Flagship phones are now going head-to-head.

On September 28, the Honor Magic9 series launch event was held in Beijing.

The new phone, which was originally scheduled to be released in October, was brought forward to the end of September. Even before the launch event, Honor revealed the price of the Magic9 16GB+512GB version at 5999 yuan, putting its cards on the table first.

This isn't the only player jumping the gun. Within a week, vivo and OPPO also released their new flagship models.

The battle for domestic flagship candybar phones, which was originally scheduled to begin in mid-October, has been pulled back to September this year.

The continuously rising storage costs over the past year have pushed up the price of the entire device step by step; on the other hand, the mobile phone market has long entered a phase of competition for existing customers, and users' replacement cycles are getting longer and longer. Price increases are inevitable, but if they are too rapid, they may push the already limited replacement budgets onto competitors.

This has led to an exceptionally tense battle among flagship models this fall, with entry-level versions vying for price, while high-end versions are constantly approaching the 10,000 yuan mark.

However, the anxieties of mobile phone manufacturers are no longer limited to the phones themselves.

As the incremental improvements in user experience brought about by continuously adding specifications to chips, imaging systems, and screens become increasingly limited, manufacturers are beginning to expand their reach outwards. Features such as instant-capture screens, teleconverters, gimbal cameras, and AI-powered clip-on devices are starting to appear in flagship product launches and product planning.

While vying for limited replacement budgets, the competition is also fueled by the search for new growth opportunities in the mobile phone market. This is becoming another aspect of the battle for domestic flagship phones this September.

Start early

This year's battle for domestic flagship phones started earlier than in previous years.

From September 21st to 23rd, vivo, OPPO, and Xiaomi released their new generation of flagship smartphones on three consecutive nights; the Honor Magic9 series is scheduled for release on September 28th.

Compared to the previous generation, vivo and OPPO's launch events were held 22 and 24 days earlier, respectively, while Honor also planned to launch 17 days earlier. The flagship battle, originally concentrated in mid-October, was moved to before National Day.

Comparing this year's new products with their predecessors, a notable feature is that while manufacturers are raising prices, the entry-level versions are still closely competing with each other, with price increases generally kept around 1,000 yuan.

The price of the 12GB+256GB version of the Xiaomi 18 Pro has increased from 4999 yuan to 5999 yuan, an increase of 1000 yuan; the same capacity version of the vivo X500 has increased from 4399 yuan to 5499 yuan, an increase of 1100 yuan; the 12GB+256GB version of the OPPO Find X10 has also increased from 4399 yuan to 5499 yuan, also an increase of 1100 yuan.

Costs need to be passed on to end users, but no one dares to raise the main price range too high first, lest they give up the limited replacement demand to competitors.

The higher the configuration, the bolder the manufacturers become in testing prices.

The Xiaomi 18 Pro's 16GB+1TB version has increased in price from 5999 yuan to 8999 yuan, a rise of 3000 yuan; the 18 Pro Max version with the same capacity has increased from 6999 yuan to 9999 yuan. The vivo X500 Pro's 16GB+1TB version has also increased in price from 6699 yuan for the previous generation X300 Pro to 8999 yuan, an increase of 2300 yuan.

The price ceiling continues to rise. The Xiaomi 18 Pro Max Transparent Special Edition (16GB+1TB) has reached 10,999 yuan; the vivo X500 Pro Max (16GB+1TB satellite communication version) is priced at 9,499 yuan, while the Creator Package with imaging equipment reaches 12,999 yuan. The latter cannot be directly regarded as the price of the bare phone, but 10,000 yuan is becoming a price benchmark that domestic flagship phones are increasingly touching.

However, during periods of rising prices, manufacturers are less willing to easily lose price-sensitive customers.

OPPO's choice is to proactively add an entry point for a lower-priced version.

Although the starting price of the Find X10 standard edition has increased from 4,399 yuan to 5,499 yuan, OPPO has added the E version to the Find X series lineup for the first time this year, keeping the price range below 5,000 yuan at 4,999 yuan.

