Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 501 Wang Lintu's European Inspection Trip
There have been personnel changes in the senior management of Zhiyun Group, and it has affected the crucial smart terminal business unit. This news has not only caused certain impacts within the group, but also has caused certain impacts in the outside world.

After all, Zhiyun Group is too large and has a great influence, and the smart terminal business unit is the most core business unit in Zhiyun Group.

The entire business unit can provide Zhiyun Group with more than US$300 billion in revenue and bring in US$800 to 900 billion in profits.

It contributes more than half of the revenue and more than 80% of the profits for the entire Zhiyun Group.

It can be said that smart terminals are the cash cow of Zhiyun Group. They are also the locomotive of many other businesses of Zhiyun Group, driving many other businesses forward.

For example, the head of the software and Internet division is also the senior vice president of Zhiyun, but his influence is not that great... because a large part of the business of this division is based on the field of smart terminals. This is why Xiao Min, who is in charge of the software and Internet division, pays so much attention to virtual business and tries to create an entire virtual world.

The purpose is to enhance the influence of the software and Internet division and prove that this division can achieve good results without relying on the smart terminal business.

Similarly, the strength of the smart terminal business unit has also affected the presence of its two subsidiaries, Zhiyun Semiconductor and Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Although everyone knows that these two core subsidiaries are the foundation of Zhiyun Group, the problem is that a large part of their revenue still needs to be driven by the smart terminal business!
Without the huge shipments of various smart terminals, especially the annual shipments of more than 200 million S series mobile phones, where would Zhiyun Semiconductor and Zhiyun Microelectronics get the money for research and development and investment?

This is also the reason why Zhiyun Semiconductor pays great attention to a series of computing chips, especially the APO/AI series chips, PX series chips, EYQ series chips, and ZY series chips, because computing chips do not need to rely on smart terminals and can achieve very good development in the artificial intelligence market.

Although the prospects for intelligent robots and virtual devices in the new business are very good, and any one of them is a product with great potential for a market of hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars in the future...but so far, they are still just potential.

Even though the annual shipment volume of intelligent robots reached one million units last year, and this year is aiming for two million units, the expected revenue this year has reached 75 billion US dollars. However, although the revenue of the robot business is large, the profit is not high!

Because the manufacturing cost of robots is very high, and in order to expand its influence and increase sales as quickly as possible, Zhiyun Group basically adopted the approach of giving up profits to expand production and sales in the early stages. This resulted in Zhiyun Group's hardware gross profit margin for robots being relatively low.

The software part, that is, the revenue from various paid advanced functions, is also quite high, but the essence of these advanced functions is artificial intelligence, and their training costs are also very high!

Because the R&D investment in hardware and software is very large, the money earned from the entire robot business will be invested in the R&D of new products!

This results in the robot business seemingly having high revenue and some gross profit, but the net profit is quite low!
Of course, everyone, even outsiders, knows that Zhiyun Group is planning a big move in its robotics business... Now it is willing to sacrifice early profits to develop the market!
As the production and sales volume of robot products gradually expands, the profits from hardware will gradually increase.

Similarly, as the number of robots increases, software profits will also increase.

Now, according to calculations within Zhiyun Group, the entire robotics business segment, including hardware and software, only provides the group with a net profit of approximately US$700 to US$800 million.

This revenue scale and net profit ratio would already be top-notch if placed in other companies.

But in Zhiyun Group, this profit ratio is too low.

Selling 70 billion smart terminals, Zhiyun can earn at least 30 billion

However, by selling robots worth more than 70 billion, Zhiyun can only earn a few billion.

This is the difference!
However, Zhiyun Group has been committed to reducing the manufacturing costs of robots, trying to cover a wider range of consumer groups, and is also working hard to increase the profit ratio. The profits of the subsequent robot business will gradually increase.

But this takes time!
At least for now, the seemingly good robot business is still far from replacing the importance of the smart terminal business!
Not to mention the virtual business department. Even though it has caused a global discussion in the past few months and virtual equipment is in short supply, its high price still greatly limits its production and sales volume.

