In just one year, iQOO has become the fastest growing mobile phone brand in 2019

      iQOO was officially born in February last year. As a young brand that is only one year old, iQOO became one of the fastest growing mobile phone brands in 2019. According to GFK data, iQOO has become the top 7 brand in the Chinese market since the third quarter of 2019. Feng Yufei, president of iQOO brand, said that this move "completed the growth process from 0 to 1". Regarding this achievement, he commented: "Although the results are not dazzling, for the young iQOO, this makes us yearn for the future with more stars and seas."

　　On February 25, iQOO held an online press conference, and the protagonist iQOO 3 was officially launched. In terms of configuration, the iQOO 3 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 mobile platform, 55W ultra-fast flash charging, or carbon fiber VC liquid cooling can already be compared with the current flagship mobile phones, and the LPDDR5 + UFS 3.1 transmission combination leads the industry, and it is no exaggeration to say that iQOO 3 is "born strong".

　　Looking back at the development of the iQOO brand, we find that this brand, which looks like a "big brother" in the market, has actually just celebrated its first birthday.

　　iQOO was born in the cracks

　　2019 was a year of heavy losses for the Chinese mobile phone market. Brands continued to be cleaned up, and many companies well-known to consumers gradually became marginalized and withdrew from the mobile phone red ocean. According to research data released by canalys, 2019 was a year of heavy losses for the Chinese mobile phone market. The top ten mobile phone brands all experienced declines to varying degrees.

　　According to data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology in January, domestic smartphone shipments reached 372 million units in 2019, a year-on-year decrease of 4.7%, including 13.769 million 5G phones.

　　In 2019, domestic smartphone shipments reached 372 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 4.7%, including 13.769 million 5G phones. "How to survive" may have become the most common question asked by mobile phone brands last year.

　　The brand has reached its user ceiling, the development of mobile phones has reached a bottleneck, there are more and more homogeneous products, and the rising prices of components have caused the original thousand-yuan phones to no longer exist. These factors have also directly led to the sluggish market.

　　Of course, in order to awaken the dormant market, various mobile phone brands have tried their best. The frequency of new product releases has increased, and the marketing efforts on social media such as Weibo have been strengthened. Among many brands, vivo has bucked the trend and launched a new sub-brand - iQOO.

　　In March 2019, vivo announced the establishment of its sub-brand iQOO and launched the slogan "MONSTER INSIDE".

　　The iQOO brand name is derived from the abbreviation of the first letters of I Quest On and On, which means never stop pursuing and never stop attacking. "Born strong" has become the original intention of iQOO's establishment. While constantly pursuing the perfect combination of "extreme performance" and "unique experience", iQOO hopes to bring more surprises to young consumers.

　　It is not uncommon for vivo to launch sub-brands. Previously, Xiaomi had Redmi and Huawei had Honor. Sub-brands are not uncommon among mobile phone manufacturers. However, most of them are based on cost-effectiveness, making up for the vacancy of the main brand through low prices. However, iQOO is a little different.

　　Feng Yufei introduced that the original intention of iQOO was to share some "labels" with vivo and set sail with the strong backing of vivo, which inherited vivo's "dare to pursue the ultimate and continue to create surprises". At the same time, iQOO targets young people who pursue the latest technology, and iQOO is also a brand tailored for them. iQOO does not take the cost-effective route, but focuses more on technology and user experience. Looking back at the products released by iQOO last year, you will find that iQOO's main price range remains above 2,000.

　　A stable supply chain is the cornerstone, and innovation is the springboard

　　This time, iQOO 3 is equipped with Qualcomm's latest generation Snapdragon 865 mobile platform, and the storage is the first LPDDR5+UFS3.1 combination, as well as 55W ultra-fast flash charging, carbon fiber VC liquid cooling, etc. When you look back at iQOO's previous products, you will find that "flagship configuration" has become the standard configuration of iOOO mobile phones. The reason why iQOO can have these is inseparable from the early cooperation with suppliers, which paves the way for iQOO as a cornerstone.

　　iQOO 3 is one of the first brands to be equipped with Snapdragon 865. As early as a few months ago, vivo started to use it to debug iQOO 3, and continued to debug fast charging, heat dissipation and other technologies. Vivo's integration of the supply chain and technological innovation are unmatched by other brands.

　　A stable supply chain is one aspect, and innovation is another. iQOO is one of the first mobile phones to support 5G networks. In fact, vivo's research and development in 5G can be traced back to the 5G laboratory established in 2016. Feng Yufei introduced that vivo's investment in the 5G field is still relatively large. Vivo has accumulated more than 2,000 5G invention patents and submitted more than 3,000 technical proposals to the 3GPP standardization organization. iQOO carries the embodiment of vivo's 5G research and development capabilities.

　　According to the "China 5G Mobile Phone Shipment Report for the Third Quarter of 2019" released by research organization IDC, vivo has divided 54.3% of the Chinese 5G mobile phone market with its two products, iQOO Pro 5G and NEX 3 5G. In the third quarter of 2019, one out of every two 5G mobile phones sold in the Chinese market was a vivo 5G phone. According to statistics from third-party organization Gfk, iQOO has ranked seventh in the domestic market since the third quarter of last year.

　　“Cool people” are the driving force of iQOO

　　Why has iQOO won so many honors in less than a year? The reason behind this is the support of the "geeks".

　　Feng Yufei often mentions "cool users" and even changed his Weibo account ID to "cool user". iQOO has achieved its success today because of the support of cool users. Feng Yufei describes cool users as friends rather than customers of iQOO, a group of allies who fight side by side with common beliefs and friends who share common interests and pursuits.

　　iQOO continuously improves the experience of iQOO mobile phones by understanding the demands of geeks. For example, it adds corresponding elements to the phone body to optimize the gaming experience, or expands the battery capacity and improves the fast charging speed to meet the needs of battery life. iQOO did not launch a gaming phone, a battery life phone, or a camera phone, but instead gathered a variety of extreme technological elements into one phone, which is an all-round king without being a "partial student".

　　On its first anniversary, the company looks to the future with a firmer focus

　　Looking back at the past year, iQOO's development can be said to be the fastest and most mature among these sub-brands. The fastest is that it has entered the top ten in the Chinese mobile phone market with its stable supply chain, continuous innovation capabilities and strong performance. By constantly listening to the suggestions of "cool customers", it accelerates the mature practice of creating "ideal phones". Last year, iQOO was just starting out, and in the second half of the year you could see "Wouldn't it be nice to buy an iQOO?" in Weibo comments. In less than a year, the iQOO brand has been deeply rooted in the minds of consumers.

　　In the future, iQOO will have a longer-term vision and expand into India as its first step towards globalization. It is hoped that by the time iQOO celebrates its second birthday, the name iQOO will also appear in the global mobile phone market.