Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 291: Too Big, Zhiyun Wants to Do Everything
A lot was discussed at the meeting about the early production preparations for the S14 series of mobile phones, and it was mainly Gu Zhiming, who was responsible for the supply chain, who explained the relevant plans and preparations.

Zhiyun Group has been doing this kind of thing for many years, and Gu Zhiming is a veteran in it, so there will be no problems with the mass production preparations for the S14 mobile phone.

If there is any problem, it is the mass production of S503 chip.

This aspect needs to be solved by Zhiyun Microelectronics. Ding Chengjun, the group vice president and CEO of Zhiyun Microelectronics, who attended the meeting, directly issued a military order at the meeting: "The 503-nanometer process of our No. plant will definitely start trial production in June and enter the full-scale mass production stage in July. The mass production plan of the S chip will definitely not be delayed."

At the same time, this year's flagship phone release plan was postponed from June to August, and August of previous years was the autumn launch conference for the release of C series and A series mobile phones and other products.

In response to this, Ji Chenghe, who is in charge of marketing, adjusted the corresponding plan:

"To ensure that the S series has sufficient publicity resources when it is launched, to prevent other products from stealing the limelight, and to prevent other products from being overshadowed by the S series."

"Previously, we released the C series and A series phones at an interval of one and a half months, that is, the flagship phone was released in late June, and the C series, A series phones and SX inventory clearance phones were released in mid-August."

"This year, due to the delay of the S503 chip, the flagship phone was postponed to mid-August. In order to avoid overlapping with the release of the flagship phone, we adjusted the originally scheduled autumn press conference to mid-September, maintaining a one-month interval."

Xu Shenxue agreed with this. He said that a product launch is not about throwing everything out at once. This would easily lead to the trampling of one's own products, which would not only affect the publicity and sales of the S series of mobile phones, but also the publicity and sales of the C series and A series of mobile phones, which would be a lose-lose situation.

Therefore, it must be released at a certain interval.

"This is the initial time for the press conference. We need to do solid preparations before the launch."

After this strategic meeting, Xu Shenxue subsequently inspected the Bluetooth headset project. The noise reduction version of the Bluetooth headset project is also scheduled to be released at the flagship phone launch conference in August. After all, the Bluetooth headset project in Zhiyun Group is, to some extent, highly tied to the S series mobile phones.

When Ji Chenghe accompanied the inspection, he also introduced the current sales of Bluetooth headsets to Xu Shenxue: "Eighty percent of the users who bought our Bluetooth headsets before were users of the S13 mobile phones launched at the same time, and a small number were users of last year's new models such as A13, S13X, and C6 mobile phones, which are equipped with Bluetooth 4.5 protocol."

"In addition, some users of older Zhiyun phones also bought our Bluetooth headsets."

"It's just that these old Zhiyun phones are not equipped with Bluetooth 4.5 protocol hardware, so they cannot support Bluetooth 4.5 protocol. When using YunBuds, the experience is actually very average, and the sound quality is not very good. The small number of negative reviews are also based on these user feedback."

"There are also a very small number of users of other mobile phone brands who bought Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets to try them out, but the number is so small that it can be ignored."

"Judging from previous sales, our Bluetooth headsets and new mobile phones are in a highly bundled marketing state."

"Therefore, the release of the Bluetooth headset noise reduction board this year will also be directly put on the S14 flagship phone launch conference, which can use the popularity of the new S14 mobile phone to drive the sales of Bluetooth headsets to a certain extent!"

Apart from the core products of the flagship phone launch, the S14 mobile phone and the Bluetooth headset noise reduction board, as well as the update of the new generation Yun OS operating system included in the S14 mobile phone, no other new products will be released at this year's flagship phone launch conference.

In particular, some products that might have been the focus of attention have been delayed, including the wheeled robot dog developed by the Intelligent Research Institute team.

Very interesting little thing.

It looks useless and it’s actually useless, but it has very high technical content.

Just like the previous dancing robots and four-legged robot dogs, they are all stunt works of Zhiyun Group.

If this thing were announced, it would probably cause quite a reaction, but for now, it's just a show of skill by Zhiyun Group and doesn't have much commercial value.

Therefore, Ji Chenghe suggested that some high-tech products in the fields of robotics and AI could be postponed for release until around January next year. This could also create another wave of popularity, promote the company's advanced technology, and boost sales of other smart terminal products.

