has launched a special topic “Fighting again in 618”. We will focus on observing the e-commerce and mobile phone industries, and the topic of this article is “The predicted performance of mobile phone manufacturers during this year’s 618 promotion”.

As the centerpiece of the annual 618 promotion, smartphones have always been a “must-win” for major manufacturers. At this time of year, major manufacturers will bring unprecedented discounts and promotions, and this year is no exception. Whoever has a better sales performance will become one of the protagonists in the smartphone market that year, and manufacturers will do everything possible to attract consumers. The 618 pre-sales of major mobile phone manufacturers have officially started this year. Have you chosen your target for upgrading your phone?

In addition to the 618 promotion, the battle report is also one of the most concerned content. After the carnival is over, major mobile phone manufacturers will share their results with the public, including various sales records. So, what will be the situation of the 618 this year?

Nowadays, smartphones are generally divided into two camps, one is the Android phone camp, and the other is Apple’s iPhone camp. In the annual e-commerce promotion activities, Apple’s iPhone will achieve good results, and the title of “number one brother” will be firmly held in its hands.

Looking at the data from last year’s 618, a report released by the market research agency Strategy Analytics showed that affected by factors such as the new crown epidemic, consumers’ enthusiasm for mobile phones and other electronic products has declined. During the 2022 618 period, the total sales of domestic smartphones reached 14 million units, a decrease of 25% from last year. In terms of specific brands, Apple, Xiaomi and Honor are the top three brands in terms of sales.

Among them, Apple’s iPhone sales accounted for nearly half, about 7 million units. And this is also due to Apple’s promotional strategy of a significant price reduction. As we all know, iPhone is a high-end product, and its price is much higher than that of ordinary smartphones. Last year, Apple lowered the price of the entire iPhone 13 series by as much as 1,000 yuan, allowing many potential consumers who have been watching to become real consumers, making it the biggest winner of last year’s 618 on the three major platforms of JD, Tmall, and Pinduoduo.

In preparation for this year’s June 18th Shopping Festival, Apple is still using its “big price drop” strategy. Earlier, the discounts offered on JD.com showed that Apple has further increased the intensity of price cuts, with the highest discount reaching 1800 yuan. Such a discount intensity is not common and will be a huge pressure for domestic mobile phones. Currently, its dominant position is temporarily unshakable.

Last year, Huawei did not disclose specific sales results for its mobile phones, but its products sold well during the promotion period. According to the JD.com 618 promotion leaderboard, the Huawei P50 ranked third in the 4-6K high-end machine list during the 618 period. In addition, data from a certain e-commerce platform showed that Huawei also achieved a turnover of over 100 million yuan in the first 10 minutes of the 618 shopping festival last year.

For this year’s 618 shopping festival, Huawei has made more comprehensive preparations.

In terms of products, Huawei held multiple new product launch events in the first half of this year, bringing not only the Huawei Mate X3 and Huawei P60 series flagship phones, but also the Huawei nova11 series, which is specifically designed for young people, and updated the affordable Huawei Enjoy 60 series, with a rich product matrix to further grasp the needs of subdivided fields.

In terms of discounts, Huawei officially launched the 618 pre-sale promotion, and its flagship Huawei Mate50 series also started a price reduction promotion, with a maximum discount of 800 yuan; the latest imaging flagship Huawei P60 series has a maximum discount of 1000 yuan, which can be said to be full of sincerity.

Looking just at the first quarter of this year, data released by research firm Counterpoint Research shows that while the overall shipment volume of the domestic mobile phone market in the first quarter of 2023 has shown a downward trend, Huawei’s sales have grown by 41% year-on-year, and its market share has reached 9.2%. In addition, Huawei’s sales in the $600-$800 price range for the first time exceeded Apple, with a market share of 48%. This year, we have reason to believe that Huawei will achieve greater success in this year’s 618 shopping festival.

Xiaomi has always been a top brand during the 618 shopping festival, and it was the best-selling domestic smartphone brand last year.

According to official data released last year, Xiaomi’s cumulative payment amount across all channels exceeded 18.7 billion yuan, breaking the previous record and reaching a new high. In addition, Xiaomi’s smartphones ranked first in terms of sales and revenue on five major platforms, including JD.com, Tmall, Pinduoduo, Douyin, and Kuaishou, and its individual products also ranked first on several platforms. These achievements are truly outstanding.

