In the second half of 2005, Sony Ericsson launched an orange storm in China's mobile phone market with the introduction of W800c, W550c and other Walkman music phones. However, three years later, Walkman music mobile phones, once popular for fashion young people, have been hard to stimulate consumers' desire.

With the gradual loss of product differentiation advantage, Sony Ericsson's leading position in the field of music and mobile phones has gradually been replaced by NOKIA.

When Walkman meets XpressMusic, what kind of bitterness is behind Sony Ericsson's differentiation strategy?

Walkman: in the first half of the first half of the first half of the first year of 2005, the mobile phone "music teacher" in the differentiation strategy, the proportion of mobile phone sales with music playing function in the Chinese market accounts for less than 10% of the total market, and the real music concept mobile phone has not yet appeared.

Thanks to the professional sensitivity of SONY in the cassette machine market, the Eurasian mobile phone manufacturer sniffed the market potential with great potential. When the market leader NOKIA and Motorola were fighting for 300 thousand pixel camera phones, Sony Ericsson discovered the blue ocean of "music cell phone", and resolutely launched a series of music phones with Walkman as its sub brand.

Facts have proved that Sony Ericsson's choice of this opportunity to launch differentiated music mobile phone products is very forward-looking.

The core of the differentiation strategy of Sony Ericsson Walkman music mobile phone is product differentiation, which is mainly reflected in the precise target consumer positioning, the color of the publicity shell, the exclusive Walkman player for the fashion men and women and the relatively independent Walkman sub brand.

On the choice of target consumers, Sony Ericsson focuses on young consumers with a certain ability to earn money and pursue fashion.

This part of the consumer group has a certain purchasing power, pay more attention to the self expression benefits of mobile phones, and, in addition, it is very important that this group of people is willing to try new things, hate monotonous, boring life, like changes.

It is precisely because of the target consumer groups easy to accept the characteristics of new things, W800c and W550c listed on the fashion men and women are sought after.

With the characteristics of target consumers, Walkman music mobile phones also actively seek breakthroughs in appearance and color, and have adopted the orange color for a long time. In a silver and black sea at that time, Walkman music mobile phones have boldly publicized their personalities, and have well catered to the self expression desire of consumers in the target audience, which has become an important factor in stimulating purchases.

In the details of product design, Walkman mobile phone is also trying hard to please consumers.

First of all, Sony Ericsson has created Walkman exclusive music player for fashion men and women. At the same time, Walkman music mobile phone specially designed music playback keys, UI design is also ingenuity, and Walkman music mobile phone has provided users with unprecedented "music sense" on the use experience.

In terms of sound quality, Sony Ericsson also worked hard, including the design of mobile phone accessories, and everywhere showed the pure lineage of SONY Walkman.

With its Walkman sub brand marketing operation, music mobile phone has become the endorsement and exclusive product of fashion male and female personality.

Walkman is popular with many fashionable men and women when it comes to the market, especially when the price less W550c is launched. Walkman music mobile phone has become a popular mobile phone favored by urban men and women.

The success of Walkman's music phone makes Sony Ericsson find the feeling of being spoiled again after a long time.

The success of Walkman music mobile phone is a typical example of product differentiation practice. With the advantage of differentiation, Sony Ericsson has no difficulty in reaching the throne of music phone "Godfather".

The differentiation strategy of Sony Ericsson has made Sony Ericsson occupy the front edge of the music mobile phone market. Sony Ericsson Mobile has become a synonym for music mobile phones. Until now, in many consumers' minds, Sony Ericsson's core brand recognition is still "music cell phone".

Sony Ericsson, through its product differentiation strategy, helps its market share at least in two ways.

First, with the success of product differentiation strategy, Sony Ericsson gained the recognition of consumers in the early days of the growth of music phones, and was also praised by Sony Ericsson shareholders. The image of "music mobile experts" is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In addition, the establishment of Walkman sub brand has formed a division of other mobile phone brands for a long time and improved the threshold for competitors to enter the music mobile phone market.

However, the strategy of product differentiation is also a risk, because once the product differentiation is surpassed by competitors, the advantage that has been established before is threatened.

The success of Walkman music mobile phone is inseparable from its precise target market positioning, but the main user group of Walkman music mobile phone is also the most unstable user group. Once competitors introduce better products, they are vulnerable to the "countermeasures" of their competitors.

But in the final analysis, the decline of Walkman music phones is due to the fact that Walkman products can no longer meet the changing needs of fashion men and women.

The market is changing, but the function of Walkman music mobile phone is slow to upgrade, far behind other competitors, and can not compare with the black mobile phones that are playing well.

On the integration of new functions, Walkman phones are relatively slow, and the new functions that fashion men and women like big screen and GPS want to try, the performance of Walkman music phones has disappointed their fans.

Walkman has never been able to deduce his unique style in his design.

Motorola has a classic ultra-thin design, NOKIA has an avant-garde and sexy "twisting" design, while the sliding cover is deeply branded on Samsung, but Sony Ericsson has never been able to contribute to the design of mobile phones.

By 2007, the degree of homogenization of Walkman music phones has been very serious. New products are killing old products, and the attractiveness of Walkman music phones to replacement machines has been greatly reduced.

Unfortunately, apart from efforts made in product differentiation, Sony Ericsson has never strengthened the differentiation of Walkman music phones from other aspects.

