Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 656 The Globally Popular Virtual Internet Cafes

In February, apart from the Spring Festival holiday, Xu Shenxue's main task was to convene or attend various meetings.

Last year, before the Spring Festival, I attended the year-end meetings of the main companies under my control to conduct year-end reviews.

At the same time, the performance of senior management is evaluated, and then stocks are issued... Some received generous stock, while some managers only received a small number of stocks because their work was not good enough. Some who failed to perform well not only did not receive any stock, but also faced the crisis of job reassignment.

Generally speaking, in the salary structure of senior management in large enterprises, more than half or even a larger proportion is stock. If the job requirements are met, they can receive generous stock incentives.

The companies under Xu Shenxue's control are no exception. The salaries of senior management are mostly composed of stock options, although their basic annual salaries are also quite high.

After the Spring Festival, Xu Shenxue's main task remained holding meetings. He met with the senior management of each of his companies to discuss the work priorities for the year, assign tasks, and offer encouragement to the senior management.

At the same time, some high-level personnel adjustments will also be made during this process.

Although the personnel adjustments of senior management in Xu Shenxue's various companies do not occur in a concentrated period of time, there are personnel changes of senior management throughout the year.

However, due to the year-end performance evaluation, the senior management of Xu Shenxue's companies is frequently reassigned during the year-end and beginning of the new year, increasing several times compared to normal times.

This year, after the start of spring, Xu Shenxue conducted a new round of senior personnel reshuffles at his core company, Zhiyun Group.

The former Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer of Zhiyun Group has been transferred to the parent company, Liuhe Investment, to serve as the Minister of Legal Affairs.

Xu Yinquan, the deputy director of the legal department of Liuhe Investment and a top legal expert proficient in multiple legal fields such as international law and business law, has been transferred to Zhiyun Group as senior vice president and chief legal officer.

This kind of adjustment at the senior vice president level is quite important and has a significant impact... After all, the senior vice president of Zhiyun Group is a true senior executive, belonging to one of the decision-making levels of Zhiyun Group, and their influence is considerable.

In addition, several vice presidents and other senior executives at Zhiyun Group have also undergone changes. Some were promoted within the group, some were transferred to other companies by Xu Shenxue, and others were relegated to less important subsidiaries or departments to retire due to poor performance.

Every year, Xu Shenxue would reshuffle a group of people, many of whom were transferred to retirement positions due to insufficient ability or other reasons. Of course, some people couldn't stand this huge power gap and eventually resigned to start their own businesses or invest, or even work for other companies.

Xu Shenxue has many companies under his control and a large number of senior managers. Not everyone can stay in a high position for a long time, especially the heads of some core departments!
The requirements for this kind of position are very high, and to be honest, a considerable number of people cannot meet these requirements, so they are often reassigned after a year or two.

As for how these people rose to their positions... Xu Shenxue is only human, not a god. He often makes mistakes when judging and employing people!
Especially some managers, who did a good job as vice presidents, performed well and stood out, but when Xu Shenxue put them in the position of senior vice president, they were at a loss... Or they performed very well when they were in charge of business A, and when Xu Shenxue wanted to continue to promote them and let them be in charge of the more core and important business B, they might be at a loss again.

Sometimes, even though this senior manager hasn't achieved anything significant, they haven't made any obvious mistakes either. However, they lose power simply because someone is more suitable and capable than them, in order to make room for someone else... In such cases, Xu Shenxue usually makes proper arrangements, mainly lateral transfers, rather than directly throwing them out to 'retire'.

If it were just an ordinary company, Xu Shenxue's personnel adjustments for senior management wouldn't be troublesome, since there are only a few people... But Xu Shenxue owns many companies, and many of them are quite important, requiring Xu Shenxue to handle their senior management as well.

There are more than a hundred senior management positions that require Xu Shenxue's personal attention.

For example, in Liuhe Investment, all senior management personnel at the deputy ministerial level and above were personally selected and appointed by Xu Shenxue.

The main reason is that Liuhe Investment is special, as it is the core parent company of the Xu family conglomerate.

