Huawei, OPPO, and vivo each have their own ideas, and the division of 5G chip camps staged a "Three Kingdoms"

Latest update time：2019-11-30

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In the 5G era, Huawei, OPPO, and vivo, the three major players in the Chinese mobile phone market, have made different strategic choices. What are their thoughts on the huge historical opportunity of 5G?

In June this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology officially issued 5G licenses, which also means that China has officially entered the first year of 5G commercial use. Faced with this epoch-making transformation node, all mobile phone companies have placed their future growth points on 5G. At the 5G World Conference not long ago, China Mobile set a small goal to be achieved in 2020: "Develop 70 to 80 million 5G users."

From the enthusiasm shown by users when the operators' 5G packages were officially launched on November 1, to the small goals set by China Mobile this time, it can be foreseen that 2020 will be the year when all manufacturers' 5G mobile phones establish their status in the industry - the battle is imminent.

Each manufacturer has also formulated different strategies based on its own situation: Huawei, relying on its all-round leadership in 5G technology, grabbed the first 5G mobile phone access license and commercialized the first 5G mobile phone; OPPO, as usual, has been steady, making a lot of reserves in 5G patents, and continuously polishing the user experience of its products, waiting for the best time in the Chinese market; vivo has successively released two high-end and mid-range mobile phones, intending to circle a larger user group.

The top three players in the market not only adopted different strategies in terms of product rhythm, but also had "differences" in the choice of 5G chips, a core component: Huawei used self-developed Kirin chips, vivo and Samsung jointly developed, and OPPO and Qualcomm cooperated deeply. With the battle imminent, what are these leading manufacturers thinking?

No.1

5G chip "fighting landlords"

According to the 3GPP plan, the 5G standard is divided into two stages: NSA (non-standalone networking) and SA (standalone networking). From a technical perspective, although the cost is higher, SA, which directly accesses the 5G core network, is obviously more advantageous than NSA, which still accesses the traditional 4G core network.

At present, most of the 5G mobile phones released in the world are single-mode, that is, they only support NSA, but the industry has reached a consensus that NSA is just a more convenient way to transition to the initial network. Wu Hequan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, also said in an interview with Dongdong Notes that SA will be the ultimate solution for 5G mobile phones in the future. So we see that the 5G version of the Mate30 series released by Huawei is already a dual-mode mobile phone. In the domestic market, OPPO has not been in a hurry to take action and is waiting for the "perfect solution."

Obviously, dual-mode 5G SoC chips will be the mainstream of the market next year. Looking at the domestic smartphone market, there are only three mainstream dual-mode 5G SoC providers: Huawei's HiSilicon Kirin, Samsung's Orion and Qualcomm's Snapdragon, which are also the traditional strong players in smartphone SoC. According to the latest data released by IDC, the top three sales in the domestic mobile phone market in the third quarter were Huawei, vivo and OPPO, but these three made completely different choices on 5G SoC.

As the first company to release 5G mobile phones in the domestic market, Huawei naturally continued to use its own Kirin chips. Moreover, Huawei's Kirin 990 is also the only dual-mode 5G SoC currently in mass production. Vivo chose to work closely with Samsung to jointly develop the Exynos 980 chip. Earlier this month, vivo officially announced the dual-mode 5G SoC Exynos 980 jointly developed with Samsung. OPPO chose to join forces with Qualcomm, a traditional powerhouse in the field of mobile chips: On November 20, OPPO announced at the launch conference of the new system ColorOS 7 that in addition to ColorOS 7, the OPPO Reno3 series to be released next month will also be equipped with Qualcomm's dual-mode 5G SoC. 5G mobile phones will be launched in the Reno3 series.

No.2

The logic behind the three different choices

The dual-mode 5G SoCs used by the top three players in the market are completely different, which is a very interesting phenomenon. Of course, every decision made by a company has its own considerations, and this is also the case with 5G chips.

Huawei's choice is easy to understand. HiSilicon Kirin chips are its own products. Huawei has invested heavily in research and development for many years. It has a certain leading advantage in 5G and AI, which is also one of Huawei's core competitiveness. And from the current point of view, Kirin 990 is the only dual-mode 5G SoC that has been mass-produced and put on the market, and it does have a certain time advantage.

The cooperation between vivo and Samsung is actually quite surprising. Before its official announcement, I believe few people would have thought that the two companies would come together. The reason why vivo chose to jointly develop 5G chips with Samsung is, on the one hand, based on Samsung's achievements in the semiconductor field; on the other hand, since we have just entered the 5G era, the 5G mobile phone market has developed in a blowout manner, but there are not many choices of dual-mode 5G SoCs on the market, so vivo's choice to cooperate with Samsung in research and development may be a good choice for both parties.

OPPO continues to choose to cooperate with Qualcomm, which has always been strong in the chip field. Qualcomm, which has been leading in research and development, has a deep accumulation in the field of communications for so many years. As the core supplier at the top of the industry, Qualcomm began to invest heavily in the research and development of 5G more than 10 years ago. As the world's first 5G modem released, the Snapdragon X50 has played a huge role in the industry's 5G testing, certification, the launch of the first batch of 5G terminals and the acceleration of the entire 5G commercial process in the past three years, which has also enabled Qualcomm to accumulate more experience and advantages. So far, there are more than 90 5G mobile phones and more than 230 5G terminals in the world that use Qualcomm's 5G solutions, which also shows Qualcomm's position in the industry from the side.

No.3

5G's highlight moment has finally arrived

In fact, a question that everyone is thinking about in the second half of this year is when is the best time to get 5G mobile phones?

The general consensus in the market is that there will be a wave of 5G phone replacement next year. Last week, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said at the World 5G Conference that the 5G phone replacement wave is coming and the 5G market is likely to take off next year.

The smartphone market needs high-end flagship products with powerful performance, but at this time when 5G is just beginning, the market needs dual-mode 5G products that can meet the needs of more consumers and cover a larger group. At the same time, scale will truly promote the popularization of 5G. Whether it is based on market first-mover or cost considerations, or a more mature experience, the three major manufacturers have undoubtedly made their own choices in the early days of the 5G era. Huawei has Kirin, vivo has introduced Samsung, and OPPO has joined hands with Qualcomm. So this is not just a game for manufacturers, but also a competition for chips. The first battle of the first year of 5G commercialization will be extremely exciting.

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