Xu Shenxue directly approved Ji Chenghe's suggestion. These things didn't make money anyway, so there wasn't much difference between releasing them a few months earlier or later. It didn't even matter if they weren't released at all...

Many projects undertaken by Zhiyun Group have no actual commercial value for now, such as various miscellaneous robots.

These things cost a lot of money in research and development, but lack application scenarios, making them difficult to commercialize on a large scale. They can only be used as a showpiece or sold in small batches as toys for technology enthusiasts.

It's a state where the thing is very powerful, but I don't know what it can do...

It is not as good as the commercial success in the field of AI.

It should be noted that Zhiyun Group's AI technology has been widely used and has added a lot of value to the group's many products, promoting the attractiveness of smart terminal products and increasing sales. Even some separately launched AI projects can generate some revenue.

At the same time, the built-in AI in smart terminals can only rely on local computing power for calculations, which is actually quite stupid and can't do anything.

To this end, Zhiyun Software Technology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, has officially launched AI software to the market, providing customers with AI image generation and modification functions on a paid basis, as well as advanced text processing functions, such as commercial copywriting, report generation, etc.

However, it is worth noting that due to the high cost of computing power today, the fee for this AI software is also very high. Basic membership costs 99 yuan per month, and the number of uses is limited. If you continue to use it after exceeding the limit, you need to purchase additional packages.

Because it is relatively expensive, and AI these days is still lacking in image processing and text processing, its commercialization is not very successful... Many people talk about it, but few spend money.

But no matter what, Zhiyun Group has begun to promote the commercialization of AI technology...

The above two points are just the most superficial applications of AI technology.

Many people's understanding of AI may come from image generation, text generation, and code generation, which are some generative AI technologies promoted by Internet companies and are accessible to ordinary consumers.

But in fact, generative AI technology is only a small branch of the entire AI technology field, or even a less important branch... It's just that it has a low threshold and is easy to promote, so it is regarded as a typical example.
Zhiyun Group has achieved many results in this regard, and is also familiar to outsiders, such as AI Xiaoyun, which is directly integrated into the mobile phone voice assistant... To be honest, it's useless.

Then there are the photo classifications in the Zhiyun mobile phone album and the simple background and character replacement functions in the picture editing function, which are actually image recognition and generation functions in the AI ​​field.

Zhiyun Software’s professional AI software: Zhiyun AI software provides advanced AI image generation and text processing for a fee.

However, the above-mentioned image processing and text generation are actually the most superficial and even the most useless AI applications of Zhiyun Group's AI technology... If Zhiyun Group's AI technology can only do this, then the authorities will not prohibit Zhiyun Group from exporting AI-related technologies and AI chips.

So what is Zhiyun Group’s AI technology used for?
The most obvious example of commercial results is the "Advanced Automatic Assisted Driving" developed and provided by the unmanned vehicle project team of the Intelligent Research Institute and installed in Hailan Automobile.

How did this assisted driving technology come about? The unmanned vehicle project team first developed the algorithm, constructed the model, and then trained it with a large amount of data.

HaiLian Automobile purchased this automatic assisted driving system from Zhiyun Group, including a complete set of software and hardware.

Therefore, for every HaiLan car sold by HaiLan Automobile, Zhiyun Group can earn tens of thousands of yuan.

In addition, AI technology is also an important technology in industrial production and some specific fields.

AI technology is just a general term. Specifically, it runs a deep learning algorithm on an AI chip, then uses this algorithm for ultra-efficient learning, and finally forms a big data model.

The core here is algorithms and computing power. By using different algorithms and conducting different model training, various big data models can be obtained, and these various big data models can be applied in all walks of life.

Image generation, voice assistants and even driverless cars are some of the applications currently announced by Zhiyun Group.

But in fact, there are still many AI projects that have not been announced, such as some projects in the field of industrial manufacturing.

In addition, there are some sensitive special projects that cannot be announced.

After all, many things are too sensitive, such as the onboard AI systems of medium and large unmanned fixed-wing flight terminals, the AI ​​systems of small unmanned ground mobile terminals, the AI ​​systems of small multi-rotor aircraft, and distributed AI command and control systems... These are top-secret projects and cannot be disclosed to the public.

Even within Zhiyun Group, relevant information cannot be found, and all related projects are handled through layers of shell companies.

As for what can be said, they are some gadgets such as robot dogs and robots. Zhiyun Group said that these things are not for making money. At present, these things do not have the feasibility of large-scale commercialization. The reason why Zhiyun Group develops and releases related products every year is purely for showing off.

