Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 344 VR Virtual Technology

At the Zhiyun Group headquarters, Xu Shenxue was listening to Xie Jianyong's report.

"At present, our S16 series mobile phones have completed all research and development and finalized, and the next step is to organize mass production and prepare for stock!"

"This year, our S16 series of mobile phones adopted the four-model, high-low matching strategy we formulated earlier."

"In addition to the S16MAX, the MAX series has added the higher-end S16MAX Pro with a larger screen, continuing its ultra-high-end positioning with a price of more than yuan."

"The S16 and S16 Pro versions are mid-to-low configurations. As the entry-level version, the S16 continues to be priced at 16 yuan, while the S Pro maintains its price at yuan."

"Following the success of our full-screen and 3D facial recognition technology last year, we will continue to promote this strategy this year to stabilize sales."

Xu Shenxue has always been concerned about the research and development progress of the S16 series of mobile phones and knows the situation of this phone very well.

The biggest feature of this year's S16 series of mobile phones is that the entire series uses a combination of notch screen and 3D face recognition, which has been completely made into the signature feature of the Zhiyun S series of mobile phones.

As for other innovations, they are actually very limited. They are just some simple hardware upgrades, and the overall changes are not significant.

After all, with the development of smartphones, it is actually very difficult to have revolutionary innovations that break people's cognition. They are all patchwork. Even the industry leader Zhiyun Group cannot avoid falling into this vicious circle in terms of innovation.

So Zhiyun Group is like squeezing toothpaste, hiding some advanced things and then releasing a little every year to maintain the attractiveness of the products.

At the same time, considering that the sales of smartphones this year have stopped growing, many analysis agencies believe that the sales of smartphones this year may not increase but decrease.

After reaching a peak of 1.53 billion units in shipments last year, the global smartphone market has entered a slowly declining curve.

The smartphone market has entered a stock market, which has forced Zhiyun Group to be more cautious in its mobile phone business.

For a top mobile phone brand like Zhiyun S series, which has reached the pinnacle and has an annual global shipment volume of over 09 million units, it is very difficult to build up the brand and it requires year after year of accumulation… From the launch of the S9 mobile phone in 15 to the launch of the S15 series mobile phones in , it has been a year of innovation and investment, which eventually gave birth to the Zhiyun S series, a top brand in the field of smart phones.

But if you want to pull down the brand, it is very easy. If you are not careful, the sales volume will be cut in half. Once you make a mistake, the big players behind you, such as the four-star brand, will pounce on you without hesitation and tear up the market share of the Zhiyun S series.

Even many domestic mobile phone brands say that Zhiyun is the big brother and how much they respect it, but they still regard catching up with or even challenging Zhiyun's S series of mobile phones as their core goal.

The high-end market has a huge market size and super high gross profit margin, who wouldn’t want it?

If a mobile phone manufacturer does not want to produce high-end phones, then it is not a qualified mobile phone manufacturer!

Even its sister company, Weiku Electronics, has been working hard on the Little Blue MAX series, impacting the high-end market year after year.

Huawei and OV are no exception. They have successively entered the 3,000 yuan field and even started to get involved in the 4,000 yuan field. They are also very jealous of the high-end market of more than 5,000 yuan.

Therefore, the senior management of Zhiyun Group, including Xu Shenxue, have actually become more and more cautious about Zhiyun's mobile phone business.

And the business focus is increasingly concentrated on the S series!

In order to maintain the sales of the S series mobile phones, Zhiyun Group did not hesitate to suppress its own A series and C series mobile phones... because the S series mobile phones are more expensive and have higher gross profit margins.

At the same time, when the sales of S series mobile phones have become difficult to increase on a large scale, Zhiyun Group began to launch the MAX series and this year's MAX Pro series. In addition to promoting new technologies, it is also to further increase the average selling price of the entire S series mobile phones and increase revenue and profits.

This strategy has been proven to be very correct last year. The sales of the S15MAX phone exploded, directly accounting for 15% of the shipments of the entire S series.

