According to data released by IDC, China's market share of high-end mobile phones worth more than $600 reached 13.3% in the first half of 2022, an increase of 1.0% and 3.8% respectively compared with the same period in 2021 and 2020. The high-end mobile phone market has become a must. The change in the appearance of the iPhone 14 series and the improvement of the image are expected to become the most attractive selling point of the iPhone series in recent years. Together with other different upgrades, it can help$Apple (AAPL.US)$In the face of the impact of various high-end Android models, it is expected to consolidate or even continue to enhance its advantages in the high-end mobile phone market.

Appearance change: increased screen size and "smart island" design.For a long time, the iPhone mini series can be said to have a high volume on the Internet, but there is not much money to support it. Therefore, in the current depressed mobile phone market, cut off a small screen product line that can not bring actual benefits, pick up the previous large screen strategy with good results, and the propaganda slogans of "look bigger,"relay" is not only big "and" see you on the big screen ", not only accord with the mature business operation logic, but also bring more beautiful sales results. After all, an iPhone with a larger screen but a relatively cheap one can meet the needs of more consumers.

As a result, IDC forecasts that iPhone shipments in the next five years6.5 "more importantly, for ordinary consumers, the external change of the product is easier to be perceived, and the improvement of recognition rate can also stimulate the desire to buy. Therefore, for consumers with a more adequate budget, the Pro version of the "Smart Island" design can not only expand the screen share, display more information content, and present new ways of interaction; while the appearance of a change in the design language since iPhone X will also attract more consumer attention and interest, thus stimulating more consumer demand.

The main camera element is improved, and the image ability is further upgraded.In recent years, the pixels of the main camera head of mobile phones have been increasing, from 4800 megapixels, 5000 megapixels, 6400 megapixels to 100m pixels, and even 200-megapixel Android phones have been on the market. As of 2022Q2, the share of products with more than 48 million pixels in the main camera head of the Chinese smartphone market has reached 59%, and the share of phones with 13 million-14 million pixels has reached 26%, according to IDC. Among Android competitive brands, high-end flagship and mid-end product lines generally use main cameras with 48 million or more pixels, while low-end models also mainly use 13 million-pixel main cameras. Although relying on powerful algorithms, the image experience is excellent, but among the mainstream manufacturers in the market, only Apple Inc still insists on the 12 million-pixel main camera starting from iPhone 6s, even the iPhone 13 Pro Max with a starting price of nearly 10,000 yuan.

However, this year's iPhone 14 Pro series has finally been upgraded to a 48 million-pixel main camera, and the imaging ability has been greatly improved. For ordinary consumers, the upgrade of higher pixels of the main camera means a more intuitive improvement in the ability of mobile phones to shoot and record, which can bring a better image experience. In fact, in recent generations of iPhone, the upgrade of camera function has gradually shifted to the video field, especially the movie mode brought by the iPhone   13 series last year, which further lowered the threshold for professional video shooting. This year, the iPhone   14 Pro series began to support 4K video shooting at 24 frames per second, making iPhone continue to be the benchmark of video authoring tools.

Apple Inc still has a clear advantage in China's high-end mobile phone market.Under the impact of uncontrollable factors that began in the second half of 2020, head Android manufacturers were absent, while Apple Inc's share of the high-end mobile phone market in China was on the rise until it reached a three-year high of 76.9% by the end of 2021. Starting from 2022, the continuous investment of other head Android manufacturers in high-end flagship models, whether self-developed chips, folding screens, or images, has shown initial results, the product competitiveness continues to improve, and the market share begins to rise to 30.5%. But there is still a big gap with Apple Inc.

IDC thinksConsumer budget spending will continue to be affected, and the domestic smartphone market is unlikely to improve much in 2022.However, products that can bring differentiated experience can still impress consumers and promote consumers to change their machines. Even though iPhone 14, which plays the role of the main shipper, still has some problems, such as using the previous generation chip, not supporting high refresh rate, and slow charging speed throughout the system, the launch of the Plus model with larger screen size and the big changes in appearance such as "Smart Island", the continued improvement of the image experience, as well as the new body color matching, will make consumers have a more intuitive feeling about the upgrade of iPhone 14 series. In particular, the price of the low-storage version remains the same, which is likely to trigger a certain replacement boom, and then continue to consolidate or enhance Apple Inc's advantage in China's high-end mobile phone market.

However, with the domestic major Android manufacturers adhere to the high-end route of long-term investment, including products, services, channels and brands, will significantly enhance the competitiveness of Android phones in the high-end market. In addition, more and more Android manufacturers and supply chains begin to cooperate deeply from the technology pre-research stage, the mode of sharing investment and risk has been gradually generalized, and some of the underlying technologies are also more open. more and more customized and differentiated products are emerging. Through the accumulation of more time, from quantitative change to qualitative change, Android phones are expected to gradually gain a firm foothold in the high-end market, which will further impact on Apple Inc's dominant position in the future.The competition in the high-end mobile phone market will be more fierce.