Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 202: Facing the consortium, he must maintain basic respect
Zhiyun Technology's overseas business operations also follow the standard practices of a multinational company. As long as the law stipulates it, I will comply. If the law does not stipulate it... then of course I will not comply.

Zhiyun Technology's business activities in Europe are generally good, and Europe is always on its lips in its publicity and media. It does not promote the idea that Zhiyun is a Chinese enterprise, but instead describes Zhiyun as a global enterprise with key R&D centers and core industries (the acquired German RDAM R&D center and factory) and a large number of employees (after-sales service centers and direct stores in various countries) in Europe.

The core strategy is to make Europeans not reject it, and even recognize that Zhiyun is a global company, and it is better to treat it as a company owned by local Europeans...

This shows how much Zhiyun Technology values ​​the European market!

Relatively speaking, Zhiyun Technology does not pay much attention to the North American market... It cannot be said that it does not pay attention to it. In fact, it has branches, after-sales service centers, direct stores, and has spent a lot of money on marketing and public relations.

It's just that a lot of marketing money is spent on 'lobbying'...

Ji Chenghe, who had just returned from the United States, happened to deal with a small crisis on the way, but he still seemed a little worried when reporting to Xu Shenxue:
"In the past year, as Zhiyun has grown rapidly and occupied a certain market share in the United States, and our company's market value has been increasing, becoming the world's number one high-tech company, there have been voices in the United States that want to ban our Zhiyun products from entering the US market."

"There are all kinds of reasons. I went there before because a local councillor said that our Zhiyun phones threatened their national security and there was a risk of leaks, and they wanted to ban local public officials from bringing Zhiyun phones into their offices!"

"With the help of some of the company's strategic investors, I met with several congressmen and spent some public relations funds to suppress the matter."

Xu Shenxue said: "The US dollars of Apple, Motorola and other American technology companies are US dollars, and the US dollars of our Zhiyun Technology are also US dollars. It seems that our congressmen are also real people!"

Ji Chenghe said: "Although the matter has been suppressed now, there may be similar incidents in the future, and they may get worse and worse. We still need to prepare early!"
Xu Shenxue said: "I have expected this. I don't know the character of Americans, but I do know the character of the US dollar. Now that our company has grown and threatened the interests of some of their technology companies, they naturally want to put pressure on us!"

"And this pressure will only grow. In the end, no matter how we deal with it, it is inevitable that we will withdraw from the US market!"

Ji Chenghe said: "I basically agree with your opinion, Mr. Xu. This pressure will inevitably increase, especially when we fully use self-developed chips next year. I am afraid that Qualcomm and Texas Instruments will also join Apple and other companies in launching various attacks against us!"

Xu Shenxue said: "It's not a big problem. Even if we lose the American market, our company will be able to survive and even develop better!"

"Our Zhiyun products are already severely suppressed by fruit in the North American market... Even if we lose the North American market, the subsequent growth in Europe and the domestic market will be able to make up for this loss. At the same time, there are a large number of emerging markets, such as India, Russia, Brazil, ASEAN and other regions, waiting for us to develop."

"Losing the U.S. market is not a matter of life or death for our company."

"But even so, we must continue to maintain and even further improve our public relations work in the United States. Withdrawing from the US market is not a problem. What we want to avoid is comprehensive sanctions!"

Xu Shenxue then proposed a scenario: "If they feel that our company is too threatening and find a reason to impose sanctions on our company, what should we do then?"

"For example, prohibiting American companies from cooperating with us? Prohibiting us from providing American technology or even products containing American technology? For example, a series of semiconductor product lines such as lithography machines?"

Hearing what Xu Shenxue said, Ji Chenghe's hand trembled slightly while drinking tea. After more than ten seconds, he said, "That's impossible. The total American shares in our company, including institutional shares and circulating shares in the secondary market, account for more than 40% in total. Isn't it like killing one thousand enemies and injuring eight hundred of their own people by doing this?"

Xu Shenxue said: "Fruit and Qualcomm don't have our shares... The interests of capitalists are not the same."

"Moreover, the drop in the company's stock price after the sanctions did not affect people from cashing out in advance, or simply short selling!"

"Many things seem impossible, but as the saying goes, it's better to be safe than sorry!"

At this time, Ji Chenghe suddenly thought of something and said, "Is this the reason why Director Xu insisted on doing chip research and development on his own, or even chip foundry?"

Ji Chenghe would never have thought of the relationship between the two before, but after going to the United States in person to deal with the sanctions crisis this time, he easily connected the two things from Xu Shenxue's words.

As he spoke, Ji Chenghe thought of another inconspicuous but actually gigantic private company owned by his boss: Fairy Mountain Holdings.

"Mr. Xu must have anticipated this, so he planned to invest in semiconductors ahead of time..."

Xu Shenxue did not deny that the semiconductor backup plan was an extremely large plan that he could not handle alone and was actually difficult to keep secret.

Some senior executives in the company knew that Xu Shenxue was working in the field of semiconductor equipment and materials, but they were not clear about the deeper reasons why Xu Shenxue was doing this.

They don’t think that lithography machines and various semiconductor equipment and materials are sensitive equipment, and they don’t even think that they are American products. Lithography machines are from the Dutch and Japanese, and the Americans have nothing to do with them…

Most people would not consider sanctions.

I am more considering traditional business. I think Xu Shenxue wants to play with the full industrial chain model, and achieve a full industrial chain model that is more extreme than the four-star model.