The senior management inside are also the senior management of the entire Xu Group. The ministers and managers of each department are very important... because they can often control one or even multiple industries. The senior management of some core departments can mobilize hundreds of billions or even trillions of yuan.

Liuhe Investment's senior management is partly selected from senior vice presidents and core department vice presidents of important companies such as Zhiyun Group, Fairy Mountain Holdings Group, Yihai Technology Group, Weiku Electronics Group, and Hailan Auto Group. Another part is recruited externally, such as from the management teams of large multinational corporations… And it's not just companies under Xu Shenxue's control in China; there are many other super-large enterprises as well.

At Zhiyun Group, Xu Shenxue usually personally handles the personnel work for senior vice presidents and vice presidents, but doesn't concern himself with anything else.

When he joined companies like Fairy Mountain Holding Group, Yihai Technology Group, Weiku Electronics Group, Weiku Industrial Group, and Hailan Automobile Group, Xu Shenxue generally only personally took charge of the personnel work of the CEO and other senior vice presidents and above. He didn't care about the other personnel, even those at the regular vice president level.

There's no way to manage them all... With so many companies and so many people involved, it's impossible to manage them all.

In fact, even in a core enterprise like Zhiyun Group, Xu Shenxue rarely handles most of the vice president-level management positions personally. He only focuses on the personnel appointments of vice presidents in some core departments. For regular vice presidents, he basically lets the senior vice presidents discuss and nominate a few people, and then Xu Shenxue approves them according to the situation, but he generally does not veto them.

Of course, although Xu Shenxue usually approves them, if the vice presidents nominated by the senior vice presidents make a mistake in the end, Xu Shenxue will usually punish the recommenders.

Xu Shenxue taught his subordinates: Don't recommend people randomly. Don't blindly push someone forward just because they are your close subordinate or something. That will only harm you.

Over the years, many people have been implicated and relegated to retirement homes because of poor judgment in selecting and employing people, or simply because of personal relationships when they recommended others to Xu Shenxue.

If the person being recommended makes a mistake, it's either because the recommender misjudged the person, or because you insisted on recommending them out of personal feelings and disregarded reality...

Either of these points indicates that the recommender is incompetent.

However, being a senior vice president in a multinational giant like Zhiyun Group, which has a market value of over ten trillion US dollars, global business, and enormous influence, where even a single move can affect the rise and fall of some industries... cannot afford to have these shortcomings.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

As March approached, Xu Shenxue was finally freed from various meetings and personnel adjustments, allowing him to focus on the spring press conference.

In earlier spring launch events, the focus was on A-series and C-series phones, SX/SXL, as well as tablets and smartwatches.

Later, the C-series phones were discontinued and the company was rebranded as NewCloud, which then held its own independent product launches, no longer coinciding with the spring launch event at the headquarters of Zhiyun Group.

Meanwhile, the A-series phones continued to perform poorly. Although the SX/SXL series phones sold quite well, they didn't attract much attention because they were products based on mature technology. Other products like tablets and smartwatches also didn't receive much attention.

As a result, for a period of time, the overall attention to Zhiyun Group's spring product launch event dropped significantly... there weren't any major products.

However, later, Zhiyun Group released virtual devices, and subsequently held the launch event for the virtual devices at the spring launch event.

This allowed Zhiyun Group's spring product launch to once again become a major focus of attention in the global high-tech industry.

At this year's Zhuyun Group spring product launch, the main focus remains on virtual devices, supplemented by upgraded versions of the A-series phones, SX/SXL series phones, tablets, and smartwatches.

There's not much to say about the last four product types; they're all routine upgrades with minimal changes. For example, the A-series phones haven't changed much in terms of overall appearance or internal hardware; they're basically based on the same technical framework as last year's A20.

Even the chip used is not the top-of-the-line chip released last year, the four-nanometer S1203, but the five-nanometer S1103 chip released the year before last... This chip is also the chip used in the S21 standard version and Pro.

After all, cost control is necessary, so it's impossible to use the latest S1203 chip in the A series phones at this stage.

Aside from the change in the SOC, this year's A21 phone is almost identical to last year's A20 phone, except for the addition of a sky blue color option... The main hardware, such as the screen and battery, remains largely unchanged.

