Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 108 Operators Fight

Bai Qiwen then pointed to another phone and said, "This is the Blue M1. It uses the cheaper 7225 chip, the same 256 RAM, a 3.2-inch screen, and a lower overall configuration. The screen hardware does not support multi-touch, only two-point touch, and does not have a large storage space. Instead, it uses an expandable SD card. We plan to focus on the 1500 yuan market, so there is only one version, priced at 1599 yuan, and there are also mobile and telecom versions!"

Xu Shenxue also picked up the phone and took a look at it. He thought it was okay. After all, it was a phone that only cost 1599 yuan... In this era when various smartphone components are still relatively expensive, the cost-effectiveness of this phone is actually quite high.

The reason why Weiku Electronics can keep its prices so low is largely due to the technical support of Zhiyun Technology... This means that Weiku Electronics can save some R&D expenses.

At the same time, in the procurement of parts, Weiku Electronics also took advantage of Zhiyun Technology. Zhiyun Technology's parts procurement is relatively easy to lower prices because of its large scale and good prospects. As a younger brother, Weiku Electronics also followed and picked up bargains...

These two brother mobile phone manufacturers have joined forces to lower prices, so they can get relatively large price discounts on component purchases... If it were a startup mobile phone company or a traditional mobile phone company that has just entered the smartphone industry, the hardware cost would have to increase by at least ten percentage points.

Therefore, Weiku Electronics is able to keep the price of its mobile phones so low, as it has the support of a big tree.

At this time, Bai Qiwen pointed to another tray with several black and gray mobile phones and said, "These are the V-Cool phones we created based on the core of the Little Blue 1 and Little Blue M1 phones. They are V-Cool K60 and V-Cool V71."

"The Little Blue 1 and the Vico K60, the Little Blue M1 and the Vico V71, except for the differences in appearance, have the same internal structure to save costs!"

"Of course, we still made some distinctions in the system interface. After all, these are two brands!"

"Blue's smartphones continue to follow the young and fashionable route, while Vicoo phones continue to follow the mature and stable route, targeting different customer groups..."

A set of core, just change the shell to allow two brands to use at the same time. This is a trick used by Weiku Electronics in the era of feature phones. It can effectively reduce R&D and production line costs while covering more different types of user groups.

But... most ordinary people don't know that the Wecool phones used by middle-aged men and the Bluemoon phones used by young people, except for the differences in appearance and system interface, have almost the same internal structures... even the production line is the same.

After Xu Shenxue put down his phone, he said, "Very good. The completion of these two mobile phones exceeded my expectations. Now that everything is ready, let's start organizing production. Don't worry about the funds for mass production. I will ask Zhiyun Technology to support Weiku Electronics with a loan!"

“Build up the brand and market well!”

Bai Qiwen said, "Don't worry, Mr. Xu. I have been playing with mobile phones for more than ten years. I may not understand high-end phones, but I think I have some experience with mid- and low-end phones!"

Of course, Xu Shenxue is quite confident in Bai Qiwen's abilities!

Otherwise, he would not have been appointed as the deputy general manager of Weku Electronics, and would have been in charge of almost all the work of Weku Electronics.

In the era of feature phones, Bai Qiwen did an excellent job!

Relying on the two brands of Xiaolan and Weiku, Weiku Electronics shipped more than 400,000 mobile phones in the past May, of which offline shipments increased significantly compared with the past. At the same time, these online and offline shipments also basically rely on its own channels.

This means that the self-built channels have achieved initial success. In many cities in the south, especially in small and medium-sized cities, you can see connected Blue and Wecool mobile phone stores.

Either there are two stores next to each other, or there is one store with two sets of signs, one counter is Xiaolan and the other counter is Weiku.

But they are basically the same boss...

Of course, these street-side mobile phone stores are not actually the businesses of Weiku Trading, but just franchisees. The so-called specialty stores are just stores with a different sign.

Weiku Trading will manufacture and install signs for these franchised mobile phone stores free of charge, so there will be relatively unified store signs.

In addition, Weiku Electronics has also been exploring overseas expansion in the past few months and successfully entered the North African market in April. Although it is just the beginning and only tens of thousands of mobile phones have been shipped so far, it is still a good start.

It is not easy to achieve this level in such a fiercely competitive mid-to-low-end feature phone market... There are not many competitors in the smartphone industry, but there are a lot of competitors in the feature phone market.

Major international manufacturers, domestic big brand manufacturers... and the vast number of Huaqiangnan copycat manufacturers.

It is not easy to survive among so many competitors, let alone grow and develop.

In Xu Shenxue's opinion, Bai Qiwen's marketing ability is not much worse than Ji Chenghe's... Ji Chenghe is better at brand strategy, while Bai Qiwen has more outstanding abilities in specific channel construction and marketing.

