Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 149 S10 Press Conference (I)

Friday, June 10, .

Outside the Shenzhen International Convention Center, just like last year's S9 launch conference, a large number of media reporters gathered.

There are not only domestic media reporters, but also a large number of foreign media reporters.

Media professionals from all over the world still remember how big of a sensation the S9 caused when it was released last year. Any press release they wrote could attract a lot of readers.

Zhiyun flagship launch conference, just these few words added together are a guarantee of traffic.

This year, the overall public opinion and even public attention are even higher than last year.

Last year, Zhiyun Technology had just emerged not long ago and initially made a name for itself with the C1 mobile phone. The reason why it attracted so much attention at the time was mainly due to the support of various operators!

When they were competing for contract phones, in order to fight against the combination of other operators and Fruit, they decided to cooperate with Zhiyun.

In fact, local operators have made great efforts in operation and promotion in various overseas regions.

This year, as major mobile phone manufacturers have successively launched usable mid- and low-end Android smartphones, many operators have more choices.

In the field of high-end contract phones, the S series is still dominated by the Fruit and Zhiyun S series... If operators want to counter the strong impact of the Fruit 4 and expand or stabilize the 3G high-value user base, they must also rely on Zhiyun's new flagship S10.

Operators from various countries have in-depth cooperation with Zhiyun Technology, and even actively promote Zhiyun phones. That is out of consideration for interests...for their own interests.

If there were no Zhiyun phones, they would also choose phones of other brands, but the results would not be as good.

Therefore, after entering June, operators from various countries have paid close attention to the new flagships of Apple and Zhiyun.

A few days ago, Apple released the Apple 4, which triggered a collective carnival among the cooperating operators, and then all kinds of promotion!

Now, it is the turn of Zhiyun Technology's cooperative operators to wait for the release of Zhiyun S10. As soon as S10 is released, no matter what the phone is made of, all kinds of hype must be arranged, and then it will compete with other operators' contract phones Fruit 4.

Similar situations also exist with cooperative channel partners in various countries.

In addition to the operators, the companies in Zhiyun's supply chain are also paying close attention as always... This year, there are even more large-scale supply chain manufacturers of higher levels who came to attend the press conference and finally took the stage to speak.

Even Qualcomm's CEO came over and prepared to speak on stage!

Why? Because Zhiyun Technology is currently the largest customer of Qualcomm's mobile phone chip business... It is also the core customer of its high-end chips, and the only customer of its new top-level flagship SOC8255/8655.

To some extent, Zhiyun phones, especially its S series flagship models, represent the face of Qualcomm's high-end mobile phone SOC chips.

Even how much money Qualcomm's mobile phone SOC can make depends largely on how well Zhiyun phones sell!
Because in the current high-end smartphone market, and even in part of the mid-to-high-end market, there are only three major players: Fruit, Zhiyun, and Sixin.

Fruit has now started to develop its own chips, and the Fruit 4 uses the A4 chip.

The four-star chip they use is also their self-developed chips.

Only Zhiyun uses Qualcomm chips... and not just Qualcomm chips, they actually also use Texas Instruments chips.

For the chip solution of the S10 mobile version, Texas Instruments has also specially developed a special chip for Zhiyun Technology, which is based on the enhanced OMAP3640 chip. Well, in fact, when producing the 36 series, they selected the cores with good physique, and then overclocked the chip 3650... The main frequency reached 1.2GHZ.

This thing is a special chip, specially made for Zhiyunke's S10!

The reason why Texas Instruments has to develop such a special overclocking version is that they are very helpless, because their next-generation chip research and development speed is too slow, and they cannot keep up with the pace of Zhiyun Technology, nor can they keep up with the pace of their main competitor Qualcomm.

In order to cooperate with Zhiyun Technology, Qualcomm launched the 1.4/8255 series chips with more powerful performance and a main frequency of 8655GHZ in the first half of the year. However, the next-generation chip developed by Texas Instruments has not yet been taped out...

