Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 220: Crazy and Disgraceful Zhiyun

All-in-one computers and mini consoles are actually not mainstream PC products. Not to mention now, even in ten years they will not be mainstream. The overall market is actually very small.

Zhiyun Technology does this just to supplement its own PC business, and both of them also belong to the office series of computers.

Zhiyun Technology's PC business is also an important business segment, selling 20 million ultra-thin notebooks every year. At the same time, Zhiyun Technology's PC business pays great attention to the office environment.

Therefore, in addition to ultra-thin notebooks, it is also necessary to develop some other computer products suitable for office environments to further strengthen the ecological chain of the PC business.

All-in-one computers are naturally not worth mentioning in the eyes of gamers and performance seekers, but there is still a relatively large demand for them in the conventional office market. In later generations, many companies and institutions use these all-in-one computers as light office computers.

This thing is relatively light, has low energy consumption and high integration, so although the track is relatively small, it also has a specific market.

As for mini consoles, they have both advantages and disadvantages compared to traditional large consoles. The advantages are small size, easy to carry, and good performance. The disadvantage is that their usage scenarios are limited. At least you cannot use them to play large games because they will not be equipped with high-performance discrete graphics cards.

Even if it is equipped with a high-performance discrete graphics card, the heat dissipation cannot keep up... The graphics cards for playing 3A games are all big and bulky, and it is difficult to fit them into ordinary host cases, let alone mini host cases.

However, mini hosts still have specific uses in some special occasions.

These two products are not mainstream in the PC industry, but can only be regarded as very niche tracks. Zhiyun Technology developed these two things to supplement and improve its own PC business ecosystem.

You can’t just have a bare-bones ultra-thin business notebook.

With these two things, Zhiyun Technology's PC business now has all-in-one computers, mini hosts, YunBook 13 and 14 for light portable office use, and YunBook 15 and 15 Pro for business performance office use.

The entire PC business line targeting the office field is relatively complete.

As for gaming laptops, regular notebooks, and ordinary desktop computers, Zhiyun Technology does not make these things. The main reason is that the existing market products for these things are already very abundant, and it has fallen into a vicious circle of piling up hardware, and it always talks about cost-effectiveness, but the profit is too low.

Wang Kuan, senior director and head of the PC business group at Yongzhiyun Technology, said: These conventional PCs make little money and cause a lot of trouble!

Zhiyun Technology does not like to make things that have low profits, no unique selling points, and cannot reflect the characteristics of its own high-end brand.

After the special PC project launch conference, Zhiyun Technology’s new product launches in 11 have come to an end. The next new product launch will have to wait until the spring launch conference in February.

According to Zhiyun Technology's tradition, if nothing unexpected happens, it will launch new 13-inch and 14-inch notebooks, new tablets, and some ecological chain gadgets next year.

At the same time, we will also choose to launch new color schemes or upgraded versions of some old mobile phones.

As for the real blockbuster products, the S series of mobile phones, they have always been released at the summer conference in June. Another core product, the C series, and the newly launched A series, which has received decent market feedback, are released at the autumn conference in August.

Therefore, in the next few months, Zhiyun Technology’s main work will still be research and development to prepare for various products for next year.

It is worth noting that many mobile phone manufacturers often take advantage of the calm period of Zhiyun Technology in the past few months to rush to release some new products.

Including brother company Weiku Electronics.

Vico Electronics even held a special winter press conference. Moreover, in the past year, Vico Electronics has launched more and more mobile phone models in order to seize the market, and has already adopted the strategy of launching a large number of mobile phones and has never looked back.

Take the Little Blue brand as an example. Although many people have only heard of the Little Blue MAX series and the Little Blue digital series, there are actually a lot of other product series under the Little Blue brand.

Little Blue M digital series, Little Blue M MAX series.

In addition, there is the T series, which previously served as a test product and is the first mobile phone equipped with self-developed chips.

At the same time, they are also preparing a Xiaolan N series that will target the cost-effective market of thousand-yuan phones.

At this year's winter press conference, the Little Blue brand launched the new Little Blue MAX+.

It was mainly the Bluegogo MAX3 that was launched in the fall. Its sales were OK at the beginning, but with the emergence of a large number of dual-core chips, mobile phones priced at three thousand yuan appeared, such as the C4 series of Brother Company.

As a result, the sales of the Bluemax 3 dropped rapidly, and it could only be supported by an ordinary -inch large screen.

As soon as it saw that the momentum was not right, Wecoo Electronics hastily launched an upgraded version of MAX3, MAX3+, which changed from single-core to dual-core. The other parts remained unchanged. It continued to use a 2899-inch large screen and continued to play in the yuan market.

