Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 677 Zhiyun Folding Phone
Shenzhen, Qianshan International Convention Center, the scene of Zhiyun Autumn Launch Event.

After introducing Yun AIVN, a special product designed specifically for the visually impaired, Xu Shenxue also introduced the new generation of upgraded Bluetooth headphones with noise cancellation.

Then they began to introduce the flagship product of this year's launch event: the S22 series mobile phones!

To encourage users to ditch their old phones that they've used for years and give them a strong incentive to upgrade to new models.

The engineers at Zhiyun Group have also made significant technological improvements to this year's S22 series phones, striving to innovate within the existing technological framework.

Especially this year, with Zhiyun Group set to equip its flagship S22 model with a 3-nanometer chip, Zhiyun Group has also made improvements to the appearance and screen in order to promote the product and achieve better sales.

So when Xu Shenxue took out the new S22 Max, many people's first reaction was surprise!

This year's S22Max did not adopt the dual punch-hole design that Zhiyun Group's S series phones have used for many years.

The earliest screens of the Zhiyun S series phones used a triple-hole design, which was the direct reason for adopting the notch screen back then... Too many holes would take up too much space, so a notch screen was the only option, otherwise it wouldn't fit.

Later, 3D face recognition improved in hardware and became smaller, so a dual-hole mode was adopted, and a flexible capsule mode was also adopted for aesthetic purposes!

This model is not only used by Zhiyun, but also by the entire Apple series and Huawei's 3D face recognition models.

However, this year, the S22 Max in Xu Shenxue's hands has only one hole, which is a single hole that looks like a capsule.

At the press conference, Xu Shenxue explained that they adopted the latest generation of 3D face recognition technology, further miniaturized the module, and then integrated the 3D face recognition sensor module, the front camera, and other sensors into a small capsule-shaped single hole.

This results in a smaller unusable portion of the screen in that area, roughly half the length of the previous dual-hole design.

Zhiyun also adopted the "Dynamic Capsule" model to beautify and reuse this area.

Overall, the Lingdong Island area is smaller, but the usable screen area is larger. To make better use of this extra space, the system engineers have optimized the interface on the new operating system.

From the three-hole design to the dual-control design, and now to the single-hole design, this has brought about more than just a slight change in the screen area. Behind this is the significant reduction in size brought about by the technological advancements in 3D face recognition modules and other sensor modules.

This single-hole flexible capsule design also gives the S22 series phones a noticeable difference in appearance compared to previous models...

Meanwhile, the new generation S22 series phones have also changed the layout of the rear camera. Instead of the original centered camera layout, they have adopted a large capsule-shaped camera layout at the top.

This change in camera layout is due to two main reasons: firstly, the reduced size of the 3D face sensor frees up some space at the top of the device; and secondly, it's purely for aesthetic reasons.

The circular, centrally located camera layout has been used in the Zhiyun S series phones for many years, and users are starting to get a little tired of it...

Therefore, this year, the mobile phone marketing staff and engineers in the mobile phone project of Zhiyun Group felt it was necessary to change the camera layout of the S series mobile phones... not for better performance, or even for better appearance, but purely to make some changes to the appearance.

In short, users are experiencing some aesthetic fatigue, so we need to come up with a new look for them.

Therefore, after taking into account the technology, the internal space of the device, and the camera layout of other mobile phone manufacturers, the engineers of Zhiyun Group came up with a top capsule-style camera layout.

Don't underestimate the changes in appearance; in fact, appearance is one of the main reasons why many long-time users of Zhiyun S series phones decide whether to upgrade.

Even whether the new appearance is good or not... isn't really that important; users will simply convince themselves that the new phone looks great.

The key is that it must look different from older models, and also different from other brands of mobile phones!
This year, Zhiyun Group plans to give users a different appearance experience with the new S22 model.

The single-hole screen, combined with the top capsule-shaped camera layout, is the main appearance change of this year's S22 series phones.

Whether it's pretty or ugly, at least the appearance has changed.

The biggest change in the internal hardware is the adoption of a brand-new SOC chip, the world's first equivalent three-nanometer process: the S1303!

This chip is the most technologically advanced in this phone and best reflects the technological strength of the Zhiyun Group!

It not only has powerful CPU and GPU cores, but also a powerful NPU core, which is the AI ​​core.

Its performance is extremely powerful. The CPU performance is at least 15% higher than the previous generation S1203, the GPU performance is more than 13% higher, and the NPU performance is about 50% higher.