In fact, there haven't been any major changes to the screens of Zhiyun Group's high-end phones in the last two years.

The main issue is that the top-of-the-line screens used in Zhiyun Group's high-end phones are already quite good in terms of performance. If they were to be upgraded again, consumers wouldn't be able to tell the difference... It's reached a point where it's difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, and the screen size can no longer be expanded.

So on the surface, Zhiyun Group is still launching so-called new screens every year, but they are just minor upgrades... In reality, it's still the same old thing, and the production line hasn't even changed.

The hardware hasn't changed much, which has led to increased profits for mobile phone products... After all, it uses screen technology that has been mature for many years, and the cost has been gradually reduced.

Screen costs are a major component of mobile phone costs, and controlling screen costs can further increase gross profit margins.

The A21 phone hasn't changed much, and the SX/SXL series phones, namely the S21X and S21XL, offer even less innovation...

Continuing to use the mature technology of a small notch screen with 3D face recognition... it's not that there aren't better agile capsule modes, but rather to control costs and also to differentiate from the S series phones.

If the SX/SXL series, priced at three or four thousand, all use the Agile Capsule, then there won't be much difference in appearance from the S series. Many consumers will think... why bother buying the expensive S series? They can just buy the SX/SXL series directly.

Zhiyun Group will not do anything that would damage the brand image or sales of the S series.

Therefore, the SX/SXL series can only use the small notch screen and 3D face recognition mode from a few years ago... which was originally the positioning of this series of phones: brand new official products of the old S series phones!

Basically, they're telling consumers that instead of buying a used S-series phone from a few years ago, they might as well buy their SX/SXL series... The price is significantly higher than used goods, but this is an official, brand-new, first-hand product with a warranty.

The new products in the A series and SX/SXL series phones are basically not innovative. Zhuyun Group does not expect their sales to suddenly explode miraculously. As long as they can maintain the current sales, it will be a victory. Even if the sales decline, it is acceptable.

The mobile phone market is a saturated market, and it is continuing to shrink. Sales are not increasing or even declining slightly, which is normal.

Especially for a business as large as Zhiyun Group's mobile phone business, sales had already reached their ceiling a few years ago... This is due to a combination of factors, including the global population, global consumption levels, and consumption habits in different countries, and it's not something Zhiyun Group can simply change at will. Besides the three mobile phones, the tablet and smartwatch launched at the spring event were also the same old routine, with no significant changes.

What truly deserves Xu Shenxue's personal attention is the next generation of virtual equipment!

"Chairman Xu, the virtual equipment we released this year continues last year's five-series strategy, consisting of the S-series flagship version, the X-series deluxe version, the M-series high-end version, the N-series standard version, and the L-series youth version!"

"In addition, in order to stimulate sales of high-end models, we will also release a special commemorative edition, priced at around 1.3 million. The main reason is that the previous deluxe edition did not sell well, so we plan to launch the deluxe edition with some reduced features to see how well the market accepts it."

Xu Shenxue said, "It's normal that the high-end version doesn't sell well. After all, virtual devices are quite expensive. The deluxe version, which costs over a million, and the flagship version, which costs over three million, are destined to have low sales. They mainly serve to showcase the level of technology and lay the technological groundwork for the next generation of affordable models."

"Of course, if this special commemorative edition sells well, then we can consider making it a series. It's always good if more high-end models can be sold!"

"Our main focus should still be on the Youth Edition (selling over 200,000 units) and the Standard Edition (selling over 400,000 units), as these two models are the main drivers of sales."

The head of virtual devices immediately said, "Chairman Xu, you're right. That's how we're planning as well. To increase revenue and profit in the virtual devices sector, especially to expand the ecosystem, entry-level models are key!"

"This year, we will also launch an even cheaper entry-level model in the L series, priced at around 200,000 yuan, on top of the L series youth version!"

"This is mainly because the cost of our low-end computing cards, namely the APO5000M, has dropped rapidly this year, while production capacity has also increased significantly. The internal price offered by the semiconductor division there has been reduced considerably, which has given us ample room to lower prices and launch cheaper L-series entry-level models!"

"This year's L-series youth edition will be priced between 200,000 and 300,000 yuan, depending on the configuration, and will also offer a robotic arm as an option!"