The Bluemax 3 and its upgraded version 3+ are the only -inch screen smartphones in the market priced below yuan, featuring the concept of large-screen smartphones.

The C4, which is generally a few hundred yuan more expensive, is inches. Mobile phones from other mobile phone manufacturers that cost around yuan are generally also inches or inches.

Only Weiku Electronics has been steadfast in imitating its big brother and has been at the forefront of large-screen mobile phones, producing a 4.7-inch phone that only sells for 2,900 yuan.

This is a mobile phone equipped with a dual-core chip, equipped with the W500A/B chip from the W501 series of dual-core chips developed by Zhiyun Semiconductor.

In fact, this chip is the 200GHZ version of the Zhiyun S1.2 series. It removes a lot of additional functional cores, leaving only the CPU, GPU, communication baseband, and some conventional functional cores, and then reduces the main frequency by 1GHZ. It is an export version of the dual-core chip targeting the mid-range market.

Because Zhiyun Semiconductor's SOC business also supplies external products and is also an important source of revenue for the semiconductor business.

At the same time, in order to avoid the situation where the chips used in Zhiyun Technology's mobile phones are the same as those used by a large number of mobile phone manufacturers outside, the chips used by Zhiyun Technology have too many special exclusive function cores attached, which other mobile phone manufacturers do not actually need... For example, the security function core, other mobile phone manufacturers don't even have a fingerprint recognition, so what is the use of this security core?

Therefore, Zhiyun Semiconductor has recently classified its chip business and designated the export version supplied to Weiku Electronics and other mobile phone manufacturers as the W series.
Zhiyun continues to use the S series name for its own products.

And changed the naming convention.

The S300 series chips are currently under development and have entered the tape-out stage. S stands for Zhiyun's own use, 3 stands for the third generation, and the two zeros at the end are meaningless.

The specific models in the S300 series are divided into S301, S302, and S303, which are different low, medium, and high versions of the same generation.

Then add letters after the number as the communication baseband version.

For example, S301A, the A is the dual-network version used overseas, and there is also S301B, which is the domestic triple-network version.

Theoretically, there are also S301C without communication baseband version, S301D China Unicom version, S301E China Telecom version, S301F China Mobile version, but Zhiyun's own chips are dual-network or triple-network, so there is no need to distinguish them with letters at the end. The S12A/B scheduled to be used in the S303 flagship next year is the top version of Zhiyun Semiconductor's third-generation self-developed chip, which is expected to have a dual-core main frequency of 1.8GHZ and four AP65GPUs, with extremely powerful performance.

Then there is the S12A/B expected to be used in the A302, which is the 1.5GHZ version.

Finally, there is the S5A/B used by the C301, which is the 1.2GHZ version.

The export version also has a similar numbering rule, except that it starts with the number 5, and the subsequent numbering rules are the same.

W501/W502/W503，实际上就是S200系列里的1GHZ/1.2GHZ/1.5GHZ的阉割了多个多功能核心的外销版本。

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In addition to Wecoo Electronics itself, many other domestic mobile phone manufacturers have also placed orders, especially the W501 chip, which has been welcomed by many domestic mobile phone manufacturers. This is a full network version, and as a low-end dual-core chip of 1GHZ, the price is not too expensive. It is very suitable as a mid-range mobile phone chip priced at two to three thousand yuan.

As for 502 and 503, especially the 503 chip, it is still too expensive now. It is estimated that more mobile phone manufacturers will have to wait until next year to purchase and use it.

The price of mobile phone chips is dropping seriously now. Not to mention a year, the price will drop a lot in just a few months. The dual-core 1.5GHZ W503 chip using nm process will drop a lot in price by the middle of next year.

Because by that time, 32-nanometer high-frequency dual-core or quad-core chips will have emerged, the -nanometer process will become second-rate, and a price drop will be normal. Then, many mid-range mobile phones will start to use it.

Weiku Electronics is working hard to achieve a sales volume of 100 million, and has even started to use the strategy of launching a large number of mobile phones. Other mobile phone manufacturers are doing similarly, frequently launching various mobile phones to the market.

However, none of these have affected the continued popularity of the Zhiyun S series of mobile phones.

It is January 12, and major media outlets have successively released sales statistics for the fourth quarter of the past 11 years.

Including feature phones, the global mobile phone sales ranking is that Nokia continues to rank first, Sixin second, Zhiyun third, Fruit fourth, Vico fifth, LG sixth, and Zhongxing seventh. The latter few are also domestic mobile phone manufacturers.