This time, Zhiyun Semiconductor aims to create a top-tier mobile SOC chip that comprehensively improves AI support performance. To achieve this, it has sacrificed some power consumption, resulting in slightly higher power consumption for this chip. However, thanks to the high-efficiency energy support of solid-state batteries, it doesn't necessarily lead to a short overall battery life for the phone.

This new chip will be used in both the S22 Max and S22Max Pro models!

As for the S22 standard and Pro versions, they use last year's S1203 chip... In order to control costs, the standard version, Pro and A series models use the previous generation S series chip. This has been a strategy implemented by Zhiyun Group for many years, and everyone is used to it.

Other hardware changes in the S22 series phones are minor, and users wouldn't really notice them. For example, due to slow technological progress and high costs, this year's S22 flagship model does not use more advanced storage and flash memory chips, but rather the more advanced and mature technologies currently available.

The new high-performance memory and storage chips are too expensive, so expensive that even Zhiyun's S-series phones are starting to feel unaffordable... It's not that they can't be used, but the profit margin would be lower after using them.

As the main source of profit for Zhiyun Group, the S series mobile phones have always had a very high gross profit margin, and the company does not blindly pile on new technologies.

Many other components are also mature components. For example, the solid-state battery is still the same solid-state battery with no upgrades. However, Hailan Battery has launched a second-generation solid-state battery for its mobile terminals, which has improved energy density. But it is too expensive, so Zhiyun Group has decided to put it on hold for next year.

These are the changes in appearance and internal hardware of the new generation S22 series mobile phones.

Another software-level change is that the new S22 series of phones are equipped with a new 'AI Assistant', which can call on other computing devices of the user to coordinate work, allowing the small phone to run AI tasks that require high computing power.

For example, generating long AI videos!

Of course, in reality, these computing tasks are not performed on the mobile phone; the mobile phone is just a display terminal... The real work is done by other computing devices.

More importantly, this AI assistant is different from previous Yun AI assistants. It does not focus on generating content, but rather on helping users solve problems, such as providing various answers, assisting users in controlling other smart home devices, and even helping users complete some tasks.

The engineers at Zhiyun Group are working as far as possible towards creating a truly personalized AI assistant, rather than simply developing a large-scale generative AI.

In addition, there is an even more crucial point: this AI assistant can be used not only online, but also by using the computing power provided by Yun AI's computing servers.

It can run directly locally... It doesn't need an internet connection to work; relying solely on the phone's internal computing power, it can still handle everyday questions and answers and provide solutions for users.

It can also connect to the user's home computing network and call on the computing power of home smart hosts, robots, virtual devices and other computing devices to perform some high computing tasks.

After all, Yun AI's computing power servers are limited, while so many users around the world are using these servers. The computing power servers are handling a massive number of computing power requests. Therefore, users' computing power requests often have to queue up, which will reduce the computing power usage requests and extend the calculation time to meet the needs of more users using it at the same time.

This can lead to slow response times or even lag.

However, a personal home computing network is your own private property, and you can use it however you like... As long as your home smart host/robot/virtual device is idle and has enough computing power, you can even use it to do some large-scale AI tasks, such as having it generate AI videos that are several minutes long or even longer.

The S1303 chip features a powerful NPU core, an AI personal assistant, and a home intelligent computing network, all working in tandem.

This is also an exploration by Zhiyun Group to further promote the large-scale personal application of artificial intelligence technology!
Zhiyun Group has always been keen to promote the application of artificial intelligence technology, especially in application scenarios that improve people's daily life and work.

This year is no exception!

After officially launching the S22 series phones, Xu Shenxue did not end the press conference but immediately launched a brand new phone.

This is the foldable phone that the outside world has been looking forward to for several years, but which has been delayed for two consecutive years by Zhiyun Group.

Other mobile phone manufacturers have been working on foldable phones for years, and Zhiyun Group started its R&D project quite early as well. However, due to the immaturity of the technology, it was difficult to meet Zhiyun Group's high technical requirements. At the same time, this is a niche market, and Zhiyun Group would not create an immature product for a niche market and damage its own brand reputation.

Many things, especially immature technologies or products, can be developed by other companies.

Because of innovation, some problems are normal, and even if problems arise, they won't have a significant impact: because these companies and their products have limited influence, people don't care whether there are problems!
However, Zhiyun Group cannot do that... If Zhiyun's products have problems, it will be headline news in major media outlets around the world, and the negative impact will be too great.

