Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 394 AI Drone Era and Fierce Market Competition

Qianshan International Conference Center, the venue used by Zhiyun Group to hold important press conferences, was acquired by Zhiyun Group at a huge cost a long time ago and usually hosts various business meetings and activities.

At the same time, there is also an exhibition hall open to the public of Zhiyun Group, which displays many historical products of Zhiyun Group, including some experimental products that have never been put into mass production and products that failed in internal competition.

For example, in the robot exhibition hall, more than 50 types of robots that have been developed by Zhiyun Group since its inception are exhibited, from the earliest program-controlled conventional robots, hydraulic robots, to the first generation of AI electric robots, and multiple models of improved robots.

In addition to the above-mentioned robots, which have never been made public before, have not been mass-produced and put on the market, and are still in the exploratory stage.

There are also a variety of robots that have been produced and put on the market.

These include the various industrial robots that were first introduced to the market, such as the restaurant service robot that first carried Zhiyun Group's robotics business, followed by transportation robots and robots engaged in precision processing. In fact, many of these robots for the production field are just one or two robotic arms.

Not all robots have a mobile platform, whether it is wheeled, bipedal or quadrupedal... Many robots used in the production field are deployed on a fixed platform and only use robotic arms to perform mobile work.

The most eye-catching thing in the robot exhibition hall is the first-generation mass-produced general-purpose service robot: Yun Robot, which has been successfully mass-produced and launched on the market and has achieved great success. Its total sales have exceeded 150,000 units in the six months since its launch.

Two types of robots, one A wheeled platform and one B bipedal platform, are very eye-catching.

Also on display here is the prototype, so it is of great significance to collect and exhibit it.

Next to the robot exhibition hall is the exhibition hall for "mobile phones", the core business of Zhiyun Group.

In this exhibition hall, many mobile phone models developed by Zhiyun Group over the years are exhibited, including the earliest C1 mobile phone China Unicom version, followed by C1 Mobile version and Telecom version.

Although the entire C1 series seems outdated today and is not as popular as the later S series, it is of great significance to Zhiyun Group.

Thanks to the huge success of the C1 series of mobile phones, Zhiyun Group became the second manufacturer in the world at that time that could produce true "smartphones", and then successfully opened up domestic and international markets.

In the early days of C1's launch, its monthly sales exceeded one million units, making it the best-selling smartphone at the time, second only to Apple phones.

The entire C1 series sold a total of million units in a two-year sales cycle, which laid the foundation for Zhiyun Group and made it a smartphone manufacturer on par with Apple.

Thanks to the success of the C1 series, Zhiyun Group had enough funds to complete the research and development of the S9 mobile phone and promote its global launch, which ultimately established Zhiyun Group's leading position in the smartphone industry.

Therefore, the C1 series of mobile phones have very important historical significance for Zhiyun Group.

Therefore, the prototype of this type of mobile phone was placed in the most central and conspicuous position in the entire mobile phone exhibition hall.

Even the S9 phone, which was also a huge success, and the S10 phone, the first phone equipped with fingerprint technology, can only lag behind.

In the mobile phone exhibition hall, in addition to displaying many mobile phone models that have been launched on the market, some mobile phone projects that have been terminated in the research and development stage are also exhibited, so people can see many strange and weird smart phone models.

People can even find two twin brothers of S10 here... When Zhiyun Group was developing the S10 mobile phone, there were three project teams working on it simultaneously... In other words, Zhiyun Group actually developed three S10 mobile phones that year, but in the end only one was launched on the market and became the S10 mobile phone that people are familiar with.

The other two models that failed in internal competition have never been put into mass production and entered the market. Even the outside world didn’t know about them until Zhiyun Group put them on display.

Now, people who come to this exhibition hall can discover this history.

Many technology bloggers have explored these models that failed in internal competition. One blogger gave a detailed explanation of the two failed twin brothers of the S10 mobile phone.

There were three S10 projects that year, and the design concepts were all different.

Project A uses a glass back cover and has a relatively softer exterior design, looking a bit like a smaller version of the A series phone…The introduction to the project in the exhibition hall is that after the project failed in internal competition, it did not stop research and development, but continued to move forward, and eventually successfully transformed into a prototype of the A series phone after continuous advancement of technology.

