小米官方出手！旧手机满血复活

Rising memory chip costs have pushed up prices of new smartphones, significantly dampening consumers' willingness to upgrade their devices. In response, many phone makers have launched official storage and battery upgrade programs for older devices, giving users a practical way to extend the lifespan and improve the experience of their existing handsets.

1. Official upgrade program updates: Xiaomi has rolled out an official battery capacity expansion service covering three models in its Xiaomi 13 series. The upgrade increases battery capacity for a total cost of 189 yuan, offering strong value for money. Huawei, Honor, and vivo have also rolled out their own official storage upgrade services of varying formats to meet expansion demand from users with older devices.

2. Practical tips for personal device upgrades: Non-official battery expansion is not recommended due to unaddressed safety risks. Users should prioritize official original-capacity battery replacement, which delivers major experience improvements for roughly 100 yuan. For storage upgrades, out-of-warranty devices can be upgraded via reputable third-party providers, but technicians must restore water resistance via airtightness testing after the upgrade. For devices with soldered-on storage such as Apple Macs, an external high-speed SSD is a lower-risk, more reliable alternative.

The smartphone industry has entered a period of intense stock-based competition. Brands can draw the following insights from shifting industry dynamics:

1. Industry and consumer trends: Sustained memory price hikes have increased new device production costs, pushing consumer upgrade willingness to near-record lows. Research firm Omdia projects that global smartphone shipments will decline 15% year-over-year by 2026, making incremental growth extremely difficult and stock-based competition the new industry normal.

2. User behavior and brand strategy: Legacy practices such as planned obsolescence and throttling performance on older devices alienate users and drive customer churn. Today, the optimal strategy is to "build up grain stores broadly and claim the throne slowly" — streamline product portfolios, focus efforts on high-end flagship devices, and control costs to avoid losses.

3. User retention and marketing direction: Launching battery expansion and storage upgrade services for older devices helps brands retain existing users that might otherwise defect to competitors, while also building positive brand goodwill at a low cost. Early trials from Xiaomi and user research from vivo have already validated the feasibility of this approach.

Sluggish incremental growth in the smartphone market has created new business opportunities in the existing device stock, and sellers can capitalize on these openings while managing associated risks:

1. Industry shifts and opportunities: Higher new phone prices have extended users' device replacement cycles, leading to rapid growth in demand for older device experience upgrades. Amid the difficulty of growing the overall market, older device upgrade services have emerged as a new growth vertical.

2. Viable business avenues: Sellers can apply for official brand partnerships to deliver authorized in-person battery replacement and storage upgrade services. For older models not covered by official programs, sellers can also partner with compliant, reputable third parties to offer upgrade services that meet unaddressed user demand.

3. Risk warnings: Sellers must strictly control the quality of components such as batteries and flash memory, standardize upgrade procedures, and offer clear after-sales guarantees to avoid safety incidents and customer disputes stemming from quality issues. Sellers should also disclose the impact of third-party upgrades on official device warranties upfront to prevent miscommunication.

The smartphone industry's shift to stock-based competition has reshaped user and brand demand, creating new insights and business opportunities for manufacturers:

1. Technological and production opportunities: Breakthroughs in silicon anode battery technology make it possible to increase battery capacity within the same existing device footprint, meeting both the large battery design requirements of new phones and enabling the rollout of official battery expansion services for older devices. Battery manufacturers can scale up production capacity for high-density silicon anode batteries to align with the new demands of handset brands.

2. Product design insights: As users extend device replacement cycles and demand for older device upgrades grows, contract manufacturers can advise brands to reserve upgrade headroom during the product design phase — for example, by adopting modular storage designs that simplify future upgrades and improve end-user experience.

3. Production strategy adjustments: With handset brands streamlining their model portfolios to focus on high-end flagships, manufacturers can adjust their production strategies to reduce the cost pressure of small-batch production for multiple models, while also exploring production of components for older device upgrades to unlock new growth.

The smartphone industry's transition to the mature stock era has triggered a boom in demand for older device experience upgrades, creating new development opportunities for service providers:

1. Industry trends: Users' device replacement cycles continue to lengthen, and a large share of users choose to keep using their older handsets, driving sustained growth in demand for battery and storage upgrades. However, official upgrade services currently cover a limited number of models, and official storage upgrades carry high price points, leaving substantial market room for third-party service providers.

2. Core customer pain points: For users looking to upgrade older devices, official services are either unavailable or too expensive, while third-party services often suffer from unvetted component quality, non-standard procedures, and a lack of after-sales support, leaving users with major concerns about safety and quality.

3. Path to a solution: Service providers can build a standardized, reputable older device upgrade business by strictly controlling component quality, standardizing upgrade procedures, offering professional airtightness restoration for water-resistant devices, and providing clear after-sales guarantees to address core user concerns and unlock new business growth.

Older device upgrades have emerged as a new growth track in the stock-era smartphone industry, and platforms can adjust their operating strategies around this new demand:

1. Market demand: Today, a large number of users with older devices have upgrade demand, and reputable service providers need traffic exposure. However, the current market lacks a standardized entry point for older device upgrade services, making it difficult for users to find trusted providers.

2. Actionable steps for platforms: Platforms can launch a dedicated older device upgrade service section, invite qualified, reputable component suppliers and third-party upgrade providers to入驻, establish unified service standards and after-sales compensation mechanisms, and formalize industry practices.

3. Risk mitigation: Platforms need to strengthen qualification screening for入驻 providers, strictly enforce component quality controls, clarify service responsibilities, and avoid user complaints from substandard services that damage platform reputation. Platforms can also partner with handset brands to launch officially authorized upgrade services to boost service credibility and attract more users.

The smartphone industry is undergoing a series of structural shifts, new trends and new problems that offer high research value:

1. New industry dynamics: The smartphone industry has officially transitioned from incremental competition to stock-based competition. The core industry logic has shifted from pursuing new user growth and shipment volume to retaining existing users. Multiple vendors have abandoned the traditional planned obsolescence model and launched battery expansion and storage upgrade services for older devices, exploring new business models and profit directions in the stock era.

2. New industry challenges: Growth of the AI industry has boosted memory demand and pushed up memory prices, increasing handset production costs and suppressing shipments. At the same time, AI phones have yet to deliver a killer application that can drive industry-wide growth. Omdia projects global smartphone shipments will decline 15% year-over-year by 2026, leaving the overall industry facing significant growth pressure.

3. Research implications: In stock-based competition, service has emerged as a new core competitive advantage for brands. This industry shift from user acquisition to user retention holds lessons for other consumer electronics sectors, and the underlying industrial logic and development trajectory are worthy of in-depth research.