According to internal estimates of Zhiyun Group, this year's virtual equipment business is estimated to bring the group approximately US$55 billion in revenue, but the profit is also very low. The internal estimate is that the net profit brought by the entire virtual equipment business segment is estimated to be only in the range of several billion US dollars.

The virtual equipment business and the robot business are highly similar!
It has high technical content, is difficult to manufacture, has high production costs, and even higher development costs!
In this case, if the product is put on the market as usual, the cost will be extremely high, resulting in a high selling price and ultimately very low sales.

In order to solve this problem, Zhiyun Group adopted the approach of not making money first, or even losing money, to expand the market, compressing product prices as much as possible, and then striving for more production and sales, thereby diluting R&D and manufacturing costs through the increase in production and sales.

After the production and sales volume increases, we can consider the issue of profitability.

This was the case with the early robotics business. Last year, Zhiyun Group continued to suffer losses in its robotics business, but this year it turned losses into profits and was able to provide the group with billions of dollars in net profit.

And next year, there will be even more.

In a few years, the robotics business is expected to provide Zhiyun Group with huge profits of tens of billions of dollars each year.

Today's virtual devices are also following a similar path... So today's virtual devices only have "potential" and even need the profits of the smart terminal business segment to survive!
Not to mention a large number of other various development projects within the group, all of which require the huge profits of the smart terminal business unit to support them.

This is the importance of the smart terminal business unit in Zhiyun Group!
This is also the core reason why Xu Shenxue attaches so much importance to the replacement of the head of the smart terminal business unit... The smart terminal business unit cannot afford to make any mistakes, so Xu Shenxue is very cautious in selecting a new helmsman for the smart terminal business unit.

But at the same time, outsiders, especially many investors, are also very concerned about this round of senior personnel changes in Zhiyun Group!
After all, everyone knows the importance of the revenue and profits of smart terminals to Zhiyun Group, and any slight changes will affect the stock price.

As for the past Xie Jianyong, everyone thought he did a great job and trusted him!
After all, Xie Jianyong is a senior executive who started a business with Xu Shenxue, and has proven himself with the success of a series of smart terminal products such as the C1 mobile phone and the S9 mobile phone.

The outside world's evaluation of Xie Jianyong is "Xu Shenxue's left arm and right hand man"!
Now that he has resigned due to illness, it will naturally cause concern among many investors.

Everyone knows that Xu Shenxue is awesome. No one can match his strategic vision in the field of high technology. He can be regarded as the number one person in human history in recent decades!
But no matter how great a strategist is, he still needs a group of generals to carry out his orders!
Not to mention the special field of high technology, there must be someone who can implement Xu Shenxue's various grand requirements and various terrifying black technology strategic ideas in a down-to-earth manner!
It is true that the S9 mobile phone was proposed by Xu Shenxue, but the one who actually made it was Xie Jianyong!

Xu Shenxue only drew an appearance and put forward various technical requirements... Then Xie Jianyong led a group of bald, semi-bald, and almost-bald engineers to work day and night on research and development, and finally it was completed.

This is the role of Xie Jianyong in the eyes of outsiders, calling him the most outstanding product engineer of our time!

Of course, Xie Jianyong himself doesn’t think so most of the time… Sometimes when Xie Jianyong thinks back to the past, he can’t help but think: If it wasn’t him leading the R&D team at the time, but someone else led the smartphone R&D team, it would be likely that the C1 and S9 phones could have been made.

Because no one knows better than him how important the various technical requirements, appearance, and new design concepts proposed by Xu Shenxue in the field of smartphones were!
Back then, he did whatever Xu Shenxue told him to do, and then he somehow made the amazing S9 phone.

So, even though many people outside, especially some technical personnel, regard the C1 and S9 phones as his works, Xie Jianyong never thinks so.

These two mobile phones that laid the foundation for Zhiyun Group were all works sculpted by Xu Shenxue from beginning to end... and he, Xie Jianyong, was just a screwdriver in Xu Shenxue's hands!