Project B is the one that was successfully launched on the market and people are already very familiar with it. The four-inch screen, the three-section aluminum alloy body and the flat round fingerprint sensor on the front are the most classic designs in the Zhiyun S series. As a result, over the following years, it has cultivated a group of loyal fans of small-screen mobile phones around the world. In the following years, Zhiyun Group has launched a small-screen flagship phone plan for this purpose, namely the SX series.

As for Project C, this phone is even more special. It is a phone that uses the rear fingerprint technology that is widely used now and the concept of full screen. Of course, it is not a real full screen, and there is still space above and below the screen. However, this design concept of large screen ratio and rear fingerprint is still a very avant-garde design concept at that time...

So people will find that the full-screen plus rear fingerprint technology solutions that many mobile phone manufacturers are using now were already used by Zhiyun Group 10 years ago.

However, in the end, after detailed market analysis and internal usage experience, Zhiyun Group abandoned the concept of rear fingerprint and chose the front fingerprint solution.

This also led to the failure of S10's C project, which was then turned into a technical reserve.

And this is just the S10 project. In fact, the research and development of each generation of S series mobile phones of Zhiyun Group is carried out simultaneously by two or even three project teams.

The research and development of the S series mobile phones in Zhiyun Group has never been a single project, but an internal competition among several project teams.

The reason is simple... Zhiyun Group's S series of mobile phones are the most famous mobile phone brand in contemporary times, with annual shipments exceeding 250 million units, and the average sales price increasing year by year. Its revenue has reached 200 billion US dollars.

Faced with such a super industrial product, it is not excessive for Zhiyun Group to attach great importance to it.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group set up three project teams specifically for the research and development of the S series mobile phones, and then the teams competed with each other. The resulting project teams would become the new S series mobile phones publicly launched by Zhiyun Group that year. Failed projects would either be turned into technology reserves or continue to be polished and improved, and then compete for next year's projects.

These three project teams are merely design solution integration teams. They do not conduct technical research and development of subsystems or components... and they cannot do so.

Around these three mobile phone design teams, Zhiyun Group has established various R&D teams with more than 100,000 people, ranging from materials to various components, new technologies, new processes, etc.

This huge R&D team of one hundred thousand people is basically dedicated to serving the S series mobile phones... Of course, the A series mobile phone project team, C series mobile phone project team, as well as the SX series and SXL series project teams can also follow behind and reap the benefits.

The reason why so many R&D personnel are needed and involved in so many R&D fields is that a super product like the S series mobile phone can never be handled by a single project team or a R&D team of thousands of people.

After all, many of the technologies in the current S series mobile phones are the world's top, even original. It represents the world's top electronic consumer and even semiconductor technology... It is a culmination of many top industrial fields.

And we are still in the process of continuing to innovate and promote technological progress.

This kind of thing is not something that a small company or small business can do.

Looking at the world, only Zhiyun Group can produce such a top-level industrial product on its own...

After all, Zhiyun Group has the top semiconductor manufacturing industry, the top semiconductor design industry, and the top smart terminal supply chain, such as screens, batteries... even the glass cover technology is the best in the world.

It has all the core technologies of a smartphone, and basically reaches the top level.

As for Apple, they only have chip design capabilities and mobile phone design capabilities, as well as the technology for parts, but they still need to rely on a large number of suppliers to complete the design, development and subsequent production of mobile phones. For example, the communication baseband has long been restricted by Qualcomm, and the screen needs to rely on Samsung. Recently, they have also been negotiating with Huaxing Technology to try to obtain Huaxing Technology's top OLED screen...

The situation is similar for Sixin, which can only handle some core components on its own, but is powerless in the SOC field including communication baseband. They are looking for Qualcomm and Zhiyun to cooperate in procurement at the same time. In addition, the fingerprint recognition field also relies on Qianding Technology.

In the current smart terminal industry, Zhiyun Group is the only company that has truly realized the entire industry chain. All core components can be produced independently. Even those parts that cannot be produced independently are of little importance and alternative solutions can be found at any time.

However, by doing so, Zhiyun Group has also led to a series of negative situations that have affected profits, such as excessive fixed asset investment and excessive R&D investment, which in turn has led to Zhiyun Group's price-to-earnings ratio being low for a long time.

But then again, by doing this, Zhiyun Group has also given investors a greater sense of security... All core areas can be self-sufficient, and there are many alternative options for the parts that cannot be self-sufficient. At the same time, by doing this, Zhiyun Group can also control the many profits brought by smart terminal products in its own hands, thereby achieving super high profit margins.