However, the needs of Zhiyun Technology, a super large customer, cannot be ignored. Their new flagship is waiting to be released, but the mobile version of the chip is not yet available... Zhiyun Technology said that if Texas Instruments cannot supply, then we will use the bare metal version of Qualcomm's 8X55 series.

Qualcomm has been trying to sell their pure mobile phone chips to Zhiyun Technology, that is, pure chips without communication baseband, to meet Zhiyun Technology's mobile version needs.

The mobile version of Zhiyun mobile phone adopts the technical solution of single mobile phone SOC and external TD communication baseband... It is not necessary to use it this way because there is no flagship SOC chip with integrated TD communication baseband on the market.

Faced with the threat from its competitor Qualcomm, Texas Instruments was ruthless and directly launched an overclocked version of the 3650 chip... and even sold it at a reduced price, and ultimately won the order.

Then they will continue to work hard on their new generation flagship chip, which is a dual-core chip. Zhiyun Technology remains optimistic about this... But Xu Shenxue personally is not optimistic about the future of Texas Instruments. It is already falling behind, and will fall further and further behind in the future.

However, Zhiyun Technology is also developing its own SOC chip, but it has not been produced yet. Even if it is produced, it is only a low-end chip equivalent to the 7277 level... This thing can at most be used for low-end mobile phones of Weiku Electronics, not even for Zhiyun's C series.

As for the truly high-end flagship chips, it will probably take a few more years.

Therefore, the strategic cooperation between Zhiyun Technology, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments will last at least two to three years, or even longer... Even if flagship chips are available in the future, some models will choose to use Qualcomm or Texas Instruments chips due to cost control and other factors.

Therefore, in the short term, Zhiyun Technology's order support for Texas Instruments will not be weakened... Otherwise, Qualcomm will be the only mobile phone SOC supplier left... That would be putting oneself on the line, and Xu Shenxue would try his best to avoid this situation if there is any possibility.

In order to show its importance to the cooperation with Zhiyun Technology, Texas Instruments also sent heavyweight executives to take charge.

The same is true for chips, and the screen field is no exception. LG and Sharp, two screen suppliers, also sent people to support the event. Zhiyun Technology is their largest customer and the only customer for their high-end large-size screens. Almost all the supply chain companies in other fields came. In addition to some international giants, a number of domestic supply chain companies attached great importance to the event.

After more than a year of various support, even directly providing advance payments and strategic investments, Zhiyun Technology has supported the emergence of a large number of domestic supply chain companies.

The most representative of these is Qianding Technology, which makes touch ICs.

After accepting the strategic investment from Zhiyun Technology, Qianding Technology officially developed the multi-touch IC last year, which was then first applied to two brands under Weiku Electronics. It also supplied to other manufacturers, including some so-called international mobile phone manufacturers.

Since the beginning of the year, the new generation of multi-touch IC they developed is not much inferior to Synopsys in terms of technology. Therefore, it has gradually entered the supply chain of Zhiyun Technology's C series, first used in C1 and then C2.

Now, their multi-touch IC, together with Synaptics' touch IC, has become the touch IC supplier for Zhiyun Technology's top flagship S10 mobile phone.

To be honest, although they are just common suppliers, this is still the most important scene for the domestic consumer electronics industry chain.

Because this is the first time that high-tech top-level spare parts from domestic supply chain companies have entered the high-end mobile phone field.

This means that as long as the domestic supply chain works hard, invests enough, and produces products with good enough performance, it will be able to enter the high-end market.

At least, Zhiyun Technology's high-end flagship phones are willing to adopt it!
This is very important!
This is undoubtedly a shot in the arm for a large number of domestic supply chain companies... It means that their high investment in research and development can be put to good use in the future, and they don't have to worry about making products but no one buying them, resulting in huge losses.

Especially the screen industry, which has invested billions or even tens of billions of dollars in the past few years. If it produces top-notch screens but cannot find customers, it will be a disaster!
However, now, there is such an option as Zhiyun Technology... Zhiyun Technology is simply telling these domestic supply chain companies: Go ahead and do it boldly, as long as you produce good products, even if outsiders don’t want them, I will cover you!