Interestingly, the 16GB+512GB version of the Find X10 E and the 12GB+256GB version of the Find X10 are both priced at 5499 yuan. With the same budget, consumers can choose more memory and storage, or higher-spec chips and imaging, essentially providing a buffer for potential price increases.

Xiaomi, however, went in a different direction.

Last September, Xiaomi launched the Xiaomi 17, 17 Pro, and 17 Pro Max at the same event, with the standard version serving as the entry point for the lower-priced models in the numbered series. This September 23rd, Xiaomi only released the 18 Pro and 18 Pro Max; the standard version was not included in the initial lineup.

Xiaomi President Lu Weibing later confirmed that the Xiaomi 18 standard edition still exists, but will be released separately later.

This means that at least during the most concentrated flagship upgrade window this year, the starting price for Xiaomi's flagship phones will be 5999 yuan for the Pro model.

With its price advantage diminishing, Xiaomi is placing more emphasis on core hardware. The 18 Pro is the first to feature the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Ultra 6th generation processor, while the 18 Pro Max is the first to feature the even more powerful Snapdragon 8 Super Ultra 6th generation processor, which boasts a CPU clock speed of up to 5GHz and utilizes a new generation GPU, NPU architecture, and Offset PoP packaging.

Interestingly, the strategy of "offering more features at the same price point," which was previously spearheaded by Xiaomi, is now becoming a weapon for other manufacturers to counterattack.

The Magic9 now includes a Super Edition, with the 12GB+256GB version priced at 4499 yuan. With the national subsidy, the price can be as low as 3999 yuan.

The Magic9's 16GB+512GB version is priced at 5999 yuan; looking at other models, the vivo X500 and OPPO Find X10 are also priced at 5999 yuan, but they only offer 12GB+512GB; Xiaomi's initial launch price is also 5999 yuan, but the 18 Pro offers 12GB+256GB.

Regarding the pricing considerations, Honor CEO Li Jian frankly told media outlets such as Wall Street Insights and All-Weather Technology: "We are constantly trying to reduce our costs and improve efficiency, and try to take on the difficulties ourselves. It's simply impossible to make no adjustments at all. This decision was indeed quite difficult."

Although the positioning of the various products is not entirely the same, the overall value of a device cannot be judged solely by its storage capacity. However, Honor's decision to price the 16GB+512GB version at 5999 yuan ahead of time clearly indicates its strategic positioning: while competitors are raising prices, Honor is attempting to regain its appeal at this price point by offering larger memory and storage.

Beyond price, Honor is playing two key cards: AI and imaging.

One key element is AI. The Magic9 will be the first to launch with MagicOS 11, and the new generation YOYO will support long-term tasks exceeding 100 steps. Honor hopes to move mobile AI further from answering questions to proactively serving and executing tasks.

Another key element is imaging. This year, Honor partnered with professional cinema camera manufacturer ARRI to build a cinematic imaging lab. The Magic9 Pro Max features ARRI's dual 200MP imaging system, cinematic-grade bullet microphones, and superior audio quality.

"Honor will remain committed to investing in imaging," Honor CEO Li Jian told Wall Street Insights and other media outlets. "Our collaboration with Arri also has even greater potential for the future."

Some worry about losing customers by raising prices and choose to expand their product lines downwards; others accept higher entry prices and concentrate resources on the Pro series; still others take advantage of competitors raising prices and actively grab market share with more aggressive capacity combinations.

In a market where replacement cycles are constantly lengthening and costs are continuously rising, releasing a phone ten or twenty days earlier means getting it onto consumers' shortlist sooner. This year, phone manufacturers are vying for limited replacement budgets.

From a mobile phone to an ecosystem

With flagship phone sales under pressure, mobile phone manufacturers are now focusing on the accessories business.

The image is the most obvious line.

At the Magic9 launch event, Honor debuted its 500mm and 200mm teleconverter lenses, primarily designed for concert photography.

At the X500 series launch event, vivo introduced a "Snap Screen" priced at 699 yuan. It can magnetically attach to the back of the phone and wirelessly transmit images within a 10-meter range. When taking selfies with the rear main camera, recording audio, or setting up special camera positions, users can directly see the composition and control the shooting.