However, although feature phones have large sales volumes, their unit prices are too low and their profits are too low. When this is included, it is difficult to reflect the true strengths and weaknesses of each mobile phone manufacturer.

Therefore, major media often release smartphone market statistics reports simultaneously.

This report represents the mainstream of the current mobile phone market and the strengths and weaknesses of major mobile phone manufacturers.

In the fourth quarter, Zhiyun sold a crazy 41 million mobile phones, firmly ranking first in smartphone sales, as well as first in revenue and profit.

The second place is Four Star. Relying on the Galaxy 2 and a large number of mid-range models, they also sold nearly million smartphones, ranking third in revenue and profit.

The third place is Weiku Electronics. Its two brands combined have sold more than 30 million smartphones, ranking third in sales. However, its revenue and profits are too poor, so it ranks fourth.

The fourth place is Apple. They relied on the 4S to sell more than million smartphones, but their unit price was high. Their revenue and profit were second, and they were far ahead of the four-star brand.

Sales volume can only be regarded as a one-sided data and cannot represent strength. What can truly represent strength is profit!
In terms of profit, Zhiyun is undoubtedly ahead of Fruit and ranks first.

Fruit is several blocks ahead of Four Stars and ranks second.

Four Star is more than a dozen blocks ahead of Weiku and ranks third.

Weiku Electronics, which ranks last among the top four mobile phone manufacturers, has profits less than a fraction of First Zhiyun.

The top four mobile phone manufacturers are divided into three levels with huge differences, like a cliff.

But...Weiku Electronics is much stronger than LG and Zhongxing which are behind it. Weku Electronics is at least making money, while LG is losing money, and Zhongxing is working for nothing. They are too competitive in price-performance ratio, resulting in extremely low profits.

The remaining large number of smartphone manufacturers don’t actually make much money and basically work for various spare parts manufacturers.

Interestingly, Zhiyun Technology is also a spare parts manufacturer... Zhiyun Semiconductor sells SOC, communication baseband, memory, flash memory and various chips, and its sales volume is not small.

At the same time, Huaxing Technology, which it controls, also supplies a large number of mid- and low-end screens to domestic mobile phones, occupying a considerable market share in the domestic screen market.

The last large number of domestic smartphone supply chains are basically supported by Zhiyun Technology, so these domestic smartphone supply chain companies are either controlled by Zhiyun or Zhiyun holds strategic investment shares.

This means that the more mobile phones other domestic mobile phone manufacturers sell, the more money Zhiyun Technology will make.

Zhiyun Technology has taken a big share of the mobile phone terminal market, and has also taken a considerable share of the domestic smartphone parts market.

It can be said that his mouth is full of oil after eating it!
Zhiyun Technology, which is well-off and fat, officially announced a semiconductor manufacturing plan with a total investment of 10 billion US dollars, amid the envious eyes of other companies. It plans to build five 12-inch wafer fabs in different locations at one go.

Work started at the same time... The latest DUV immersion lithography machine from AMSL of the Netherlands was purchased by directly increasing the price and jumping the queue, with orders placed in dozens of units.

Moreover, he is trying to build connections and spend money to buy the latest EUV lithography machine, and there is hope of success...Who doesn't love the US dollar!
It's not just this project. In fact, in recent months, Zhiyun Technology has been acting like a nouveau riche with no shortage of money.

Prior to this, in December, Zhiyun Technology and Wecoo Industry reached an investment agreement. Zhiyun Technology injected funds in the form of strategic investment to support Wecoo Industry in building large-scale production bases in multiple regions across the country, covering OEM production bases in multiple fields of smart devices and spare parts, with a total investment of 2 billion US dollars.

Earlier in November, Zhiyun Technology made a strategic investment in its holding company CSOT. After receiving the investment, CSOT will invest US$2.5 billion to build a new generation of AMOLED production lines with world-class standards.

Prior to this, through the joint efforts of the R&D teams of Zhiyun, LG and TCL, especially with the assistance of Xu Shenxue's scientific research system, Huaxing Technology has completed the research and development of AMOLED technology and possesses the technical capabilities for commercial transformation of AMOLED screens.

A number of domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers, as well as other high-tech companies, were silent when they saw Zhiyun Technology investing tens of billions or even hundreds of billions of dollars!

Well, let’s not compare ourselves with it… We are respectable people and we don’t bother to compare ourselves with this nouveau riche.

It's just a few bucks, why show off?

In the upper class, people play with old money and value respectability. Your Zhiyun's new money is useless and not respectable at all.

(End of this chapter)