2022, the “bad year” of the industry, the “good year” of vivo

"Drink a glass of 1982 Lafite", here 82 is a classic year, and this generally refers to whether the climate and weather in Bordeaux, where the grapes are produced, are suitable for grape growth. The quality of the grapes is high, and the wine will naturally be "balanced".

If the wine year is used as a reference, 2022 can be regarded as a "bad year" for the consumer electronics industry. Almost the whole year of 2022 will be shrouded in "winter", and the market is no longer the thriving market that year.

But this does not mean that there are no good wines this year. vivo is one of the few wines that can be called "Grand Cru" in 2022.

On January 11, at the 2022 Online Annual Conference and Innovation Awards Ceremony held by vivo, Shen Wei, founder, president and CEO of vivo, said that 2022 is the "year of high-end breakthrough" for vivo.

In fact, this sentence does not mean that vivo has completed high-end in 2022, it is more like a statement of confidence. The reason behind it is that vivo has received positive feedback from the market in terms of brand, strategy, and products throughout 2022.

This is like a farmer in the Bordeaux region of France, who knows the climate and weather of the year, as well as the growth of the grapes, and naturally knows whether it is a "good year" or a "bad year" for wine.

The same is true for vivo. The high-end breakthrough confidence established throughout 2022 will not only have a profound impact on the company's subsequent actions, but also go through cycles.

2022 is the year when vivo's high-end breakthrough confidence is established

Throughout 2022, a total of more than 160 new phones have been released in the Chinese mobile phone market. If converted, there will be one new phone every two days, and the new phone market is still active.

But from an objective point of view, 2022 will not be so active. No matter which agency's statistics, it reveals that the mobile phone market is going down, and the overall capacity has shrunk.

Intensive new machine release rhythm, encountering a cold market, is like ice and fire colliding together, there will always be brands or products that will continue to "evaporate", and what stays is not luck and speculation, but the long-term operation of the company determined by the strategy.

Soon after the release of the vivo X90 series at the end of 2022, in addition to frequently topping the sales charts, Hu Baishan, executive vice president and chief operating officer of vivo, also said that 2022 is the year when vivo's confidence in high-end breakthroughs is established.

For vivo, which pursues "long-termism", the success of the vivo X90 series does not mean that the X series can rest on the credit book of high-end, but should regard the vivo X90 series as a signpost on the road to high-end , or a success story.

In fact, in the whole year of 2022, the results of the vivo X90 series are more like a "summary", which is the final presentation of the four long tracks of vivo's layout "image", "design", "system" and "performance".

For the vivo X90 series, in terms of giving people the feeling, it can actually be summed up together with the vivo X Fold and vivo X Fold+ as "a masterpiece".

In 2022, the folding screen market will suddenly emerge and quickly become a new high-end track. With the rapid maturity of the industrial chain, the perspective of competition will also change from what others do not have to what others have.

For folding screens, vivo's thinking is based on the fact that folding screen products first need to become a competent smartphone. In the process of product molding, the basic user experience cannot be abandoned.

The vivo X Fold and the follow-up vivo X Fold+ start from the user experience, and eventually become the folding screen products with the most complete experience and almost no shortcomings on the market.

The vivo X90 series focuses on the comprehensive strength of imaging expertise, and iQOO happens to be complementary to it. It is the comprehensive strength of the main performance expertise.

The iQOO 11 series introduced a 2K 144Hz E6 screen, which single-handedly set a new standard for e-sports flagships. Similar to the omnipotence of the vivo X90 series, the iQOO 11 series is also the only e-sports positioning product in the market with such screen specifications.

To say that performance and image are the internal performance of a product, then design and system are the basic aesthetic skills for a brand.

The vivo S16 series and OriginOS 3 system are the aesthetic expression of vivo's products in 2022.

Vivo almost perfectly expresses the "warm and jade-like" feel and vision from the craftsmanship and color of the S16 series. OriginOS 3 returns to the essence of the custom system, fluency, system consistency, and basic feature richness.

At the VDC (vivo Developers Conference), vivo did not describe a huge macro plan, but it was real. Once again, it started from the fundamental demands of users and continued to work hard on the basic skills of the system.

In 2022, vivo will still change its product line according to its own rhythm. The X series will be updated twice a year, and the iQOO digital series will also be an accelerated and stable iteration. Among them, the folding screen and the new S series will be launched in a timely manner, and it will be re-advocated on VDC. In order to build "solid" basic skills.

These products have almost the same user-focused core as vivo has insisted on building high-end products in recent years, and insist on long-termism.

User-oriented, in other words, thinking from the perspective of users, what kind of experience the layout of a technology will ultimately bring to the product, and what pain points will it solve for users, this is not only the core of vivo's products in 2022, but also the core of vivo's products. Persistence over the years.

The final four long-term tracks of design, image, system and performance are fundamentally based on user-oriented thinking.

The vivo X90 series has shown initial results in high-end, which is also a manifestation of vivo's long-term adherence to the results of the four major tracks. Especially in the current market that has become a stock, only creating great products and ultimate services will be a core path for market breakthroughs, which is also in line with the long-termism that vivo insists on.

Across the cycle, adhere to "long-termism"

It is true that there is no so-called perfect product at the moment. Every product is the result of the manufacturer’s choice, and it is also a process of continuous trial and error. This process can be a product or an adjustment of the product sequence.

Vivo, which has always insisted on high-end, naturally has such a process. It adopts a long-term technical route and product route, but it does not have a long-term nature.