"For the standard version of the M series, we have also diversified the configurations, with prices ranging from 350,000 to 500,000 depending on the configuration."

"The high-end N-series also offers diverse configurations, with prices ranging from 700,000 to 900,000 yuan!"

"This is because the APO5000M and APO5000S graphics cards provided by the semiconductor division come in versions with different video memory capacities, allowing us to easily create diverse configurations!"

"The X series deluxe edition, the S series flagship edition, and the special commemorative edition we are preparing to launch will all use the APO6000 graphics card. Currently, the semiconductor division only offers a 120GB version of this graphics card, so we will continue to maintain the principle of a single high-end configuration and will not diversify the configurations."

Xu Shenxue flipped through the configuration lists of these new models but didn't see anything new. The core components, namely the APO series graphics cards, the ZY series data processing chips, and even the X series graphics cards in the helmet displays, remained largely unchanged.

There have been some changes to the server CPU, memory, and flash memory, but these changes have little impact.

After all, strictly speaking, a virtual machine is an artificial intelligence device that heavily relies on AI computing power. Its performance depends mainly on the APO series graphics cards and the ZY series data processing chips.

If the performance of these two chips improves, its performance will also improve... If the performance of these two chips doesn't improve, it won't matter if Zhiyun replaces all other components with those from Tianzhengxing Technology.

Xu Shenxue toured the Virtual Devices Business Unit and, seeing that all the new virtual devices to be released were ready, felt relieved.

The virtual device business has now become one of the new core businesses of Zhiyun Group, with a very significant growth rate. It has also driven a large number of sales of APO graphics cards and ZY series data processing chips in the semiconductor business unit. As a result, although the virtual device business unit itself does not make much money, it indirectly provides huge profits for Zhiyun Group.

Last year, we sold several million APO series graphics cards in the virtual equipment business alone... and these APO series graphics cards have extremely high gross profit margins.

However, the ZY data processing chip is actually quite expensive, with a very high profit margin, and it sells several million units a year...

Next up is the X-series graphics card. This X-series gaming graphics card is currently the top-of-the-line gaming graphics card. However, the PC shipments of this top-of-the-line gaming graphics card are far less than the shipments on virtual devices.

The booming sales of virtual devices have directly driven a huge increase in the shipments of various high-priced and high-profit GPU chips under the Zhiyun Group.

Not to mention that behind virtual devices lies the booming and promising virtual content business, which is also very profitable... All internet companies worldwide that make virtual content have to pay at least 30% of their revenue to Zhiyun Group as channel fees.

Not to mention the 'Zhiyun Virtual World' created by Zhiyun Group's software and internet business division, which has already begun to collect various fees under the guise of advertising fees, virtual space rental fees, and service fees...

For example, Zhiyun Virtual World has reached cooperation agreements with a large number of global e-commerce platforms and high-end consumer product manufacturers. These e-commerce platforms open shopping malls in Zhiyun Virtual World, while some high-end consumer brands open specialty stores in Zhiyun Virtual World.

Because today's virtual world users are the highest-quality, most powerful, and most numerous group globally, and their traffic value is extremely high!
Not to mention Zhiyun Group itself, even many virtual content software manufacturers and game companies have already set up all sorts of random shops in their virtual games!

Virtual games with urban settings and high online player counts are especially popular with consumer goods manufacturers, who love to open shops and advertise in them.

Of course, no matter how other virtual content providers try, they can't compare to Zhiyun Group. They directly use Zhiyun Virtual World as the operating system for virtual devices and the login portal for other virtual software.

Its traffic is enormous!
If Zhiyun Group wanted to, it could present the client's advertisements in the first scene that all users see after logging into the virtual world... Of course, Zhiyun Group won't do that.

The sales of APO series graphics cards, ZY data processing chips, and X series graphics cards driven by virtual devices can also boost internet revenue from the virtual content ecosystem, which makes virtual devices a rather unique position within the Zhiyun Group.

The attitude of Zhuyun Group's senior management towards the virtual equipment business is: whether it's profitable or not is irrelevant, but sales volume must be high...