Because of the large number of non copyrighted music in China, Sony Ericsson has not established the relationship with music content service of users through Walkman music mobile phones, but Sony Ericsson's investment has not attracted much attention in the aspects of sound quality and offline activities. Finally, the Walkman sub brand lacks diversified support and ultimately loses its vitality.

All the intension and extension of "Walkman" will remain on a small logo forever.

The analysis from the user level can help us find out the reasons for the loss of Walkman mobile phone users, so as to get a better understanding of the shortcomings of Sony Ericsson product differentiation strategy.

Q: why didn't you choose Sony Ericsson's Walkman music phone when you changed your cell phone?

1Walkman mobile phone, apart from this name, is nothing special. 44.3%2Walkman, a new NOKIA phone 27.5%3 that I didn't like at the moment, saw this NOKIA product very well. 15.8%4 used Sony Ericsson products for a long time, and had other brands fresh. 8.7%5 other reasons 4.6% data source: user consulting MobilePanel user survey, N=2562008 June.

Although Sony Ericsson has been making continuous efforts to improve the user's music experience, the SenseMe function has really made people love music when Walkman's latest 3 edition.

However, the key of the problem is that the essence of digital music is not only appreciation of music, but also the inner sublimation and spiritual experience brought by music.

And NOKIA knows how to play digital music.

NOKIA: copy Walkman, successfully cut into the music mobile phone market, the Sony Ericsson mobile phone has grabbed the opportunity to make NOKIA very unhappy, but in the brilliant days of Walkman, NOKIA is only staring at it.

In 2006, NOKIA had deliberately shifted its strategic focus to the mobile Internet, so NOKIA's attention to music phones has immediately increased to a new level.

In the eyes of NOKIA, music is a gold mine. How to play music mobile phone NOKIA already has its own little calculation.

On the one hand, NOKIA is busy signing a music content cooperation agreement with a record company, and on the other hand, it plans to launch its own music mobile phone terminal.

However, when the calendar turned to the second half of 2006, the Walkman music mobile began to slide in the eyes of NOKIA's envy, and opportunities began to appear.

Then, in October, NOKIA launched 5200 and 5300 two music phones at the same time.

Although NOKIA's music mobile phone listings are relatively low-key, NOKIA's three words itself means popularity, which is the reason for buying. NOKIA has successfully entered the music mobile phone market dominated by Sony Ericsson for two years.

The success of NOKIA is very similar to that of Sony Ericsson when it entered the music mobile phone market.

One is to grasp the timing and choose the favorable opportunity for Walkman mobile phones to decline; two, the product positioning avoids the Walkman mainstream positioning, but the price is slightly lower than that of the Walkman strategy; three, the product design is also publicized, the music playing key is designed in the prominent positions on both sides of the machine, the shell is bold in color, and the main hits are red; four, the music sub brand strategy is also used to fight "Walkman".

The difference between Sony Ericsson and NOKIA is that NOKIA understands the reasons behind the failure of Sony Ericsson Walkman, so XpressMusic seems to know more about this group of young people than that of NOKIA.

NOKIA, who has successfully cut into the market, is not satisfied with the limelight and has a more long-term strategic layout in the field of music.

Selling mobile phones is not the ultimate goal of NOKIA. Playing digital music is NOKIA's deepest thoughts.

Apart from providing music phones that cater to the fashion crowd, NOKIA pays more attention to building relationships with these young people through music.

So we can see that XpressMusic's continuous efforts around music are more obvious after NOKIA mobile Internet strategy has been established.

NOKIA's "differentiation strategy 2" redefines the concept of NOKIA mobile phones. The biggest difference between NOKIA and Sony Ericsson is that NOKIA will sell music phones as a step to pform its mobile Internet service providers. So, while selling products, NOKIA will continue to draw in the distance from users and maintain communication with users through a series of activities.

From the perspective of differentiation strategy, NOKIA is on the basis of product differentiation, supplemented by service differentiation. The former attracts users to join the XpressMusic camp. The latter increases user stickiness to retain users. The two complement each other and apply a popular vocabulary: "differentiation strategy 2".

Under the guidance of this concept, NOKIA takes the music mobile phone as the carrier and tool of digital music, and trains users to get digital music services through mobile phones. This is consistent with the pformation of NOKIA's service.

By providing music content services and frequent contacts, the user stickiness has increased, and the loyalty problem of users has been solved. With the ongoing promotional activities, NOKIA has successfully built a plump XpressMusic music mobile phone image.

At the end of 2007, NOKIA formed an alliance with universal records. In March 2008, EMI said it would cooperate with NOKIA in music content. In April, NOKIA joined hands with SONY BMG, and three months later, Warner joined the NOKIA music service alliance. At that time, the world's four largest record companies had established a partnership with NOKIA.

In the second half of 2008, NOKIA will paint its ComewithMusic activities on a global scale, so that even Apple's iTunes will feel the murderous effect of NOKIA.

How can such differentiation be done?

From the point of view of NOKIA's recent operation of XpressMusic, there are five key points: first, to provide digital music content to users, to enable users to purchase music that users like through NOKIA; two, to build a platform and window for contacts between singers and fans, so that users can learn more about their favorite singers and understand the latest situation of idols through the NOKIA platform; three, provide pop music ranking information, the latest MV and new songs auditions, and provide users with the latest information packaged; four, organize activities.