The reason why Ji Chenghe is so famous now, and even frequently appears in various domestic newspapers and magazines, becoming a relatively powerful business tycoon in the country, in addition to his own abilities, is more due to the bonus of Zhiyun Technology!
Bai Qiwen is not well-known in the outside world, but that does not mean he is incompetent.

Xu Shenxue was quite relieved that Bai Qiwen was in charge of Vicoo Electronics. After Xu Shenxue inspected Vicoo Electronics and approved the two new mobile phones, Bai Qiwen also started the corresponding mass production plan.

At this time, new news came from North America.

Zhiyun Mobile's main global competitor, Apple Inc., officially held a new product launch conference and released the Apple 3GS at the conference.

This 3GS is almost identical to the 3G in appearance... It's even lazier than what Zhiyun Technology did with the C2. When Zhiyun Technology did the C2, it at least slightly improved the appearance... Apple was obviously a bit lazy.

However, the internal hardware configuration upgrade is still relatively large.

The CPU has been upgraded, with the main frequency upgraded from 128 to 256, and is paired with an equally upgraded GPU, and the running memory upgraded from MB to MB.

With such hardware and the unique operating mechanism of IOS, the overall operating performance of this 3GS has actually surpassed Zhiyun C1...

On the one hand, the hardware of Zhiyun C1 is a little outdated, and the Android foundation is too poor, with too many defects... Even though Zhiyun Technology has made in-depth modifications and has now launched the YUN OS2.1 system, it still cannot change some inherent defects.

The combination of the two makes the current Zhiyun C1 inferior in performance to the newly launched Fruit 3GS.

However, what Zhiyun Technology uses to compete with the Apple 3GS is not the C1, but a future flagship phone with more powerful hardware configuration and more complete system optimization.

It’s still unknown who will win by then!

By the way, Zhiyun Technology has been blocking fruits from entering the domestic market... Even if it cannot be stopped, it will delay the time as much as possible.

It's not just Zhiyun Technology that's blocking it... In fact, China Mobile and China Telecom are also secretly making efforts... Why? Because Apple Mobile and China Unicom have reached an exclusive cooperation agreement, and only WCDMA Apple Mobile phones are available in China.

Then China Mobile and China Telecom were very dissatisfied.

What? You still want to come in and help China Unicom grab market share?
It would be fine if there were no other means of counterattack, as it cannot be stopped anyway, but now we have a Zhiyun mobile phone... So they thought about delaying it as much as possible and wait until Zhiyun mobile phone releases its flagship phone.

In this case, Zhiyun Technology, China Mobile and China Telecom have reached a certain tacit understanding to some extent and lobbied through various channels...

As for Zhiyun Mobile's future flagship phone, this thing is no secret in the industry. Many people know that there is such a plan, but they just don't know what it will look like.

China Unicom has grabbed the exclusive contract phone rights for Apple phones in China, so what do you want China Mobile and China Telecom to do? They need to find a substitute.

And what is the only smartphone on the market today that can compete with Apple phones... well, even just barely?
There is only one, Zhiyun Mobile!

This has been proven in the markets of many countries. In many countries, such as the French market, the real smartphone market competition is basically between Apple and Zhiyun, and other brands have nothing to do...

Why they have nothing to do with it? Because they haven't developed the Android smartphone yet. They are still developing a bunch of various messy Symbian and WM smartphones. These things are completely useless... They are all beaten by Fruit and Zhiyun.

In order to snatch 3G customers, operators basically promote either Fruit or Zhiyun, or simply promote both. Users can choose the one they like.

So there was a newcomer in the mobile phone industry from the United States... and a startup mobile phone company from China, whose name had never been heard of before.

They have all topped the smartphone sales rankings in many overseas countries.

The strength of Zhiyun mobile phones is unquestionable.

Even the operators have high hopes for it... Especially the many operators who failed to obtain the distribution rights for Apple mobile phone contract phones, both domestic and foreign, all sent people to contact Zhiyun Technology.

On the one hand, they purchase Zhiyun C1 to compete with Apple, and on the other hand, they look forward to the future flagship model of Zhiyun mobile phone and the upgraded model of C1.

In fact, this is not a competition between Zhiyun phones and Fruit phones, but a competition among these wealthy operators for 3G users...and Fruit and Zhiyun just happened to meet, and then became mortal enemies in the eyes of outsiders!
Others may think they are mortal enemies, but the reality is that while the operators are fighting, Fruit and Zhiyun are making a fortune... They even have a tacit understanding when operating overseas. You choose an operator, I choose an operator, and then we drag the operators to compete with each other, and the sales are surprisingly good!
Operators are giving out subsidies like money-giving kids to snatch 3G users, while Fruit and Zhiyun are quietly counting money in the background... Occasionally they look at each other with a 'you know' smile.

It fully demonstrates what capital without borders means!

(End of this chapter)