However, this is Xie Jianyong’s idea...which is different from the ideas of outside investors and many technical personnel.

Many investors are worried that after Xie Jianyong resigns, Zhiyun Group’s smart terminal business may decline...especially since the current smart terminal market has reached its ceiling and entered a stock market, and it is a gradually declining stock market.

Last year, global smartphone shipments fell again. Some statistical analysis agencies believe that global smartphone shipments last year were barely 1.4 billion units, which has been declining for three consecutive years!
This year, many analysis and statistics agencies also believe that smartphone shipments will decline further and may even fail to reach 1.4 billion units.

In such an environment, can the new head of the smart terminal business unit take on the responsibility and lead the smart terminal business unit to further progress while stabilizing revenue and profits?
This is the concern of many investors!

This concern even affected Zhiyun Group's stock price to a certain extent, causing a slight decline.

Some media reported this round of high-level personnel changes in Zhiyun Group based on various news, analyzed various potential possibilities, and discussed several potential candidates for the head of the smart terminal business unit.

Wang Lintu has also received a lot of media attention.

After all, Wang Lintu is the senior vice president of the smart terminal business unit and also the person in charge of the new brand Xinyun Mobile Phone under Zhiyun Group. In the past six months, Xinyun Mobile Phone has achieved huge success in domestic and foreign markets. As a mere new brand, it has created sales of more than 10 million units in the past six months, filling the gap after the decline of the C series of mobile phones in a timely manner.

Faced with various speculations and concerns from both inside and outside the company, Xu Shenxue did not delay too long. Just three days later, he finalized the new head of the smart terminal business unit: Wang Lintu.

In his report on the development of smart terminals in the next five years, Wang Lintu emphasized the concepts of smart wearable devices and smart homes.

"With the continuous development of technology, we are expected to break through the technical barriers in the next few years and create a real smart eyewear terminal, not the current AI glasses, but a 'personal terminal assistant' in the form of glasses."

"At the same time, we will increase investment in the field of smart home, so that smart home can truly enter the homes of ordinary people. With smart phones, glasses, personal terminal assistants, and home hosts as the core, we can conveniently and freely connect various home appliances and furniture to realize a truly intelligent home life."

“As for our core business, we will bring more new changes to mobile phones. We have noticed the development of foldable phones. Although the current foldable screens still have relatively large technical defects and are still far from the technical standards we want to achieve, as technology continues to advance, we are fully capable of solving current technical problems and launching top-level foldable phones to the world!”

"If the plan is successful, foldable phones will bring new growth points to our mobile phone business. Although this growth point will not be too large, it can still serve as a good supplement!"

"At the same time, in the conventional mobile phone business, as innovation becomes more difficult and the technological advantage gradually decreases, we will increase investment in marketing and further increase the sales of high-end products to increase the average selling price and profit!"

Zhiyun Mobile is now facing more and more competitors. Foreign brands such as Apple and Four Star are still unwilling to give up and continue to challenge Zhiyun Mobile in many markets such as Europe, ASEAN, and South Asia.

In China, high-end models from Huawei, Dami, Weiku Electronics, and OV are also constantly making upward moves, trying to erode Zhiyun Mobile's traditional high-end market share.

Of course, this is also the fate of being the market leader...you will always face various challenges!

As a mobile phone manufacturer, they all regard competing for the market share of Zhiyun mobile phones as their company's grand goal...

A few years ago, foreign Apple phones very considerately launched the so-called one-click phone-changing function, which can assist Zhiyun phone users to transfer their personal data to Apple phones with user authorization!
Then other mobile phone brands followed suit and came up with similar functions.

In short... these mobile phone manufacturers are trying their best to reduce the difficulty for Zhiyun phone users to switch to their brands. They not only assist in data migration, but also move closer to Zhiyun phones in many operating habits and even system interface design.

In short, we try to make it as convenient as possible for Zhiyun's mobile phone users to switch to their brand of mobile phones.

Who made your Zhiyun mobile phone user base so huge! And many of them are willing to spend money to buy mobile phones... Pulling one over means that there is one more high-end mobile phone user.