This is also reflected in the Yun VW L3 series models released at this year's spring launch event!
The entry-level model is priced at only 199999 yuan in China, officially marking the beginning of the era of virtual machines priced below 200,000 yuan!
Compared to the cheapest model last year, it's tens of thousands less.

The price reduction of entry-level models, making them more accessible, will greatly stimulate consumer sentiment and further expand the sales of virtual devices.

So much so that some third-party analysis agencies have boldly predicted that, considering the price reduction of Zhiyun's entry-level virtual devices this year, and the fact that the US market has officially approved the retail of Zhiyun virtual devices to individual consumers, Zhiyun Group's annual sales of virtual devices are expected to reach six million units this year!

Virtual devices will continue to maintain a high growth rate.

The year before last, annual sales reached 3.5 million units, and last year sales reached 4.8 million units.

This year, however, sales are expected to reach six million units.

Of course, even with a projected annual sales volume of six million units, which seems like a lot, if you divide it into global markets and calculate the sales volume of each country separately, it's actually not that much.

The price is relatively high, and it's not a necessity of life, but rather an entertainment product, so the proportion of individual purchases is relatively low.

A significant portion of sales actually comes from virtual internet cafes that are emerging around the world.

For example, in China, at least 50% of sales are contributed by virtual internet cafes across the country...

Investing in and opening a virtual internet cafe is currently a very popular and profitable investment.

In the past, when virtual devices were few in number and still quite mysterious, they were called virtual experience centers. Now that they have appeared on a large scale and the threshold has been lowered, people have gradually started calling them 'virtual internet cafes'.

This change in name also shows that virtual devices and the virtual world are gradually entering the lives of ordinary people... and virtual internet cafes are a good way to meet the consumption needs of ordinary people to access the virtual world.

After all, most people are actually quite curious about the virtual world... Even if they're not interested in virtual games, they'll still have some interest in the virtual world.

However, a virtual device costing 200,000 is an astronomical price for ordinary people... For an ordinary family, a house costing 200,000 is very cheap, and a car costing 200,000 is a bit expensive, but they can still buy it for convenience.

However, a virtual device costing 200,000 yuan is clearly beyond the purchasing power of an average family. After all, a virtual device is just an entertainment and gaming device.

Unless you're doing something like virtual game live streaming, virtual game leveling, or gold farming... using virtual devices as production tools.

Otherwise, this 200,000 would be considered pure entertainment spending...

Few families can afford to spend 200,000 yuan on pure entertainment expenses.

However, the cost of a virtual experience center for a few dozen yuan per hour is affordable for most ordinary people. Even low-income workers with a salary of two or three thousand yuan can play for a few hours on weekends!

Especially now that there are L-series virtual devices, the investment cost of virtual internet cafes has decreased, and the internet access fee has also decreased a lot, unlike before when even the cheapest models cost more than a hundred.

In some domestic virtual internet cafes, the L-series computers can charge around 30 to 40 yuan per hour for internet access. Sometimes, during promotions or to attract customers, the price can be even lower, such as 30 yuan per hour.

Previously, many so-called high-end PC internet cafes charged twenty or thirty yuan per hour.

Now you can play a virtual game for an hour for 30 yuan... Even though it's the L series and doesn't have a robotic arm, it's still pretty cool!
The current virtual devices and virtual games are somewhat similar to the relationship between computers and computer games more than 20 years ago... Many people want to play, but they can't afford them, so they can only go to internet cafes to play!

This is not only the case in China, but similar situations have also emerged in many places abroad... Even in economically developed regions such as the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea, a large number of virtual internet cafes have appeared!
Two hundred thousand is expensive for Chinese people, but when you add various shipping costs, tariffs and other fees, virtual equipment that generally costs over two hundred thousand or even over three hundred thousand is also very expensive for ordinary people in these economically developed regions!
But foreigners also want to experience the virtual world, and many of them want to play virtual games!
Therefore, virtual internet cafes are also developing rapidly overseas!
Virtual internet cafes, a new industry, are rapidly gaining popularity worldwide!
Virtual internet cafes around the world have also generated a large number of sales for virtual devices for Zhiyun Group!
(End of this chapter)