In early 2020, vivo launched an APEX concept phone, which covers some future-oriented features, such as an under-display camera, 60W wireless fast charging, micro gimbal, 5-7.5x variable focal length optical zoom, and more.

Most of the new technologies we see on the X series now come from the trend that appeared in the APEX concept machine.

In addition, as early as May 2013, vivo launched the XPlay series, which has been released until XPlay6. In the original product planning, it was planned to form a dual flagship series with the X series, with XPlay on a large screen and X on a small screen.

At that time, a combination of large and small screens began to appear in the industry, and the next year's iPhone also adopted a strategy of one big and one small, which also created a sales myth of the iPhone.

But in the two generations of iPhone 13 and iPhone 14, they still want to rely on screen size to distinguish positioning, which is not as effective as before.

Going back to vivo, Hu Baishan pointed out the reason why the XPlay series was subsequently canceled, "Whether it is XPlay or NEX, they are all about the short track, and they are not long-term."

In the end, in the high-end product line, vivo only sticks to the X series, and sticks to the four long tracks of image, design, system and performance.

For long-termism, there is actually a very obvious trend. In the early days of smartphones, product progress routes almost all revolved around "numbers". The CPU changed from dual-core to quad-core, the screen changed from 720P to 1080P, and the memory changed from 4GB to 8GB. .

But now, simply doubling the parameters will make the competition unsustainable. The competition dimension of smartphones has also begun to be more subdivided, and numbers are no longer the only frame of reference.

The previous obsession with numbers, from the perspective of users, fundamentally brought a better experience, but now focusing on the perspective of users is a "long-term" point of persistence in the development of smartphones.

This is also vivo's understanding of the product, a trade-off. Previously, in the era of the Great Leap Forward in parameters, the user experience was actually easily skipped by the doubled specifications, but now, the user experience needs to be better subdivided, and continuous investment in these subdivided tracks is required.

As we all know, the imaging capabilities of the vivo X series are outstanding, and in order to have long-term competitiveness, vivo, which is closer to consumers, has more insight, night scenes are better, portraits must be more beautiful, and colors must follow memory colors.

To this end, vivo has also embarked on a core-making journey, focusing first on serving the long-term imaging track.

Vivo integrates the core needs that users are most concerned about, such as image tone expression, into self-developed chips through core algorithms, and cooperates with partners such as Zeiss and Sony to actively optimize the cooperation of external hardware such as coatings, sensors, and lenses. The whole set is integrated into vivo's own image processing system.

The purpose of this series of actions is very clear, which is to focus on the long track and focus on user needs, rather than making fuss on the superficial level of pixels and camera numbers.

The adjustment of the product line and the thinking of the long-term track are essentially a process of "choosing". These choices, the bright line is the improvement of the experience, and the dark line is the pursuit of the long-term track of technology.

Success is not in the past, but in the future

The mobile phone market in 2022 is a fierce, even a bit tragic market. This market cannot tolerate a trace of luck. Only with a clear brand strategy can it advance more steadily to high-end and seek a place in the market.

In terms of products and technology, user needs are the core, and good products and clear technical layout are the causes of planting, and the ultimate feedback is the brand.

It seems that we generally believe that vivo has made some achievements in high-end this year, rather than only believing that the vivo X90 series has gone high-end. Obviously, the vivo X80 series released in the first half of the year has made great contributions to the subsequent high-end advancement of vivo.

Focusing on the cause is a brand logic that vivo has been promoting to the outside world. Adhering to the cause, supplemented by the persistence of long-termism, is like the new design of the vivo X90 series, and finally sees the clear sky and the bright moon.

The four long tracks that vivo adheres to actually have two characteristics. One is that consumers continue to pay attention and have continuous high demands. The second is that on this track, vivo can continue to iterate, and there is room for improvement.

Around the long track, a series of methodologies such as "long-termism", can be seen from vivo's core-making layout and product research and development gradient.

Macroscopically, vivo does not plan to make a platform-level SoC, but lays out on the co-processor, and optimizes and transforms the underlying algorithm of the image.

In the latest wireless Hi-Fi solution, vivo did not rebuild the Bluetooth chip and other parts, but combined the Hi-Fi technology that has been accumulated for ten years, and used an upgraded version of the high-speed communication protocol to improve the wireless transmission bandwidth standard. To be able to support Hi-Fi level.

Coupled with the corresponding vivo TWS 3 Pro, it finally took the lead in realizing the breakthrough of full-link wireless true Hi-Fi.

These are the results of vivo from the perspective of users, and the causes from the perspective of product and technology research and development. The continuous improvement of the imaging capabilities of vivo products for many years, as well as the emergence of full-link wireless true Hi-Fi, have also given consumers a deeper understanding of vivo.

The closed loop of the brand and the closed loop of the business strategy are thus formed.

I really like Shen Wei's words, "The golden age of vivo is not in the past, but in the future."

In 2022, vivo has actually achieved quite remarkable results. Its products and technologies are already an indispensable part of the current market, but this is not the end point that vivo wants.

It can even be said that getting the first place in the market is not the goal of vivo. Getting the affirmation and positive feedback from the market is more like a "fruit", and satisfying users, and products that bring excellent experience to users for a long time, become a great brand that is healthy and long-lasting, and the foundation is everlasting, which is the ultimate goal that vivo wants to achieve .

Under the insistence of burying the roots and long-termism, the achievements of the market, or the achievement of high-end, is just a landscape in the process of reaching the ultimate goal.

What vivo really wants is to be able to make "82 Lafite" regardless of "good year" or "bad year".

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