The S15MAX starts at yuan, which is very expensive.

This also led to a significant increase in the average selling price of the entire S series, increased revenue and profits.

This year, Zhiyun Group further launched the S16MAX Pro to continue implementing the high-price strategy.

Of course, while launching more expensive models, Zhiyun Group will not give up the entry-level market of 5,000 yuan.

Even more attention has been paid to it.

The price range of 5,000 yuan is Zhiyun Group’s moat!
At this price point, Zhiyun Group would rather make less profit than give up the market to other manufacturers.

Therefore, this year's 3D face recognition module has been directly deployed in the entire S16 series. Even the cheapest S5199 16GB version, which only costs 32 yuan, is equipped with a 3D face recognition module.

You should know that the current cost of 3D face recognition modules is still very expensive. The cost given by Wanjin Technology is thirty US dollars.

Its cost is far higher than the current three or four dollars for fingerprint scanning and more than ten dollars for under-screen optoelectronics.

However, this kind of internal cost price actually has no market significance, because they are all supplied internally, and the prices are inaccurate. Many of them are simply material costs, and profits are not taken into account too much.

But precisely because they are all their own products, Zhiyun Group dares to use relatively expensive components such as 3D facial recognition modules directly on the entry-level S16 32GB version.

This entry-level mobile phone priced at 3 yuan also has D face recognition capabilities.

This will further expand the market dominance of the S16 series entry-level models and further block the upward momentum of other brands.

The S16 32GB version is designed to target the four-star Galaxy series, Apple's flagship phone this year, and a host of other so-called high-end flagship phones.

It can be said to be highly targeted!
According to the estimates of Zhiyun Group's internal marketing department, this year's S16 32GB may further promote a small increase in sales of the entire S series... However, its own A series and C series, as well as the SX phone that is being destocked, will be further suppressed by its own S series phones, and sales will further decline.

There are gains and losses.

But for Zhiyun Group, the S series is the core. The entire smartphone business revolves around the S series, and the others are just supplementary.

Xu Shenxue, Xie Jianyong and others all have a clear understanding of this.

----

In addition to continuing to increase S series revenue in the smartphone business, Zhiyun Group has also increased its investment in other smart terminal fields, with annual R&D funding being huge.

However, many smart terminal products have reached the limit of market capacity, and even the entire market is on the decline.

The most typical example is the tablet computer business, which once contributed a large amount of revenue to Zhiyun Group. Although the sales of YunPAD are still good now, they have actually been declining for two consecutive years.

Because the entire tablet computer market is declining, especially the high-end tablet computer market is shrinking continuously, but low-end tablet computers priced at around 1,000 yuan are rising rapidly...but tablet computers at this price have nothing to do with Zhiyun.

In the tablet computer business, Zhiyun, Fruit, and Sixin are now facing the dilemma of an overall shrinking market... Not to mention increasing sales, it is even difficult to maintain existing sales.

As for another major smart terminal product, namely PC products, the market has also reached its limit. The entire PC market has entered the stock market, and the high-end business notebook market is no exception.

Zhiyun's YunBook and Shuguo's MACBook have been engaged in a fierce battle in other third-party markets except the Chinese and fruit markets... At the same time, other manufacturers have gradually joined this market, such as traditional PC manufacturers such as Sixin, Dell, and Lianxiang. In addition, some domestic mobile phone manufacturers have also begun to engage in PC business.

These have also impacted Zhiyun's overall sales of YunBook. If it can maintain an overall PC shipment of 25 million units this year, it will be considered a victory.

And this is not easy!
In the smart watch business, Zhiyun Group has performed very well, with sales expected to exceed 15 million units, almost monopolizing the main high-end market of the smart watch business. However, it also faces strong challenges from four-star and fruit.

Bluetooth headsets: In this field, Zhiyun's Bluetooth headset business is also relatively strong, with large sales. It is expected that the shipment volume this year will reach 30 million units... The reason why Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets have such a large sales volume is purely because Zhiyun mobile phones have a large annual shipment volume and a larger stock, forming an overall ecosystem. Many Zhiyun mobile phone users will buy Zhiyun Bluetooth headsets as a supporting product, and the user experience is excellent.