Even its neighboring sister company, WeCool Electronics, and its Bluemax division are trying every means to attract Zhiyun's mobile phone users, and they are also the most successful mobile phone manufacturer in attracting users.

The main reason is that their Lan OS system is highly similar to the Yun OS system. Zhiyun users have easily gotten used to it in the past, and its price-performance ratio is also very high compared to the C series.

If users of Zhiyun C series and A series phones want to switch to other brands of phones, a considerable number of them choose to buy phones from Weiku Electronics, especially the Xiaolan Max phones...

In the past few years, the Zhiyun C series has declined, and the A series has been in a long-term slump... In contrast, the Xiaolan MAX has risen, and the high-end models of Warwick and OV have also taken a big bite of the pie.

Even rice is continuously making inroads into the high-end sector...it's just that the impact has not been very successful.

This is one of the many problems currently facing Zhiyun mobile phones.

Wang Lintu wanted to reverse this situation, and his proposal was to develop foldable phones, while increasing the marketing of the S series, focusing on the MAX series in the S series, further increasing the sales share, and increasing the sales and average selling price of the entire S series. At the same time, the A series and SX/SXL series were used to stabilize the price of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan, allowing these two types of phones to compete with other brands, fight, and hold the ceiling, to prevent other manufacturers' phones from continuing to impact the sales of the S series.

Finally, it is to use the Xinyun brand to expand its share of the mid-range market and reduce the cost of various components through more sales... We don’t expect the Xinyun brand itself to make much money, but we expect the Xinyun brand to reduce the cost of Zhiyun phones through shipments.

As for the market, Wang Lintu’s suggestion is to further explore emerging markets such as ASEAN, India and South America.

With the development of the world economy, the income of people in many emerging markets is gradually increasing, and they can gradually afford S series mobile phones with a starting price of more than 5,000 yuan.

These emerging markets will bring new growth momentum to Zhiyun Mobile.

Exploring emerging markets is what Zhiyun Group has been doing for a long time, but it is still quite difficult... because no matter how good your advertising is, if people don't have money in their pockets, they just can't afford to sell to you!

It is easier to develop the domestic market... because the domestic economic level is increasing very rapidly, and people's income is also rising rapidly, which means that more and more people can afford Zhiyun mobile phones that cost more than 5,000 yuan.

Similarly, this is actually an important factor in the development of mid-to-high-end mobile phones of other domestic mobile phone manufacturers... A large number of ordinary people in the country have become richer and can afford high-end mobile phones.

To date, the sales volume of Zhiyun mobile phones in China has reached over 100 million units. It is worth noting that among these domestic sales, ultra-high-end mobile phones, that is, mobile phones priced at more than one thousand US dollars, account for a large proportion, about 50%.

Domestic sales of high-end mobile phones have increased and the economic situation has improved, and this is actually due to the efforts of a number of high-tech companies such as Zhiyun Group.

Zhiyun Group alone has more than 600,000 R&D engineers of various types in China, and these engineers earn very high incomes.

For example, Zhiyun Microelectronics, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, the largest semiconductor company in China and even the world, also employs a large number of mid- and high-tech employees.

Engineers working in wafer fabs have very high incomes, and ordinary employees earn over ten thousand yuan.

As for engineers, their median annual salary is more than 500,000 yuan. Those with rich experience and high levels can easily earn more than one million yuan a year, which is quite high compared to ordinary industries.

Zhiyun Microelectronics is just a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group!

Zhiyun Group also has a number of group headquarters employees and a large number of subsidiaries, which together have created a high-income group of more than 600,000 people in the country.

In addition, Zhiyun Group has a large number of upstream and downstream affiliated companies, such as Huaxing Technology, Desay Battery, Qianding Technology, and Gulf Technology controlled by Xiannvshan Holdings, etc.

These companies create a huge number of middle- and high-income jobs, including R&D positions, manufacturing positions, administrative and sales positions, etc.

Then there are a large number of other high-tech companies, such as Weiku Electronics, Dami, Huawei, OV and other smart terminal companies, which are also pulling a large number of supply chain companies forward together.