No reason, just to let ordinary people around the world know that my Zhiyun’s technology is awesome!
Further establish the impression that Zhiyun Group's technology is awesome, and then guide people to buy its various smart terminal products.

Our Zhiyun’s robots are so awesome, so making a mobile phone should be a piece of cake for me... Our Zhiyun’s mobile phones must be top-notch products.

Zhiyun, after all, is still a mobile phone seller...

That’s not entirely true. Other smart terminals, such as computers, are also important businesses of Zhiyun Group. Semiconductor products, that is, a variety of chips, are also Zhiyun’s main products.

This year, Zhiyun Group's personal computer business is having a hard time due to the insufficient supply of Intel's advanced chips. For this reason, Zhiyun Group's PC business department is working overtime to build a new generation of YunBook based on the self-developed X86 mobile chip, namely the WZ4000U chip.

Wang Kuan, vice president of Zhiyun Group and executive president of the PC business unit, is telling Xu Shenxue about the current situation of YunBook, an important product of Zhiyun Group.

"At present, we have completed the development of the initial prototype of the new generation of notebooks equipped with self-developed chips, and will improve them later. At the same time, we also need to wait until the production capacity of the 4000-nanometer process is freed up to produce the WZU chip. Therefore, the trial production of our notebooks will be postponed to October, and the full mass production will be further postponed to November."

"Therefore, we plan to hold the notebook launch event in November this year, and put the new generation of notebooks on sale directly after the launch."

"After all, the overall sales volume of our notebooks is not that large, and the sales volume is also relatively stable. There will not be a rush to buy in the early stage. We don't need to prepare too much inventory in the early stage. It is OK to produce and sell at the same time."

"Of course, this means that our notebook sales and revenue this year will be lower than last year. We estimate that the annual PC sales will be around 15 million units, which is much lower than last year. We will try to release new products at the end of the year and boost sales next year."

Xu Shenxue said: "This decline in sales is acceptable. After all, it is due to the limited supply of CPUs. I can't blame you for this. This is not a crime of war!"

"But after November, our self-developed CPU will be installed. We will work hard at that time and strive to make an improvement in the fourth quarter, so that it will look better when we release the financial report next year."

Zhiyun Group's PC business has achieved considerable sales since the release of the first generation of YunBook. After all, Zhiyun notebooks are the only two high-end ultra-thin business notebooks in the contemporary world. When consumers want to buy notebooks of this positioning, they either choose Fruit notebooks or Zhiyun notebooks. There is no third option.

It’s not that there are no other brands of ultra-thin business notebooks. In fact, there are many. The problem is that it is difficult to compete with Zhiyun and Fruit notebooks.

It’s not that they don’t want to, but that consumers don’t approve.

Speaking of ultra-thin business notebooks, Wecoo Electronics actually has one too, namely the Bluebook, but they just can't sell at a high enough price, and their sales volume is still very low. The Bluebook, which is priced at 5,000 yuan, has an annual sales volume of only over one million units, and it mainly targets the domestic market.

Zhiyun's notebook business sold 20 million units last year, and its main market is the global market.

This year should have been a period of building on the success and further boosting sales, but because Intel stopped supplying advanced high-end CPUs, Zhiyun's production capacity was limited, and it was ultimately forced to adopt limited supply and only meet the needs of high-end models.

Intel tried to force Zhiyun to abandon its self-developed X86 chip business, but this further led Zhiyun Group to pay more attention to the independent control of X86 chips...

This was the first time that Zhiyun Group was strangled, and the consensus among many senior executives of Zhiyun Group was: once is enough for this kind of thing, the group will not allow it to happen a second time, and will never allow being strangled a second time!
Therefore, the support that Wichita Technology has received this year is very strong. There is sufficient talent and corresponding funds. Even the precious 4000-nanometer process production capacity will be squeezed out in the second half of this year for the production of WZU chips.

You know, even the strategically significant AI4000 chip and the W800 series SOC chip, which needs to compete for chip orders from third-party mobile phone manufacturers, failed to grab this year's -nanometer production capacity.

This forced Zhiyun Semiconductor to use a slightly modified AI3500 as a temporary transition, and also launched a new modified W700 mobile phone SOC chip. Both of the above chips use the 28NLP process.