Overall, Xiaomi accounted for 30% of the 14 million smartphones sold during the 618 festival last year, slightly lower than the 32% it had the previous year.

On May 23, Xiaomi officially launched its pre-sale event under the theme “Xiaomi 618 Technology Renewal Season”. The company introduced six technology-related products with discounts of up to 3,000 yuan and a total value of 1.6 billion yuan, making the promotion unprecedented.

Smartphones are the focus of Xiaomi’s efforts during this year’s 618 festival. New users who purchase a Xiaomi smartphone can enjoy huge discounts, with the Xiaomi 12S Pro being discounted by 900 yuan, the Xiaomi 13 series being discounted by up to 400 yuan, and the Redmi K60 series being discounted by up to 500 yuan. Looking at the product categories and promotional policies of Xiaomi’s 618 promotion this year, not only are the categories diverse and the mid-to-high-end markets fully covered, but the discounts are also the highest ever. With such a strong promotion, Xiaomi is bound to achieve better results this year.

Vivo also achieved good results during last year’s 618 festival, with a 6% market share ranking among the top five in terms of sales.

Official reports show that during the 2022 618 festival, Vivo’s official store on e-commerce platforms had over 60 million followers, its sales on JD.com’s flagship store increased by 50% compared to the previous year, and its sales revenue on Tmall’s flagship store increased by 75%. In addition, Vivo’s official website saw a two-fold increase in smartphone sales compared to the previous year. Among them, Vivo X Fold and Vivo X80, the flagship products of the year, were among the top-selling products on different platforms or rankings.

The official introduction states that during the period of vivo 618, there will be 5 surprise activities including new product direct sales, discount value, lucky bag value, delivery value, and membership value, with up to 1000 yuan off and up to 24 interest-free periods. The highest welfare can be up to 10,000 yuan.

The 618 battle has already begun, and the gunpowder smell is already strong. In order to “seize” more customer traffic during 618, vivo will hold a new product launch on May 31st, bringing the highly anticipated vivo S17 series. The vivo S17 series, which focuses on light and thin high appearance and photography, has attracted the attention of many young consumers and will help vivo’s 618 sales to hit the top three.

On May 23rd, OPPO announced the start of the 618 Renewal Season Carnival. It was learned from the official that during this period, many popular OPPO products will be included in the event, bringing up to 1000 yuan off discounts, up to 2000 yuan subsidies for old-for-new, and “bottom price” every day with full sincerity.

During this 618, the just-released heavyweight new machine OPPO Reno10 series, OPPO k11x, as well as the continuously popular explosive models such as OPPO Find X6 Pro, OPPO Find N2 Flip, and OnePlus Ace 2 can enjoy different preferential policies during the event.

Last year’s 618, OPPO won the top three sales and sales revenue of the Android phone brand official flag on Tmall platform, the top two sales revenue of the official live broadcast room of the phone category, and the top one in the short video of the phone category in the past 30 days. This year, with the help of more high-quality models, OPPO is expected to achieve better results.

Honor is also an irresistible force in this 618.

Last year’s 618, Honor continuously reported victories. Official data showed that Honor Mall’s sales on June 18th increased by 135% year-on-year, winning the top spot in the sales of Android phone brands on Tmall platform. The Honor phone series 4000+ high-end products on JD.com had a 618 full-process sales increase of 400% year-on-year. After many efforts, Honor won the runner-up of domestic mobile phone brand sales during last year’s 618, and its market share increased from 6% in the previous year to 10%.

As for this year’s 618, Honor is also going all-out. Its popular models, the Honor Magic 5 series, have a maximum discount of 500 yuan, while the Honor 80 GT can be reduced by up to 800 yuan. In addition, from May 23rd to May 31st, users can participate in the points expansion activity, with a maximum of 200 yuan cashback.

Furthermore, Honor will also hold a new product launch event on the eve of 618. The company will release a new generation of digital series, the Honor 90 series, on May 29th, injecting new vitality into the market. Can Honor maintain its top three position this year? Let’s wait and see.

For consumers, 618 is a “price carnival”; for manufacturers, it is a “price war”. Who will emerge victorious in this year’s 618?

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