Insights into professional gaming phones: Black Shark ranks first in market share, with young male users as the main force

In the first quarter of 2020, with the hot development of the spring e-sports events, new product releases and pre-orders of professional gaming phones such as Black Shark and Nubia Red Magic were launched one after another. The cool appearance, professional configuration, and affordable pricing have attracted widespread attention in the market. Daily Interactive (stock code 300766.SZ) GeTui Big Data has conducted insights into multiple gaming phones under Black Shark, Nubia Red Magic, and ASUS ROG, exploring the stories of gaming phones in recent years.

The birth of gaming phones is based on people's entertainment needs. As early as 1993, some mobile phones began to be equipped with some simple games, such as Snake and Tetris. In 2017, with the rapid evolution of the mobile game industry, both hardware manufacturers and mobile phone manufacturers began to explore the gaming phone market. For example, the Razer phone released by the gaming equipment brand Razer was well received once it was launched. In 2018, under the momentum of popular mobile games such as Honor of Kings and PUBG, a series of professional gaming phones such as Black Shark, Red Magic, and ROG were launched one after another, and the market share of professional gaming phones grew rapidly. In 2019, professional gaming phones continued to update versions and further accumulated user volume. In 2020, with the release and launch of Black Shark 3 and Red Magic 5G versions, professional gaming phones officially entered the 5G era.

The market size of professional gaming phones has grown steadily, and Black Shark has the largest market share

Daily interactive personal big data conducts multi-faceted analysis based on the activation terminal data of the more popular professional gaming phone models on the market to reflect the situation of the professional gaming phone industry.

According to the big data of Daily Interactive Personal Push, the market size of professional gaming phones has continued to grow steadily from the first quarter of 2019 to the first quarter of 2020. In terms of the growth rate of market size, the market size in the fourth quarter of 2019 increased the most, reaching 24.08%.

In terms of brand market share, in the first quarter of 2020, Black Shark gaming phones ranked first with a market share of 71.61%. Black Shark, developed by Xiaomi Technology, is the earliest professional gaming phone brand in China, and its product design and professionalism are widely praised. Nubia Red Magic ranked second with a market share of 21.81%, especially the first sale of the Red Magic 5G version of the gaming phone in the first quarter of 2020, which effectively helped the brand seize the 5G opportunity. ASUS ROG phone is a cross-border product of hardware manufacturers switching to the mobile phone market. With its hardware strength, it has attracted a number of game enthusiasts and ranked third with a market share of 6.58%.

Judging from the distribution of professional gaming phone models in the first quarter of 2020, the top three are all occupied by Black Shark phones. Among them, Black Shark SHARK, the first professional e-sports phone in China launched in April 2018, ranked first with a market share of 26.94%, Black Shark 2, which was launched in 2019, ranked second with a market share of 21.36%, and Black Shark 2 Pro ranked third with a market share of 14.19%.

Professional gaming phones are the main market for young male users. Third- and fourth-tier cities need to be further developed.

 Daily interactive personal data compares the user portraits of professional gaming phones with the user portraits of the entire population to gain insight into the population characteristics of gaming phones.

Data shows that among professional gaming phone users, males account for as high as 94.98%, while females account for only 5.02%, showing obvious male characteristics compared with the proportion of the entire population. In terms of age distribution, users under the age of 24 account for the highest proportion of professional gaming phone users, reaching 62.28%, which is much higher than the entire population, and the proportion of users in other age groups is lower than the entire population. The mainstream purchasing group of gaming phones is young male groups.

From the perspective of urban distribution, the proportion of professional gaming phone users in first-tier, new first-tier and second-tier cities is higher than the total population, at 15.03%, 23.54% and 19.26% respectively. From the perspective of consumption level, the proportion of gaming phone users in high consumption levels is higher than the total population, reaching 46.06%. On the one hand, it may be that first- and second-tier cities hold events more frequently and promote gaming phones more vigorously; on the other hand, it may also be because users in first- and second-tier cities pay more attention to the gaming experience. With the gradual penetration of e-sports culture, the market in third- and fourth-tier cities is worth further development in the future. 

Professional gaming phone users are becoming younger, and joint marketing with gaming companies may become a new trend

Daily interactive personal push big data provides insights into the interest preferences of professional gaming phone users and the entire population, and presents the interest preferences of professional gaming phone users in the form of TGI.

The data shows that professional gaming phone users have relatively high interest preference TGI in picture social networking, interesting content, the second dimension, travel, soul social networking, and live streaming, reflecting their youthful characteristics.

In addition, Daily Interactive Personal Big Data also pays attention to the activity of professional gaming mobile phone users' APPs. The data shows that Douyu Live and King of Glory are among the top five active professional gaming mobile phone users. Among the top five active professional gaming mobile phone users' APPs in TGI, the games on the list are all very well made and have relatively high performance requirements for mobile phones. For example, Dragon Fantasy, which ranks first in TGI, uses many new technologies that lead the industry, and gamers are more willing to choose gaming phones to enhance their gaming experience. In addition, Steam, which ranks second, is a well-known online gaming platform, and YY Mobile Game Voice, which ranks fourth, is also a popular game auxiliary APP.

The development of professional gaming phones cannot be separated from the support of the gaming industry. It is understood that ASUS ROG and Black Shark have successively reached cooperation with Tencent Games to explore innovations in software, hardware and gaming functions to provide users with a more diversified gaming experience.

Overall, after a few years of rapid development, professional gaming phones have accumulated a certain number of users, becoming a unique market segment in the Android smartphone market and a manifestation of gaming culture. With the advent of 5G and the popularization of e-sports culture in China, professional gaming phones will have a longer-term development, but they will also face many challenges from mass mobile phone brands.

From: Daily interactive personal push big data