So now BOE is very active and dedicated in developing new screens. It is not only developing top-level LCD screens, but also developing OLED screens.

Some time ago, Zhiyun Technology and BOE officially signed a strategic investment agreement. Zhiyun Technology invested US$1.56 billion in BOE, acquired a portion of BOE's shares, and became one of the company's shareholders.

These funds will allow BOE to develop screens and build a new generation of production lines.

At the same time, BOE's screens have also begun to enter the supply chain of Weiku Electronics. Although they are only low-end LCD screens, they are still a huge breakthrough for the domestic screen industry... Before this, there were no domestic screens used in smartphones.

Weiku Electronics is the first mobile phone manufacturer to use domestically produced capacitive touch screens!
Today, BOE, as one of the supply chain companies of Zhiyun/Weiku, also came to participate in the press conference. They sincerely hope that Zhiyun Technology's new generation flagship will continue to sell well, make money globally, and then continue to support their own company.

Some other domestic supply chain companies also have similar situations. Even the core business of many supply chain companies is to provide spare parts to Zhiyun Technology/Weiku Electronics.

The main revenue and even almost all profits of many supply chain companies come from orders from Zhiyun Technology.

So much so that in the capital market, a concept called Zhiyun supply chain concept stocks has been formed... Whether Zhiyun mobile phones sell well is directly related to the rise and fall of their stock prices.

Operators, supply chains, software partners, etc. all came over.

Its presentation is no worse than last year’s S9 launch conference.

Reporters from all walks of life also came running over to do various reports after smelling the fishy smell.

Some online video websites have even opened live broadcasts, and even overseas video websites can see it.

At 2:30 p.m. on Friday, as people entered the venue and took their seats, Xu Shenxue also appeared on the stage.

Today, Xu Shenxue was wearing the same white shirt, black casual trousers, and a watch with a black leather strap as usual.

At the beginning of the press conference, Xu Shenxue did not talk about the new flagship S10 right away, but briefly introduced the YUN OS3.2 system.

Then several ecological chain products were introduced, including a 15-inch laptop with more powerful performance, mainly for design and office use, and as a productivity tool.

At the same time, two peripherals were also launched, mainly a Bluetooth keyboard and Bluetooth mouse, as well as small gadgets such as a handwriting tablet.

In addition, a new router was also introduced... Of course, the router developed by Zhiyun Technology is not a simple router, but a complete set of technical solutions. It launches a router plus multiple bridge routers, and then forms a wireless network deployment solution for an entire home or office.

Zhiyun Technology's layout of the smart terminal ecosystem has been ongoing, and it will release some new gadgets every once in a while, including smart home products and some gadgets that look interesting but are actually useless.

For example, a desk lamp was released before... It has a sci-fi design, and you can freely adjust the brightness and light changes. It is also voice-controlled, connected to a mobile phone via Bluetooth, and various operations can be performed through the mobile phone... Finally, it can also play a song for you via Bluetooth.

But it's actually useless...

But this crappy thing costs hundreds of dollars more... But it still has a certain sales volume. God knows who buys it...

Then they also launched a small dancing speaker... I don't know which genius in which project team made the small speaker into a very cute four-legged robot, and built it with various motors, and also designed a special algorithm... so that this small robot speaker can dance when the music is playing... Of course, it is not a random dance, but a fixed cycle of a dozen or so dance moves.

After this thing was released, it attracted the attention of many people who like to have fun... You know what, it's quite fun.

Many of Zhiyun Technology’s so-called ecological chain products are actually these weird things... They seem to be quite high-tech at first glance, but after the novelty wears off, they are actually just so-so.

However, many engineers at Zhiyun Technology still enjoy doing this and often tinker with some novel gadgets.

After introducing some gadgets of the ecological chain, Xu Shenxue began to introduce the S10 mobile phone.

(End of this chapter)