They want to swallow up all the profits from terminals to components and even upstream equipment!
The full industrial chain model is more in line with business logic.

As multinational giants, they want to do everything themselves and take every penny of profit in the entire profit chain.

By the way, you can also sell spare parts and equipment to make more money!
It would be difficult for other companies to do this, but Zhiyun Technology is different because they are large enough.

Zhiyun’s terminal business is strong enough to cultivate industries in the fields of chip design and chip manufacturing, and make more money from these mid- and upstream industries.

Zhiyun's various chips have been supplied to the outside world on a large scale. In addition to the S100 series chips, there are also communication basebands and other types of mid- and low-end chips. Finally, the memory and flash memory businesses are also booming.

Many domestic terminal manufacturers, including mobile phone, PC and other types of smart terminal manufacturers, as well as some midstream memory bar and solid state drive manufacturers have reached cooperation agreements with Zhiyun to purchase Zhiyun's memory particles and flash memory particles or finished memory and solid state drives for their mobile phones, PCs or other smart terminals. Zhiyun Semiconductor has actually become one of the top five semiconductor manufacturers in the world...but this subsidiary is hidden under the parent company Zhiyun Technology, and ordinary people don't know much about it.

The development of midstream and upstream industries in turn brings technological and cost advantages to terminal businesses, especially some exclusive technologies.

For example, fingerprint modules and self-developed chips are enough to bring great exclusive advantages to Zhiyun terminal business!
These are the advantages brought by the full industrial chain model, and this business model is what ordinary normal people can understand... But at the moment, few people know that the reason why Xu Shenxue developed the full industrial chain is to evade sanctions.

As for the development of various chip businesses in the process of developing the entire industrial chain, that is purely a by-product.

At least before, Xu Shenxue had never thought of setting up a subsidiary of a memory manufacturer ranked among the top three in the world with a market share of more than 20%, or a flash memory company ranked also third in the world... But as time went by, especially after acquiring several overseas subsidiaries, it became like this.

After Ji Chenghe's casual chat with Xu Shenxue, he was worried for several days because he had a premonition of a huge crisis that the company would face in the future, a crisis that would be difficult to avoid under normal circumstances.

Although Mr. Xu said it lightly, saying that there is a way to circumvent it and allow the company to survive and even develop better.

However, the more Ji Chenghe learned about the semiconductor industry, the more shocked he was...the core lifeline of his company is chips.

The chips are produced by its own Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Zhiyun Microelectronics' advanced chip production line is almost entirely imported, from equipment to consumables.

If the United States or Japan wants to make any move and randomly block a field, more than half of Zhiyun’s core business will collapse.

It's not just the lithography machines that can be a bottleneck, there are actually a whole host of equipment and materials as well.

After learning more about this, he became even more worried than Xu Shenxue... and he was frowning for several days in a row.

A few days later, he found Xu Shenxue and said, "Mr. Xu, our marketing budget in the United States is still not enough. I suggest that we increase it several times. Spend what is needed, feed them, get some evidence as a handle, and cultivate some connections."

"As the saying goes, you can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a child. I personally went there to set up several new lobbying companies to specialize in this area."

"We need to delay their sanctions against us as much as possible so that the company has enough time to carry out industrial substitution."

"It will take some time for Fairy Mountain Holdings to get there!"

"But what happened in the United States last month is a very bad sign. We must pay great attention to it and suppress any voices that emerge immediately. We cannot let it form a wave. Even if we cannot suppress it in the end, we must at least buy a few years!"

Xu Shenxue looked at Ji Chenghe, who was even more anxious than himself, but smiled and said, "Why panic? We should just deal with it as it comes. We should just do what we have to do. Don't let this disrupt our own rhythm!"

"But the marketing budget in North America that you mentioned should be increased!"
"Otherwise, there will always be people talking nonsense!"

Xu Shenxue pointed to an interview with an American reporter on his tablet computer. The CEO of an American chip company spoke nonsense in front of the reporter, saying that Zhiyun products would lead to data security and privacy leaks, etc., and even said that he wanted to ban Zhiyun, etc.!

The company previously provided a large number of functional chips for the Zhiyun ecosystem. As Zhiyun Semiconductor developed a large number of special functional chips, the company naturally lost Zhiyun Technology's orders.

After losing Zhiyun's chip order, the company's CEO has been promoting the Zhiyun threat theory in recent months, bragging about it in the media every other day. The previous proposal to ban Zhiyun devices from entering the US was led by this person.

"We need to let these Americans know that they are not the only ones who have consortiums. We are also a consortium!"

"He must maintain basic respect when facing the consortium!"

----

A few days later, when Xu Shenxue and Lin Yaxian were having dinner, Ji Chenghe sent him a news link. Xu Shenxue opened it and saw that it was a local news in the United States: a yacht was hit by bad weather while out at sea. After the search and rescue personnel arrived, they successfully rescued more than a dozen survivors.

Due to the extremely bad sea conditions, many people are missing, including a billionaire and the CEO of a technology company!

Lin Yaxian, who was standing by, saw Xu Shenxue looking at his phone while eating and asked immediately, "What's wrong?"

Xu Shenxue smiled and said, "It's okay, let's eat!"

After being updated with more than 10,000 words every day since it was put on the shelves, the book "Shanzhai Phone" now has more than 600,000 words and 200 chapters.

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(End of this chapter)