Zhiyun Group's smart terminal products are famous for their high gross profit margins. The gross profit margin of its S series mobile phones is believed by some outside analysis agencies to be over 50%. The higher the price of the model, the higher the gross profit margin.

This is quite exaggerated!

This is the benefit brought by the entire industrial chain, all profits can be grasped in your own hands.

Unlike many mobile phone manufacturers that do not have core technology, they seem to sell a lot of mobile phones and have high revenue, but their gross profit margin is very low and their net profit is even lower!

Weiku Electronics is a very typical example. Its annual sales volume is more than 200 million units, and its revenue from other smart terminals and software businesses is also several billion US dollars. However, its annual net profit is only a few billion US dollars... not even a fraction of Zhiyun Group.

This is because Weiku Electronics lacks core technology and all spare parts are purchased. They are just a very simple mobile phone design manufacturer, so the overall gross profit margin is relatively low.

In today's smart terminal industry, those who can make a lot of money basically have their own core technologies, namely Zhiyun, Fruit, and Sixing.

As for Weiku Electronics, which ranks fourth in the world, its profits are very low due to its lack of core technology.

Of course, this low price is only compared with Zhiyun, Fruit, and Sixing... Compared with other mobile phone manufacturers, Weiku Electronics can straighten its back again.

No matter what, WeCool Electronics is the world's fourth largest smart terminal company. Its mobile phone business revenue and even profits rank fourth in the world, and it also has a complete production chain of various smart terminals.

It cannot compare with the three world-class first-tier manufacturers mentioned above, but it can still suppress a large group of second-tier mobile phone manufacturers.

Below Weiku Electronics are a group of second-tier manufacturers at home and abroad. The fifth-ranked mobile phone manufacturer in the world is Huawei, whose mobile phone shipments have exceeded 100 million units, which is not a low sales volume.

Relying on independent design, the Kirin chip manufactured by Zhiyun Microelectronics has made a name for itself in the mid-to-high-end field, occupying a market share of around 3,000 yuan, but the market share is not large.

Then there is OV, whose mobile phone sales have also exceeded 100 million. Their approach is actually quite similar to that of Weiku Electronics...even the components are highly unified. They also use various components from Zhiyun Group to manufacture mobile phones, from SOC to screen, storage chips, etc., which are actually the same.

Moreover, they are more flexible in marketing. They like to invite celebrities to endorse their products and play in the offline market. They have been doing very well in recent years.

In addition, their exclusive high-power fast charging technology is pretty good... Their mobile phones are much better than a lot of high-end mobile phones in terms of charging.

Of course, Zhiyun actually has high-power fast charging technology, and the technical team has already developed fast charging technology of more than 100 watts, but for the sake of ultimate safety, it has chosen a very conservative strategy... It is better to let the phone charge slowly than to see news about the phone exploding and catching fire.

The miserable situation of Four Star last year is still fresh in our memory. It is worthy for Zhiyun Group to pay great attention to this aspect and adopt a relatively conservative strategy.

Even the fruit company next door was scared by the self-explosion of the four-star battery... Damn, the consequences are too serious. The fast charging technology of the fruit company is relatively poor, and it doesn't even have the courage to use high-power fast charging.

Finally, the last big player in the mobile phone market is Xiaomi, a mobile phone manufacturer founded by Lei Jun, known for its cost-effectiveness, with sales of tens of millions.

They like to follow the lead of WeCool Electronics, and they do the same thing as WeCool Electronics... Of course, WeCool Electronics is doing normal things and has some hardware profits, while Dami has the ultimate cost-effective approach, with very low hardware profits. However, they have a good ecosystem and make money by relying on the ecosystem, so they have also found their own way.

This is not easy anymore!

The competition in the mobile phone market is very fierce. Zhiyun monopolizes the market above 8,000 yuan. In the market between 5,000 and 8,000 yuan, Zhiyun occupies the majority, while Fruit occupies the minority, and Four-Star occupies the rest.

The market of 4,000 yuan to 5,000 yuan is also divided among the above three companies.

Only in the price range of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan is there room for survival for a large number of second-tier manufacturers. Among them, Weiku Electronics has occupied a considerable market share with its Little Blue MAX series. Then Zhiyun, Sixing and Fruit have also used discounted flagship phones, old models or special models to grab the market in this field.