The entire smart terminal and semiconductor manufacturing industry has created a large number of jobs and tax revenues.

Finally, we have to add the extremely rapidly developing smart electric vehicle industry. HaiLan Automobile alone has more than 100,000 engineers. At the same time, HaiLan Automobile builds its own cars and has a large number of various projects. Its number of employees is even comparable to that of Zhiyun Group, reaching more than 700,000.

Even for ordinary workers in a car factory, their income is quite good compared to other ordinary manufacturing industries.

In its headquarters factory in Shenzhen, I dare not say how much the average worker's comprehensive income is, but 7,000 or 8,000 is no problem... After all, their basic salary is more than 5,000, and if they work overtime and get overtime pay, 7,000 or 8,000 is easy, and it is normal to earn more than 10,000 when there are many orders.

After all, HaiLan Automobile is a company under Xu Shenxue, and it is also a leading company in smart electric vehicles. It is a well-known brand with high revenue, high profits, and good benefits for employees.

There is also the industrial chain driven by emerging industries such as intelligent robots, virtual equipment, artificial intelligence, etc. These are all high-tech, high-premium industries, and the income of practitioners is generally relatively high.

Finally, the rapid development of the Internet industry has also brought about a large number of middle- and high-income groups.

Ultimately, all of these come together to form a large number of middle- and high-income groups.

And these middle- and high-income groups will spend their money when they have it...so this will in turn drive the development of indirect industries, such as various tertiary industries, including finance, services, and various traditional manufacturing industries.

The rapid development of these high-tech industries has brought benefits far beyond the industry itself, but also to a series of upstream and downstream industries, and a large number of other indirect industries that seem to have nothing to do with each other.

Even the low-level slaves with a monthly salary of three thousand can benefit from an environment where high technology is bursting out and new industries are developing rapidly... At least, they don't have to worry about losing their jobs!

The development of the times will eventually affect everyone!

Now, with the development of a large number of high-tech industries, the domestic economy is showing a rapid growth, and people's income is gradually increasing, which in turn has led to Zhiyun Group being able to sell more products in the country and obtain higher revenue and profits.

This is the core factor behind the gradual increase in Zhiyun Group’s revenue in the domestic market over the past few years!
It’s not that Zhiyun products have become better, but that Chinese people have become richer!

Therefore, the domestic market is not a problem that the smart terminal division is worried about, but the foreign market is... In Wang Lintu's development plan, he also focuses on the development of emerging markets.

Wang Lintu not only has a series of ideas, but also detailed implementation plans.

This made Xu Shenxue feel very good... Who doesn't know how to brag?

Everyone understands the general principles, the question is how to do it to achieve success.

What Wang Lintu showed Xu Shenxue was what he was going to do...

In the end, Wang Lintu, who was recognized by Xu Shenxue, officially took over as president of Zhiyun Group's intelligent terminal business unit and was promoted to senior vice president of Zhiyun Group.

Because this matter has attracted considerable attention from the outside world, even to the extent of affecting the stock price, the public relations department of Zhiyun Group also held a press conference to officially introduce Wang Lintu, the new president of Zhiyun Group's smart terminal business unit, to the outside world.

In order to give investors greater confidence, Wang Lintu’s past resume was also listed in detail at the press conference.

He graduated from a top domestic university and joined the R&D department of Zhiyun Group in his early years. He subsequently led the project team to success many times.

Last year, he concurrently served as CEO of Xinyun Technology Co., Ltd., and led the team to achieve sales of more than 10 million for the new brand Xinyun in half a year.

Qualified and capable!
And at the press conference, Wang Lintu also talked to reporters about his views on the future development of smart terminals.

This seems very reliable. Many people even wonder that since Wang Lintu was able to build up the new brand Xinyun, would he also bring about such new changes after taking charge of the entire smart terminal business unit, such as increasing the sales of the S series mobile phones?
After the press conference, Zhiyun Group's stock price stabilized and even showed a small increase compared to before.