This shows how resentful the top management of Zhiyun Group is about the supply interruption of X86 chips. They would rather delay the replacement of AI technology and the production of the W800 series chips with a huge market size for a few months, in order to develop the WZ4000U chip first.

They don't want to be strangled!
Now, the WZ4000U chip and the corresponding YunBook notebook project are progressing smoothly, which makes Xu Shenxue feel a lot more at ease.

----

Xu Shenxue inspected the products one after another, listened to reports, and gained a brief understanding of a series of new products to be released this year and even early next year.

In the next six months of this year, Zhiyun Group will release smart terminal products including the S14 series of mobile phones, the A14 series of mobile phones, and the C7 series of mobile phones.

The noise-cancelling version of the first generation of Bluetooth headphones.

Finally, there are 4000 YunBook notebooks equipped with the self-developed WZ14U chip.

The above are the main terminal products.

As for tablet computers and smart watches, they were released at the spring conference this year. The sales of 14 of the tablet computers were not very good. There was some growth when they were first released, but after entering April, the sales volume was already the same as last April.

This is a very obvious signal, which means that after several years of rapid growth, the tablet computer market may reach its peak this year... After comprehensive analysis from multiple angles and numerous markets around the world, the strategic analysis department within the group has come to a very pessimistic forecast that the tablet computer market will enter a period of overall contraction next year, and the group's tablet computer business is likely to see a substantial decline.

The most frustrating thing is that the group's analysts found that a large number of competitors' tablet businesses were not doing well. The mid-to-high-end tablet market as a whole was shrinking...

Zhiyun Group’s tablet computer was not killed by its competitors, but was squeezed out by cross-industry ultra-thin notebooks and large-screen mobile phones!
Zhiyun's mobile phones and notebooks just happen to belong to this category...

In other words, Zhiyun's 5.5-inch large-screen mobile phone, plus its 13-inch ultra-thin business notebook, has squeezed its own tablet computer business to death...

Who can you blame for this... There's nothing you can do. Today's tablet computers can only be transformed into the fields of education, learning, movie watching and games. As for the light office market in tablet computers, it has become smaller and smaller.

However, the sales of smart watches are relatively good, showing a steady upward trend, and it is expected that the sales volume will reach one thousand units this year.

What’s interesting is that outside analysis of this year’s global smartwatch market puts the total at just 15 million units…basically 10 million for Zhiyun watches, 1 million for Four Star, and 4 million for all other brands combined.

As for Apple, its smartwatch business will be slightly delayed and is expected to be released next year.

Without the usual competition from Apple, Zhiyun Group has not dominated the smartwatch market, but it has also occupied the majority of the market share. A similar situation also exists in the Bluetooth headset market.

External analysts analyzed that this year's market for true wireless Bluetooth headsets is about 4.0 million units, of which million are the estimated sales of Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets, and the remaining several million are a bunch of messy Bluetooth headsets with Bluetooth protocol from various brands.

In the two seemingly niche market categories of smart watches and Bluetooth headsets, Zhiyun Group has gained an absolute advantage by relying on its first-mover advantage, and has taken up the vast majority of market profits, an even more exaggerated share than in the mobile phone sector.

In addition to the above-mentioned terminal products, Zhiyun Group will also release some ecological chain products this year, such as various smart home appliances, smart terminal spare parts, etc. However, they are all small things with generally low revenue. Therefore, Zhiyun Group rarely holds special press conferences for them, and often mentions them casually at the press conferences of other products.

Then there are the semiconductor chip products, which account for a relatively large share of revenue but are not paid much attention to by ordinary people, including the W700 series mobile phone SOC chips and the B41 full-network communication baseband.

PC chips include Pangu P2 series chips with self-developed SOP instruction set and ZS2 series server chips.

Wichi's X86 chips, such as the WZ2000 series and the low-voltage version WZ2000U, also have the WZ4000U chip, which will only be supplied to its own notebooks in the short term and will be sold to the outside world after the production capacity is relaxed next year. As for the WU4000 standard-voltage version, although it has been designed, it will not be mass-produced and released for sale until next year.

There is also an X86 server chip that is still under design and will not be available for internal use or on the market until next year.

Next are the new generation of memory and flash memory products. Zhiyun Group announces these two new products every winter, but ordinary people don’t pay much attention to them.

Finally, there are some auxiliary function chips independently developed and launched by many IC design companies under Zhiyun Semiconductor. Although most of these also bear the Zhiyun logo, they have little to do with Zhiyun headquarters, and each subsidiary is responsible for its own research and development and operation.

