用英语的第80天：中国的手机业，OPPO等新贵正主导市场

Smartphones in China: Upstarts on top

How OPPO and Vivo are beating Apple, Xiaomi and the gang

[1] DONGGUAN, a southerly Chinese city near Hong Kong, is better known for cranking out cheap trinkets（制造廉价的小饰品） than for producing high-end equipment（高端设备） of any kind. And yet, amid the grit and grime（在尘土之中） is a gleaming low-rise factory（低层工厂） producing some 50m smartphones a year for OPPO, a firm started by China’s BBK Electronics but which is now run independently.

[2] Inside, as well as the usual assembly lines（组装线） and serried（密集的） workers, the factory has dozens of staff in quality engineering and testing, conducting 130 different tests on OPPO’s phones before they are released to the market. Such zealous pursuit of quality（对于质量的狂热追求） would be expected of factories that produce phones for Apple—the world-class facilities（世界一流的设施） run by Taiwan’s Foxconn in nearby Shenzhen house similar teams. But it is unusual at a firm that makes relatively inexpensive handsets(相对平价的手机） for the local market.

[3] OPPO, and its sister firm, Vivo, also a child of BBK, started out in 2004 and 2009 respectively, making cheap and cheerful phones like plenty of other obscure （无名的）Chinese manufacturers. They probably didn’t even register on Apple’s radar. Xiaomi was the Chinese handset-maker to watch; urban sophisticates, enticed by viral marketing（病毒式营销）, flocked to its slick devices. 

But in June 2016 OPPO’s R9, which costs around $400, overtook the iPhone, which is priced at twice that, as China’s best-selling handset. Vivo, which targets younger consumers with lower prices, is also surging.

然而到了2016年6月，售价约为400美元的OPPOR9超越了iPhone这款价格两倍于它的手机，成为中国最为畅销的手机。以更低的价格瞄准更年轻的消费者市场的Vivo销量也在不断增加。

[4] The two brands’ achievements are remarkable. Two years ago they were struggling to join China’s top five smartphone makers; now they are among the biggest five globally. One out of every three smartphones sold in China（在中国售出的智能机里每三台就有一台） in the third quarter of 2016 carried one of their brands; in 2012 their combined share（合并市场份额） was below 3%.

[5] That should give Apple pause. Tim Cook, its boss, predicted in 2013 that China would become his firm’s biggest market. But iPhone sales there have stagnated（停滞） (see chart). In the third quarter its market share fell to 7.1%, down from 11.4% a year earlier.

[6] Xiaomi has even more reason to fret（小米则更有烦恼的必要了）. About six years ago it bet on an “asset light” strategy, meaning it relied almost entirely on selling its phones online. This worked brilliantly when the overall market（整体市场） for smartphones was growing, and the richest cities, with the largest number of tech-aware consumers, were booming. Xiaomi was once valued at some $46bn, but its fortunes in China have plunged.

[7] That is chiefly due to the fact that growth has shifted sharply to the rising middle classes in smaller cities. Consumers there are less experienced with smartphones than their fancier cousins in Beijing and Shanghai, and are wary of（提防） buying them online. They want to touch and compare handsets. OPPO and Vivo spotted this difference early. OPPO in particular shot to the top because it invested heavily in bricks-and-mortar retail distribution（传统的零售渠道） in lower-tier cities. Today the firm’s phones are sold at some 200,000 retail outlets across the mainland, which gives its salesmen the chance to coddle customers and nudge them to buy pricier phones（这让它的销售员们有机会去取悦、推动消费者们买更贵的手机）.

[8] At first, OPPO’s strategy was masterminded（策划） by Duan Yongping, founder of BBK, who began by selling basic electronics. He is known in China as “Duanfett”, a play on Warren Buffett, because of his financial acumen（财务智慧） and also his admiration for MrBuffett (he paid over $600,000 at an auction to have lunch with him in 2007). Mr Duan has since retired, but still influences the firms’ cultures.

[9] It took discipline not to be waylaid by the striking (though short-lived) success of Xiaomi’s hype-fuelled internet strategy. Many other companies tried to copy it. From 2011 to 2013, insiders say, OPPO looked hard at（死死盯着） expanding its online sales channels, but decided against it. Sky Li, managing director of OPPO’s international mobile business, saysthe reason lies in her firm’s long-held adherence to the philosophy of ben fen（源于她公司长期坚持的“本分”哲学）—loosely translated, sticking to one’s knitting.

[10] Instead, OPPO became still more expert at incentivizing its physical retailers（更加擅长激励它的实体零售商）. It has shown itself willing to share some of its profits with local stores. It uses a sophisticated system of subsidies（补贴） that vary by model and season. One retailer in a small town in Sichuan says that although he sells many brands of smartphones, OPPO’s generous subsidies make him extra-eager to peddle its wares（使他拥有更多的激情去推销产品）.

[11] That has its costs, of course: OPPO does not disclose the size of its total subsidies nor its profit margin（利润率）, which may be low compared with other smartphone makers. Fat profits are hard to come by in China’s giant smartphone market. Because it is simple for firms to outsource almost every aspect of phonemaking, from designing components and chipsets（设计组件和芯片集） to contract manufacturing（合同制造）, the barrier to entry is low (the physical networks that OPPO and Vivo have built will be far harder to replicate than an online presence). Teeming firms means vicious price competition（激烈的价格竞争）, especially for cheaper phones. The price of a Chinese smartphone may drop to as little as $50, analysts reckon.

[12] Pressures at home explain why Chinese firms are also looking abroad.

在本土市场的压力，解释了为什么中国的公司同样放眼于海外。

In the fourth quarter of 2016, Xiaomi and Vivo were vying with each other（相互竞争） behind Samsung in the race for second place in India’s smartphone market. Huawei, a local telecoms- equipment giant that ranks third in the domestic market, already makes two fifths of its sales outside China（使其在中国之外的销量占到了总量的五分之二）; Shao Yang of its consumer-business group says this share will rise to three-fifths within five years. OPPO is already a force in India, and is in second place in South-East Asia behind Samsung. It has opened a new marketing centre in Cairo to spearhead（先锋的） expansion in Africa and the Middle East.

[13] Kevin Wang of IHS Markit, a research firm, nonetheless reckons that a round of consolidation must be on its way. Within five years, he reckons, most of the 50 or so local Chinese phone manufacturers will be gone. If OPPO and Vivo can stay at the summit（保持在顶峰位置）, that would be nearly as surprising as the dizzying speed of their ascent.

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