It can be seen that investors are relatively supportive of Wang Lintu.

Wang Lintu, the new official who made three big moves upon taking office, not only set up a folding phone project team as soon as possible, but also began his inspection within a few days. His first stop was to Europe to show himself and to demonstrate Zhiyun Group's emphasis on the European market.

This trip abroad to investigate the market also allowed Wang Lintu to experience for the first time the weight of Zhiyun Group’s senior executives!

As soon as his private plane arrived at the European airport, he was greeted by not only the management of Zhiyun Europe but also local senior officials. That evening, the news of his meeting with local senior officials appeared in the news broadcast of the local TV station!

When he showed up to inspect the local Zhiyun flagship store, hundreds of reporters gathered with guns and cannons to watch!

The picture of him talking and shaking hands with Zhiyun's local employees soon became a hot topic on local social media.

It also included his brief speech: Zhiyun Group and Mr. Xu have always attached great importance to and respected the European market. Zhiyun Group will continue to be rooted in Europe, providing European people with better and more localized products and services, and continue to be committed to creating more jobs for Europe!

When Wang Lintu was interviewed by reporters, he specifically pointed out that Zhiyun has more than 80,000 employees in Europe, and has a special employment support program for low-income groups. The company has employed more than 20,000 single mothers in Europe.

There are also special employment support programs for young people, which have provided more than 10,000 temporary part-time jobs for college students over a long period of time.

Afterwards, he presided over the inauguration ceremony of Zhiyun's new R&D center in Berlin, reiterating Zhiyun's European localization strategy. In the future, the number of R&D centers and positions in Europe will be increased, and more R&D engineers will be recruited!
At the same time, Zhiyun Group is also preparing to launch a second chip factory project in Europe to manufacture advanced storage chips. Zhiyun's German subsidiary has always had a memory chip factory in Germany, but it only produces storage chips with backward technology and has a small production capacity, which is mainly supplied to local European companies.

Now, they are preparing to invest part of the money to expand production capacity, but the technology is still outdated.

There is no way to develop advanced technology, and it is impossible to build factories overseas... This goes against Zhiyun Group's semiconductor industry layout, and also violates the verbal agreement on semiconductor restrictions reached between Xu Shenxue and the American consortium.

Xu Shenxue and the other side had an agreement back then that no one would be allowed to invest in building advanced factories outside.

The fight between our two families is already chaotic enough, we cannot afford to foster a third competitor.

Being able to build a storage chip factory with backward technology is the result of a multi-party exchange of interests between the top management of Zhiyun Group and the local consortium.

Like every other senior executive of Zhiyun Group who visited Europe, Wang Lintu constantly emphasized Zhiyun's localization measures and employment contributions in public.

There is only one purpose: to make Europeans think that Zhiyun is not only China's Zhiyun, but also Europe's Zhiyun!
Because the European market is Zhiyun Group’s second largest market, and at the same time, the consortium in Europe has basically given up on the development of semiconductors, smart terminals, and artificial intelligence!
In this case, Xu Shenxue would have to give the other party some share of the profits, and at the same time he would have to say more nice words to appease them.

You can't make money from Europeans and then mock them!

What Wang Lintu is doing now is to represent Xu Shenxue to constantly reiterate the importance of Europe. In fact, Xu Shenxue's words would be more effective. The problem is that Xu Shenxue doesn't have the courage to go abroad...

Even if Xu Shenxue has the courage, the local European consortium would not dare to let Xu Shenxue come... God knows whether the American consortium will take advantage of the opportunity to take action!

If Xu Shenxue were to be assassinated in Europe by a security company owned by an American consortium... that would be a difficult situation.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue did not dare to go, and the European consortium did not dare to let Xu Shenxue come!

Therefore, Wang Lintu and other group executives can only do it!

This kind of thing also made Wang Lintu, who became a senior executive of Zhiyun Group for the first time, excited and thrilled!
No wonder so many vice presidents in the group are thinking of various ways to get promoted!

Standing in the position of senior vice president, the scenery you see is really different.
(End of this chapter)