The above-mentioned products will be released and listed in the second half of the year. Some of them will be released at a large-scale press conference held by the group headquarters, that is, those core smart terminal products, and some will be developed by each subsidiary themselves, such as Zhiyun Semiconductor releasing various chips.

Some subsidiaries responsible for operating specific brands or products also make separate releases, such as Nvidia's graphics cards.

The entire Zhiyun Group actually has a huge variety of products and holds many press conferences, but most ordinary people are not familiar with them and don’t understand them. They only know that Zhiyun sells mobile phones!

In fact, Zhiyun Group's business covers the entire consumer electronics industry chain as well as the semiconductor industry chain, software and Internet business.

There are also some miscellaneous auxiliary businesses, such as Zhiyun Aviation, which is engaged in business jets and cargo aircraft business, Zhiyun Satellite, which is engaged in satellite communication services, Zhiyun Logistics, which is engaged in logistics business, and Zhiyun Property, which is engaged in commercial real estate operation and management (Zhiyun's majority of properties are operated and managed by itself).

Of course, most of these auxiliary businesses are not open to the outside world, but are only designed to meet their own needs.

For example, Zhiyun Property only manages the group's own properties and does not undertake the management and operation of commercial properties to the outside. At the same time, it is also responsible for the management and operation of additional facilities in some commercial facilities, including kindergartens, primary schools, clinics and supermarkets within the company.

There are more than 50,000 people working in the headquarters park, and many of them have families with children who need to go to school, so Zhiyun simply set up a kindergarten and primary school to meet the needs of employees.

A multinational company with hundreds of thousands of employees actually has a large number of internal organizations and branches!

Not to mention enterprises of this level, even in factories with tens of millions of employees, there will often be institutions such as kindergartens, supermarkets, and health stations, but they will be slightly smaller in scale.

It’s not that Zhiyun is taking on too much and providing everything from cradle to grave, but that employees need these basic supporting service facilities.

For a company that has built two large communities just for the dormitory area...it is normal to have a kindergarten, a primary school, a clinic, and a large supermarket in the dormitory area.

The entire Zhiyun Group is a giant enterprise with a huge scale and its tentacles are constantly penetrating in all directions, and even Xu Shenxue is unaware of this penetration.

He is high above everyone else, and all he has his eyes on is global industry competition, the trends of competing companies such as Apple, Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, and TSMC, and the research and development and strategic layout of various advanced technologies.

But we cannot see the lives of a large number of Zhiyun’s middle and lower-level employees, and we don’t even know the operating conditions of many subsidiaries under Zhiyun Group.

It is still Zhiyun Property, which is actually a large service company. However, Xu Shenxue held a group meeting two years ago and decided to set up such a subsidiary to manage the company's property and provide some basic services to employees.

As for the follow-up...Xu Shenxue has not paid any attention to it. It is Lu Junneng and others who are in charge of these things.

As for aviation, logistics, satellites, etc., Xu Shenxue can get it done with just one word, but the person who does the work is Gu Zhiming, who is in charge of the supply chain business.

Xu Shenxue only needs a global supply chain network that flows smoothly, is efficient and cost-controlled. As for how to achieve it and how to do it specifically... Xu Shenxue actually doesn't care, and he doesn't even understand these things.

He only assigned the task and allocated funds, and the rest was done by people like Gu Zhiming.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue actually didn’t know about many things in Zhiyun Group, even the many high-tech projects that were being developed… The company was too big, and there were too many R&D projects. Xu Shenxue was not a god, so how could he pay attention to them all?

So, when Xu Shenxue conducted a comprehensive review of the entire group, he discovered that there were so many subsidiaries under the group, Mr. Sun, doing all kinds of things...

After a closer look, it seems that most of the subsidiaries have value for Mr. Sun!
However, after seeing this situation, Xu Shenxue did not feel happy or excited. On the contrary, he smelled a crisis!
The company is involved in too many and too diverse areas, and the operating expenses of non-core businesses have gradually increased, and the rate of growth is very large.

Moreover, most of the non-core businesses seem to be necessary, but they can be done by finding cooperative enterprises to reduce costs, and do not need to be done by oneself.

For example, logistics fleets... There are a lot of logistics companies on the market. It is not necessary to buy a lot of vehicles and do logistics directly. This is unnecessary and costly. If you want logistics services, just cooperate with logistics companies directly.