There is very little room for survival left for other second-tier mobile phone manufacturers.

Then in the 2,000 yuan to 3,000 yuan market, Zhiyun and Fruit have completely withdrawn from this market, Sixin continues to cultivate this market, Weiku Electronics also has a part of the market share, and other mobile phone manufacturers are focusing on competing for this market segment. Among them, Huawei and OV are doing relatively well... This is already the main "high-end" market that they can compete for.

The market of one thousand to two thousand yuan is a battleground between Vico Electronics and a large number of second-tier manufacturers. Among them, Vico Electronics is one of the stronger ones, and several other second-tier mobile phone manufacturers are also doing well... This price range is also the main advantage area of ​​domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Vico Electronics, Huawei, OV, and Dami, with very large shipments.

Below 1,000 yuan... Weiku Electronics has completely entered this market. Xiaomi has a great advantage in this field, and then there are some other third-tier manufacturers and even copycat manufacturers mixed in.

Looking at the entire mobile phone market, there are almost very powerful mobile phone manufacturers controlling the market in each price range. This makes it very difficult for second-tier manufacturers and latecomers to make progress.

In this highly competitive market, it is actually not easy for domestic second-tier mobile phone manufacturers to find a way to survive, and even fewer can do so.

Warwick, OV and Dami are already the best among them...behind them, there is a group of losers who are half-dead, struggling, or have even changed careers or gone bankrupt.

It is not easy for rice to achieve success, even if it only occupies an advantage in the low-end field.

In addition to the above-mentioned companies, there are several other mobile phone manufacturers, such as LG abroad, Motorola acquired by Lianxiang, and Zhongxing, Gionee, TCL, etc. in China... Basically, they are third-tier manufacturers that have gradually disappeared from the sight of domestic consumers, but they still have some market share in some specific markets and are able to barely maintain.

Further back, there is a group of fourth-tier mobile phone manufacturers around the world. There are actually quite a lot of these fourth-tier manufacturers, including a large group of small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers in China, such as Sichuan Conservatory of Music, which operates in backward markets such as Africa. Their smartphone shipments this year are estimated to exceed 30 million units, and the growth rate is very fast.

In addition, there are foreign brands such as Japanese brands, Indian brands, etc.

As for these small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers at home and abroad that are listed as "others", most of the supply chains they use are also China's supply chains, and their mobile phone production is basically concentrated in China.

You should know that last year the total global smartphone production capacity was about 1.5 billion units, and China's smartphone production capacity reached 1.45 billion units. The remaining tens of millions of units of production capacity are distributed in Vietnam, India, Japan, South Korea and other regions, but the scale is very small.

Of the more than 1.5 billion smartphones sold worldwide each year, about 65% use Zhiyun Group's mobile SOC chips (including communication basebands); about 50% use Zhiyun Group's storage chips, such as memory and flash memory.

Forty percent of them use screens from Huaxing Technology, which is controlled by Zhiyun Group, and a considerable number of them use screens from BOE, in which Zhiyun Group also has a strategic investment.

Although such a high proportion is largely driven by Zhiyun and Weiku Electronics, the combined sales of these two companies' mobile phones have reached more than 500 million units, directly accounting for more than 35% of the global total sales.

However, it can still be seen how strong Zhiyun Group's control over the supply chain is in the field of smart terminals.

Zhiyun Group, together with other domestic supply chain manufacturers, has formed an industrial chain in China's consumer electronics sector, which has directly monopolized the global market and leaves no room for survival for any second country!
Even if it is fruit or even if they produce all kinds of smart terminals, they cannot get rid of China's electronic consumer supply chain.

This is also the reason why Xu Shenxue insisted on supporting Wecoo Electronics to enter the mid- and low-end fields, while continuing to support other domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Only when the cake is made bigger can the supply chain be built up, and then the global market can be completely controlled.

This world-leading consumer electronics and semiconductor supply chain will ultimately feed back into the growth of Zhiyun Group and other companies under Xu Shenxue.

Xiaojiang Technology is undoubtedly a manufacturer that has gained huge benefits from this supply chain development model.

As a professional drone manufacturer, Xiaojiang Technology's technology research and development is actually mainly concentrated on the drones themselves. Although it also develops components, it still relies more on the supply chain of its partner manufacturers.