Around the X500, vivo continues to expand the compatibility with Zeiss teleconverters and professional image grips, turning the phone into a shooting platform that can continue to add lenses, screens, and control devices.

"More modes, more official applications, and the potential development of support for more other mobile phone products are all on the way. Our peripherals will expand outwards from mobile phone imaging, which is a long-term strategy," said Zhao Dian, Senior Director of vivo X Series Products.

The idea of taking photos on a screen is not entirely new.

In March of this year, InStone launched the Snap mobile phone selfie screen, which also solves the problem of not being able to see the composition when taking selfies with the rear main camera through magnetic attachment. It is priced from 499 yuan and emphasizes the wide compatibility with Apple and Android phones. Just two months later, Honor 600 series also launched the magnetic secondary screen "Magic Little Yao Screen", which supports preview composition, control shooting and four levels of fill light.

Furthermore, vivo and OPPO also plan to launch independent cameras.

On September 7, vivo officially announced its entry into the gimbal camera category and expressed its hope to bring products next year; OPPO is also eyeing the same market and has launched a gimbal camera project codenamed "Fuyao" internally, planning to invest a lot of resources.

Gimbal cameras are indeed one of the few consumer electronics categories that continues to maintain rapid growth. IDC data shows that in the second quarter of this year, global shipments of handheld smart cameras exceeded 5.88 million units, a year-on-year increase of 57%, with sales reaching nearly 15.7 billion yuan. Among them, gimbal camera shipments approached 2.8 million units, a year-on-year increase of 87%, making it one of the fastest-growing markets among the major product categories.

Smartphones still have limitations in scenarios such as motion tracking and long-duration shooting, while gimbal cameras are lighter and easier to use than mirrorless cameras, leaving a new imaging demand beyond smartphones.

For vivo and OPPO, this is a relatively familiar business. Over the past few years, both companies have accumulated capabilities in sensor tuning, computational photography, color, and video on mobile phones. As it becomes increasingly difficult to differentiate mobile phone imaging simply by adding a single camera, extending these capabilities to standalone devices has become a natural choice for building an imaging ecosystem.

Another line extending outwards is AI.

OPPO's newly launched "AI Mind Power Ball" is a prime example. This is a 9.8-gram lavalier AI device that can be worn all day to record information that users hear and think, which is then organized, correlated, and reviewed using AI. The trial price is 499 yuan.

AI Heartball can be used in conjunction with office software to support scenarios such as meeting minutes; it also plans to open up the MCP ecosystem to allow developers to integrate commonly used AI tools into it.

This leaves more room for imagination for these small hardware devices: if they are further integrated with office agents in the future, a single sentence that a user utters while in a meeting, visiting a client, or even while walking can be captured by the hardware, then handed over to the agent to organize, generate to-do lists, and even continue to complete subsequent tasks.

OPPO has not yet announced a direct collaboration between its AI Heartball and any particular office agent, but the entire office agent industry is already moving along this path.

In September, Tencent WorkBuddy launched its open platform and released nine co-branded smart hardware products, with partners including Plaud, InStone, iFlytek, Anker, and Momma. The integrated hardware covers more than ten categories, including smart glasses, recording cards, microphones, headphones, and smart wearables. The hardware is responsible for "listening, seeing, and recording," while WorkBuddy handles the understanding, planning, and execution behind the scenes.

It's still difficult to predict which of the following—screen snapping, gimbal camera, or AI lavalier device—will ultimately become a major product category.

Even the phone manufacturers themselves may not know the answer.

However, after the growth of their main mobile phones came under pressure, they began to pay more attention to these previously inconspicuous businesses: seeing the demand for selfie screens, they launched products that were deeply adapted to their own mobile phones; seeing the rapid growth of gimbal cameras, they extended the mobile phone imaging capabilities; seeing that agents began to need new voice entry points, they tried AI collar devices.

This is more like a broad trial and error process surrounding the mobile phone ecosystem.

As the marginal benefits of continuously optimizing parameters within a phone become increasingly limited, adding a screen, a lens, a camera, or an AI hardware component to the phone to create new experiences with new devices has become a solution for phone manufacturers to find the next growth area.

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