What's the point of opening a supermarket? If there is a demand in the dormitory area, you can directly introduce supermarket enterprises to cooperate. There is no need to open a supermarket by yourself.

Zhiyun is a high-tech enterprise, but it is opening a supermarket... If Cook knew about this, he would laugh so hard that his front teeth would fall out.

If these people under him continue to mess around like this and want to do everything on their own, Zhiyun will no longer be a high-tech company, but a hodgepodge, and the core business will be gradually drained away by these peripheral businesses, and eventually die.

In response to this problem, Xu Shenxue talked to many senior executives in the group and told them not to mess around. Although the company has a lot of money, it needs to be used for research and development, not to open a supermarket for you...

After Xu Shenxue's actions, it can be said that he put the brakes on Zhiyun Group to prevent it from causing any trouble.

Some important and core areas need to be developed, but some are dispensable, especially those with potential controllable partners, you can look for partners. If you are not sure, then make strategic investments or even take controlling stakes, but there is no need to do everything by yourself.

This can easily distract your attention.

"Remember, our Zhiyun Group is not a comprehensive enterprise, nor does it engage in so-called diversification. We are a thoroughgoing high-tech enterprise from beginning to end, from the inside out, a high-tech enterprise driven by research and development and oriented by technology."

"Focus on high-tech areas and don't mess around with some messy additional businesses."

“Unless this additional business is very important and there is no controllable partner to choose from, you have no choice but to do it yourself.”

After Xu Shenxue's warning, Zhiyun Group will, in accordance with Xu Shenxue's requirements, eliminate some non-core businesses, especially those that have nothing to do with the technology field and are not key areas.

What should be sold should be sold, and what should be merged should be merged, and in principle, these non-core businesses should not be retained.

After dealing with these internal affairs of the company, on May 3, Xu Shenxue came to Hailan Automobile and once again personally held a press conference for Hailan Automobile's new generation of models: Hailan SLC. At the same time, the new coupe Hailan SEC and the new SUV Hailan SEV were also announced at the press conference.

Then the construction results of the Hailan charging piles were also announced.

Globally, more than 30,000 charging stations have been built, all of which are built and operated by Hailan itself, with a total investment of US$1 billion.

This data is actually not much for HaiLan Automobile, because HaiLan Automobile's global sales have reached hundreds of thousands, which means that there is only one charging station for dozens of cars.

In fact, in the construction of charging piles in China, HaiLan Automobile is not the main force. Some companies that specialize in operating charging piles are the main force, such as the power grid. Some companies that specialize in charging piles have built more than 100,000 charging piles, and the number of construction is very large.

At present, the number of charging piles in China alone has exceeded 500,000... Mainly because we are currently providing comprehensive support to promote the new energy strategy. Hailan Automobile is both a promoter and a beneficiary of this trend.

These companies that specialize in operating charging piles also use unified standards for charging interfaces, which is the charging standard promoted by Zhiyun. Therefore, Hailan Automobile can also use these charging piles very conveniently.

At present, the number of public charging piles is too small and the density is too low. The vast majority of owners of Hailan cars still use home charging piles for daily charging.

However, it is quite exaggerated for an automobile company to spend one billion US dollars to build more than 30,000 charging stations around the world.

So this news attracted considerable attention.

As for the Sea Blue SLC released at the press conference, to be honest, it did not cause much sensation. This car is too expensive, with a starting price of more than 800,000 yuan, and it is positioned as a large sedan, which is destined to have little to do with ordinary people.

Therefore, sales were not large after the press conference, with only more than a thousand pre-orders received. Several hundred of them were purchased by Xu Shenxue's companies and affiliated companies to be used as company executives' cars and reception vehicles.

But it doesn’t matter if the sales volume is not large, this type of car is not meant to increase sales volume, but to further increase the brand value.

Then use this brand value to boost sales of entry-level high-volume models, namely the entry-level version of the Hailan Coupe priced at RMB 450,000 and the Hailan SUV priced at RMB 550,000.

At the same time, it is also a step ahead to establish the brand and lay the brand foundation for the subsequent promotion of truly high-volume mid-range models.

Hailan Automobile has been researching mid-range and high-volume models. It has various vehicle designs and is just waiting for the cost of core components such as power batteries to drop further. At the same time, after the factory in Shanghai goes into production, the overall cost of electric vehicles will be reduced. With the further development of battery technology, the vehicle's endurance will be further increased. By then, the domestic charging stations will probably be almost ready.