For example, in the chip field, some advanced chips are supplied by Zhiyun Semiconductor, and some are supplied by other chip design companies that have gradually developed in the country... and the chip manufacturing part is basically manufactured by Zhiyun Microelectronics.

As for the battery, the mature battery technology of the consumer electronics supply chain is directly applied, and then some special customization is carried out to make the battery more suitable for the needs of drones.

In the field of AI, they directly clung to Zhiyun Group to carry out so-called joint development. In fact, it was Zhiyun Group's Artificial Intelligence Research Institute that directly gave them a drone AI, and then Xiaojiang Technology used it to carry out various adaptation training... the food was fed directly into their mouths.

And now, Xiaojiang Technology has reaped the benefits again.

As soon as they heard that their boss's other company, HaiLan Automobile, had developed semi-solid-state batteries, they ran over and shamelessly placed orders for batteries.

This battery is naturally not intended for use in conventional small drones, but is intended for use in large drones, especially its X14 project.

Because the X14 project uses semi-solid-state batteries, its overall battery life can be increased by about %, which is a huge performance improvement.

After all, the official commercial use of the X14 project is largely affected by the fact that the energy density of the previous ternary lithium battery was not enough to support the long-term battery life of the X14 project.

In the smart driving part, flight control part, motor and other aspects have been almost solved, with only the energy problem left. You can imagine how excited Xiaojiang Technology was when they learned that Hailan Automobile had developed a semi-solid-state battery.

After Xu Shenxue's coordination, Xiaojiang Technology finally got its wish and obtained Hailan Automobile's semi-solid-state battery... Although Hailan Automobile's semi-solid-state battery is not sold to the outside world, it is actually limited to sales to automobile manufacturers. If manufacturers in other industries have demand, they will actually sell it to the outside world.

If Xiaojiang Technology is also engaged in electric cars, even if they are both Xu Shenxue's companies, the management of Hailan Automobile will probably directly refuse. Brothers have to settle accounts clearly, let alone brother companies... Although it is true that they are both Xu Shenxue's industries, the management of both parties are two different groups of people, each holding option shares and a considerable salary... They also have their own interests.

However, semi-solid-state batteries are the core competitiveness of Hailan Automobile. The management of Hailan Automobile will never sell its own semi-solid-state batteries to any competitor... Xu Shenxue had spent a lot of effort to convince them to open up some patents of semi-solid-state batteries for paid licensing, which allowed Ningdai Battery to obtain some patents of semi-solid-state batteries... Even so, Ningdai Battery still has to pay high patent fees, and it will take two years at the earliest to launch products to the market!

The contract stipulates that Ningdai Battery is not allowed to use these patented technologies to launch semi-solid-state batteries to the market within two years.

But Xiaojiang Technology did not have these troubles. It quickly obtained the semi-solid-state batteries from Hailan Automobile and installed them on its own X14 project.

Ultimately, this X14 drone has real commercial application capabilities for the first time.

On July 4, Xu Shenxue introduced the entry-level version of the robot to people in an open-air venue in Qianshan International Conference Center, and demonstrated several high-configuration models of the robot, including a general professional robot with a four-legged mobile platform.

Xu Shenxue did not stop the press conference, but said to the audience: "Next, I will introduce to you a very special product, which can even be said to be epoch-making!"

"The X14 drone from Xiaojiang Technology is an artificial intelligence low-altitude large multi-rotor drone."

After Xu Shenxue finished speaking, he waved towards the distance. Soon people heard a buzzing sound. Looking up, they saw two large drones driving quickly side by side, one on the left and one on the right. Then, after arriving at the center of the venue, they automatically landed on both sides of Xu Shenxue.

Drones don’t matter, even large ones like this.

What’s important is that one of these two drones carries two people, while the other carries a huge cargo hold!
And what Xu Shenxue said next shocked the people at the scene even more.

"As you can see, our X14 drone has no pilot and does not require remote control. The entire flight is fully autonomously controlled by the onboard AI!"

"This is a groundbreaking drone that does not require a pilot, has a very low threshold for use, can take off and land vertically, does not need to rely on professional airports, and has a maximum range of 150 kilometers, a maximum load of 300 kilograms, and a maximum speed of 130 kilometers."

“It can be used for aerial cargo transportation in complex terrains and rapid aerial commuting of personnel.”

"My friends, the era of true artificial intelligence drones has arrived!"

“My friends, the era of the low-altitude economy has also arrived.”

(End of this chapter)