In this field, Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets have a very strong moat... You should know that last year, Apple also launched Bluetooth headsets based on the Bluetooth 5.0 protocol. The overall technical level is not much worse than Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets, but their Bluetooth headsets just can't sell as well as Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets.

why?
Because the annual shipments and inventory of Fruit phones are not as good as those of Zhiyun phones!

As a very typical ecological chain product relying on mobile phones, if the leading mobile phones are not good, then don’t expect to sell many Bluetooth headsets.

Therefore, the Bluetooth headset business is very stable. However, also because of the ecological chain products, it is difficult for the Bluetooth headset business to break through the ceiling... Users of other mobile phone brands rarely choose Zhiyun's Bluetooth headsets.

The above-mentioned core smart terminal products constitute the core products of Zhiyun Group and contribute the vast majority of revenue and profits.

However, most of these core products have now reached their ceiling, and Zhiyun Group wants to continue to grow while preventing the decline of a core smart terminal product so that other products can take its place.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group has always maintained huge R&D investment in other businesses, including other smart terminals, AI, semiconductors and other high-tech fields.

It is actually very sad for companies that can see the ceiling at a glance, because the upper limit has been locked, but they can't find a new breakthrough...

Therefore, in reality, we can see that many super-large technology companies, when they develop to a certain level, will try every means to diversify and develop horizontally. They will try various new tracks and are willing to suffer a lot of setbacks.

Zhiyun Group is also in this rather embarrassing situation. Its existing business has almost reached its limit, and it is difficult to make any major breakthroughs.

So we started to turn our attention to other areas.

The VR field is an area that Zhiyun Group has paid more attention to recently.

As for the pure VR field, especially the so-called virtual world and virtual community, Xu Shenxue actually doesn't care much about it. This thing has been around for so many years in the original time and space, advocating virtual world and virtual community. Facebook even changed its name for it, but the result was just a mess. A bunch of technology giants rushed in, and finally all came out lying down.

There is not a single successful example!
Because... the existing VR field is too different from what people expect... what people want is a virtual world in which they can immerse themselves.

But the current technology is not up to standard, and we can only provide users with a glasses player, which is a 3D player at best.

This is of no use!
Are users uncomfortable lying on the sofa and playing with their mobile phones?
So when it comes to VR, people are curious about it at first, then try it out, and then forget about it and leave a review of it as a "scam".

Xu Shenxue knew very well that this kind of VR was useless.

But Xu Shenxue still supports the development of VR glasses for other reasons...

He never got the VR glasses or helmet for any virtual world or virtual community. His goal was very simple and pure, which was to use it to play games.

Then, it can be paired with an omnidirectional treadmill, motion capture equipment and other equipment to achieve a certain degree of virtual gaming.

In addition, there is another reason that is not easy to announce to the public, that is, VR glasses and drones are very good partners!

Drone operators put on VR glasses and use remote controls to control the drone to perform various tasks, and the effect is very good.

This is a very practical combination that evolved in the original time and space after several years of war... However, when such a combination appeared in the original time and space, VR glasses were already everywhere, so it did not attract much attention.

Many people don’t even know that many modern drone operators wear VR glasses to perform their missions.

But at the moment... not many people use this combination, after all, there is no matching hardware.

Xu Shenxue developed VR glasses with a simple and pure purpose. One is to use them for playing games temporarily, and then develop them into virtual games in the future, which is similar to the one in "Ready Player One".

In Xu Shenxue's opinion, although this whole set of equipment is very technically difficult, it is still possible to make, namely the three major items: VR helmet, VR treadmill, and motion capture clothing.

In addition, if this complete set of equipment can be made...what else can it be used for besides playing games?

As a smart person, you should have figured out that military training... can allow soldiers to perform various real actions, even consume physical energy, and then provide soldiers with various immersive training environments.