At that time, Hailan Automobile could also launch a mid-range model priced around 300,000 yuan, targeting family sedans and SUVs.

In the car market at this price point, competition is more intense, and consumers pay more attention to cost-effectiveness and brand recognition.

Unlike the first two models of Hailan Automobile, which are aimed at the high-end market and even positioned as toys, there is no need to consider too much. Just make it look technological and slowly a large group of wealthy people will place orders to buy it just out of curiosity and fun.

However, mid-range models priced around 300,000 yuan are aimed at ordinary families with a certain level of purchasing power, that is, the typical middle-class group.

And it is not easy to make money from this group of people.

How to put it, users in the high-end market are not short of money, and they value brands, high-end attributes and some uniqueness that can impress them. For example, Hailan Automobile relies on its high-tech attributes, the brand support brought by Zhiyun, Xu Shenxue's platform and other advantages to leverage the market, and its sales are quite good.

Although users in the low-end market are poor, they also know that they are poor, so their requirements are not high. They just want a mainstream brand, a car of decent quality, and performance configuration that can be driven. But the prerequisite is that you have to make it cheaper. If it has a few small functions, it will be a pleasant surprise and I will praise it to the sky.

But it is different for users in the mid-range market. You may say that these users have no money, but they do have some money. But it is impossible for them to spend money without blinking an eye and spend hundreds of thousands to buy a car just because they like a certain feature.

Then they have very high requirements for cars, such as brand and cost-effectiveness.

It needs to be spacious, comfortable, and controllable. It also needs to have good texture and a high-end brand...

To sum up, not much money but a lot of trouble...

But...even though users in the mid-range market are difficult to serve, the gross profit margin of cars in this price range is good, and the sales volume is quite large, so the overall profit is also high, so this is also an area that car manufacturers must compete for.

Hailan Automobile also wants to enter the mid-range market and has started preparations for this two years ago. The large luxury sedan released this year will increase brand value and, to some extent, lay the foundation for the mid-range models to be released in the future.

Just like Mercedes-Benz, when writing about Mercedes-Benz in online novels, they usually write Mercedes-Benz S-Class or G-Class, but the most popular models of Mercedes-Benz are C-Class and E-Class, with prices ranging around 200,000 or 300,000 yuan.

This is a very typical way of using high-end models to boost the brand and selling mid-range models to make money.

Hailan Automobile also wants to follow this route... As for high-end models, in the past few years, they were able to achieve some sales by relying on their scarcity, uniqueness, and high-tech features, and many wealthy people could accept them. However, as time passed and electric vehicles became popular, it would be impossible for Hailan Automobile to rely on these models that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions to increase sales.

Not to mention the future, even now the sales of Hailan SEC and SUV models have no potential for growth... the price is too high, the market capacity is too small, and the future is limited.

Not to mention luxury cars, it would be considered very good if 10,000 of them could be sold a year.

If HaiLan Automobile wants to achieve rapid growth in the future and push its annual sales of cars towards one million, it must rely on mid-range models.

Of course, mid-range models are the future, and Hailan Automobile is currently focusing on high-end models.

After its newly released Hailan SLC was launched, although the sales volume was small, the supply was sufficient. The vehicles prepared in advance were delivered to customers on the third day of the press conference.

Mr. Wang, the owner of a medium-sized enterprise in a certain city, was one of the first users.

He had felt that the Mercedes-Benz S-Class he had used for many years was getting old and wanted to change the car. Just when he was thinking of changing the car, he saw the early publicity about the luxury car from Hailan Automobile.

Then I looked at the pictures and promotional videos of this car and felt itchy.

He is a resource recycler, and he used to claim that he was working in the high-tech industry, but he can't stand other people treating him as a rag collector... Damn it!
Then after seeing the Hailan SLC, I felt that this car suits him very well. It is full of technology and shows maturity and stability. It is also the same model as the car driven by the richest man Xu, so it is very classy!

So right after the press conference, he placed an order to buy one, and he filled up all the options. He had no shortage of money...

When it was time to pick up the car today, he came in person to pick it up. After the car was delivered, he did not need a driver and drove it himself.

Sitting in the car, Lao Wang felt comfortable!
I, Lao Wang, use high technology, and everything about me is high technology...

Don't confuse me with those who collect waste paper and scrap metal. I'm involved in the recycling of high molecular polymers.

A serious high-tech industry!

(End of this chapter)