Shaomi's new brand smartphone "CC" is a strategic model for defeating OPPO and Vivo: Dr. Yamane's smartphone "Yomoyama story"

Shaomi's new brand smartphone "CC" is a strategic model for defeating OPPO and Vivo: Dr. Yamane's smartphone "Yomoyama story"

Xiaomi, who has achieved a complete revival and returned to fourth place in the number of smartphone sales share in the world (IDC survey, first quarter of 2019). It was in November 2018 that Xiaomi announced a partnership with China's female smartphone maker Meitu, aiming to expand its user base. And now the collaboration between the two companies is about to get into full swing. 

Xiaomi launched a new smartphone brand "CC" on June 21st. Product developers are said to have gathered a young generation born in the 1990s. It is said that the name CC was named because the 90's generation is "Chic & Cool". And CC products have "Colourful" and "Creative" features, and they have new features that are not present in existing "Mi" and "RedMi". The camera is the first of its functions. 

On 19th June Shaomi launched "Meitu AI Beauty Labo", and Mr. Woo Shin-ho, CEO of Meitu, was announced. CEO first launched Meitu in order to develop a processing application to make the photos of women taken with a camera more beautiful. We have a system in place for Xiaomi to back up Meitu's superior facial technology, which also develops popular facial applications on other smartphones such as Beaty Plus and other iPhone and Android smartphones.

It is said that Shaomi is located at the top of the global market share in the number of smartphones sold, but there are points that seem to be weak points in the future development. That's where the user distribution is biased.

Known as a smartphone maker, Shaomi was originally a software company that developed custom ROMs. The "MIUI" installed on Xiaomi was developed to make HTC and Samsung smartphones more comfortable. However, as the threshold for smartphone manufacturing has dropped, we have developed a smartphone equipped with that custom ROM and entered the smartphone market in 2011. Furthermore, in 2013, we announced the ultra-low-priced smart phone, Redmi (red rice), which was completely useless, and expanded the user base at a stretch. 

Looking back on the history of this kind of Xiaomi, it may be inevitable that the company's users will be biased. Consumers who prefer Xiaomi are layers that say, "A little comfortable and fast product" and "Price sensitive and I don't want to compromise on performance". In other words, men and the elderly are at the center. Consumers who want to “want to take a beautiful selfie” or “want a product with a good design and image” are actually choosing OPPO, Vivo, and of course Meitu, not Shaomi. 

According to Penguin Intelligence, the consumer preference for Chinese smart phone makers is that men prefer Xiaomi, women prefer OPPO and Vivo, and older people choose Huawei. The purchaser group of Shao Mi is 61.8% male, which is completely opposite to the fact that about 60% of OPPO and Vivo are female. Also, while OPPO and Vivo are mostly consumers in their 20s, Xiaomi has attracted consumers in their 20s and 30s. The purchaser's age group is wider and higher for Xiaomi.

In other words, although the smart phone of Xiaomi is a good deal at a high cost, the impression of "cool" and "fashionable" is weak. In 2015, Xiaomi issued the "Mi Note Goddess Edition" to appeal to female users, and adopted OPPO and Vivo, and adopted an idol for advertising, but the image from its inception, that is, "a technology company" I do not miss the impression that. 

On the other hand, Meitu smartphones have excellent facial features, but the difference with other companies has been shrinking year by year. Also, as Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, and Vivo introduce new products on a monthly basis, Meitu only with self-portrait terminals can not keep up. Companies have attracted the interest of consumers, both online and at stores, saying, "If you go to the store, there are some new products."

As a result, sales of Meitu smartphones were halved from 1.57 million in 2017 to 720,000 in 2018. Much of this diminished part seems to have flowed to OPPO, Vivo. In the case of Shaomi, while seeing the decline of rivals, they missed a sales opportunity of nearly 1 million units.

In the beginning of this year, Shaomi has decided to split the low-priced smartphone "RedMi" into a separate company. The strategy is to separate users from the high-spec, advanced "Mi" and Cospa's strongest "RedMi" lines, and sometimes to attract users by launching products to compete on the top models. 

But RedMi is now a earning brand for Shaomi. In the 2017 sales figures, RedMi's sales are 80.7% and sales 64.5% of all smartphone sales. Shaomi intends to further expand its smartphone business until it performs a rough treatment of separating its earning head RedMi from the body of Shaomi.

This strategy will probably work. As a precedent, Huawei has already developed "honor" as a completely different brand in China, and has grown to an overwhelming strength in China. There are high-spec models that are equivalent to the Huawei "P30" and "Mate 20" among the products of the honor, but because the user groups of the two brands are different, they do not batting, and as a result, Huawei's smartphone We are pushing the entire sales volume. 

As for Shaomi, the lineup of "Mi", "Mi MaX" and "Mi Note" remains in the Shaomi main body, but all are products divided according to functions, and the user base does not change. A completely new product development is necessary to make new users think that they want it because they are products of Shaomi and not of other companies. The new development is announced this time, it is the "CC" brand that pulls the trend of Meitu. 

According to Meitu AI Beauty Labo, the name of the CC brand smartphone is "Kotosen". When you look at the image , the high-quality rear camera gets up 180 degrees and doubles as the front camera, like the ASUS ZenFone 6 . Although Gimmick was ahead of ASUS in terms of gimmicks, it adopted the body design that was not in the previous Shaomi, and by incorporating the powerful face-effect effect of Meitu, the consumer who did not look at it until now It can be interesting.

So far, the official specifications and design of CC / Kosen girl and the release date are undecided. I would like to expect how much it will come out as a product that has defeated Shaomi's image.