As long as you have enough imagination, you can train however you want and create any explosion scene you want without worrying about the soldiers actually getting hurt.

If it is paired with some hardware peripherals, such as seats, vibrations, centrifugal force, etc., it can even be used to simulate driving various vehicles, such as cars, tanks, warships and even airplanes.

Training on various types of vehicles is very valuable, and you can only practice running and then simulating fighting. If you want to demonstrate it more realistically, then all that is worth a lot of money... If you can use a set of such virtual equipment to carry out most of the vehicle simulation training, it will save a lot of training funds.

And it can achieve effects that are difficult to achieve in real training... In reality it is impossible for you to explode, explode, explode, explode, explode, explode as you please in the virtual world.

So although both are involved in VR, Xu Shenxue’s VR direction is different from that of other manufacturers… VR glasses are just one of the devices in Zhiyun Group’s entire set of virtual reality technology, and they are not very important devices at that.

Zhiyun Group's technological investment in VR is far greater and more in-depth than the outside world expected.

Last year, when major manufacturers launched their own VR glasses, ushering in the so-called VR era, Zhiyun Group did not follow suit immediately, but waited until this year to plan the release of the first generation of VR glasses.

This is because Zhiyun Group’s VR glasses are different from other manufacturers’ VR glasses in that they are just simple VR displays… Simple VR displays are of no use to Zhiyun Group, and Xu Shenxue was too lazy to even take a look at them.

What Xu Shenxue cares about is the research and development of a complete set of VR equipment.

But now it would be good to first make a pair of VR glasses, show off some tricks, and then recoup some costs. At the same time, it would also be good to stimulate content manufacturers to develop a VR content ecosystem.

At this time, Xie Jianyong introduced the VR glasses they developed to Xu Shenxue.

"In addition to the conventional technologies such as top-notch display screens, our VR glasses have two most critical technologies: one is eye-capturing technology, and the other is gesture operation technology."

"We use sensors on the inside of the glasses to capture changes in the eyes, including blinking and changes in eye trajectory, and then use gestures to control the entire VR glasses!"

"Of course, we also provide a dedicated wireless connection handle for control. In fact, it is more convenient to use the handle."

"In addition, our glasses display also uses dynamic pixel rendering technology. As the user's line of sight changes, the sensor will capture this change and use dynamic rendering to enhance the rendering of the picture in the direction of sight, achieving a higher resolution and making the image clearer for the user."

When Xu Shenxue listened to this, he became interested, then he took a prototype and started to try it out. However, he was not familiar with the operation yet, so he simply used the handle and clicked to play a specially made video.

As expected, just as Xie Jianyong said, as my sight focused, the places I saw became clearer. If I didn’t pay attention, I wouldn’t even be able to sense the changes in the dynamic rendering, and I would think that the entire picture had an extremely high resolution…

If all the images on the screen are turned into the extreme resolution, the computing power required of the GPU will be too high. Even if the VR glasses are actually connected to a small host and power supply at the back, they still cannot withstand such GPU requirements.

In order to achieve the most extreme rendering and ultra-high resolution with limited GPU computing power, the Zhiyun VR glasses project team boldly adopted innovative dynamic rendering technology.

Then, when Xu Shenxue put on the VR glasses to watch, he could see extremely clear pictures, without the blurriness and graininess that are experienced by ordinary VR glasses on the market.

After trying it out, Xu Shenxue took off the VR glasses and said, "This VR glasses is very good in terms of hardware, but I saw that the ecological content seems to be a little insufficient. If you want to have a good experience with this kind of VR glasses, then the matching ecological content cannot be left behind!"

In response to this, Xie Jianyong sighed: "If our VR glasses want to provide a better experience, they must be different from ordinary ecological content. We are actively contacting various content manufacturers to obtain more and better ecological content."

“But the overall problem is still quite big. Most software manufacturers are not familiar with VR content and are cautious about investment. In the short term, we may face a shortage of ecological content!”

(End of this chapter)