Zhiyun Group doesn't necessarily have to be the first to make foldable phones, but it must make the best foldable phones.

Furthermore, they want to make the most profitable foldable phones; if the gross profit margin is too low or the sales volume is too low, they won't make them...

So the folding phone project has been delayed until today!

This year, engineers at Zhiyun Group finally solved a host of technical problems and created a foldable phone that met their technical requirements...

A foldable phone that significantly outperforms its competitors in all aspects of technology.

And so, today's foldable phone was released!

This foldable phone also uses the S1303 chip, and the screen is a new generation flexible screen developed by CSOT, which can support long-term use and folding without leaving a trace.

And importantly, this tri-fold phone is extremely thin and light!

After being folded into three sections, the body thickness is slightly thicker than that of a regular phone, but it is still within an acceptable range. After being folded into three sections, the size is even smaller than that of a regular phone, while when unfolded, the screen size is about the same as that of a small tablet.

The foldable phone R&D team at Zhiyun Group focused its hardware technological breakthroughs on achieving seamless screen folding and reducing the thickness and size of the device, investing a significant amount of time and money in this endeavor.

More importantly, the Folding Phone team contacted a large number of software vendors to adapt the software ecosystem for this phone... This is the most crucial point.

Once a hardware terminal product is developed, good hardware performance alone is not enough to sell it. A good content ecosystem is also necessary to bring out the full potential of the hardware device's performance, especially its advantages.

The advantage of foldable phones over regular phones is that the screen is larger when unfolded, which can replace the function of a tablet to some extent, and even replace the function of a small-sized laptop to a certain extent.

Therefore, content adaptation must take this into account, and it cannot simply be about enlarging the app's interface or directly using content from a tablet.

Because even when your phone is folded, it still needs to work...

The content and software on a mobile phone need to change as the phone's form factor changes.

This requires a lot of software vendors to cooperate and optimize!

If a regular mobile phone manufacturer did this, most software vendors, especially some small and medium-sized software vendors, would ignore you... because optimization and adaptation mean more cost expenditures, and small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers generally have lower product sales and lower potential customer spending power, so software vendors would simply do the math and refuse to do it.

However, when a behemoth like Zhiyun Group drives the adaptation of the content ecosystem, the effect is quite different!

Given the size of Zhiyun Group and its brand appeal, even if their foldable phones were as bad as a pile of shit, they still wouldn't lack customers placing orders.

If foldable phones are relatively expensive and can signify status, then sales will likely be quite good.

Zhiyun Group is able to maintain a certain sales volume of foldable phones by relying on its brand appeal, which is very important for software manufacturers.

In addition, customers of Zhiyun's ecosystem products are generally willing to spend money and have a strong capacity to consume content.

With sales volume and users who have purchasing power, it becomes a worthwhile endeavor for software vendors.

Therefore, along with the release of the foldable phone, a large number of app updates for foldable phones were also simultaneously released in the App Store.

This kind of thing is exclusive to large mobile phone manufacturers; other small and medium-sized mobile phone manufacturers shouldn't expect it.

After introducing a whole host of features of the foldable phone and demonstrating some of its functions, the official price was announced: starting at 12,000 for the low-end version and over 20,000 for the high-end version!

This price is already considered very expensive for a foldable phone.

Early folding phones were very expensive, but this year, other brands have released folding phones that can be bought for several thousand yuan.

However, Zhiyun Group is different. No matter how well their products perform or how well they sell, the price of their new products is always high.

This concerns the value of the entire Zhiyun brand, and it is impossible for any single product to undermine that value.

Therefore, their folding phones are very expensive!
Netizens were stunned... Other mobile phone manufacturers' foldable phones, the entry-level models can be bought for six or seven thousand, and the better ones are around eight or nine thousand.

However, the cheapest Zhiyun folding phone costs 12,000 NTD...

Decisive, still the same money-grubbing Zhiyun!
However, while ordinary people would complain and refuse to buy such expensive products, it's a different story for those who are rich or willing to spend money to show off... They wouldn't even want them if they were cheaper.

Especially since this is a high-end folding phone from the Zhiyun brand, it naturally carries a status symbol quality. Holding one in your hand, regardless of whether the folding phone is actually useful or not, just gives you a certain amount of prestige...

As a result, when the press conference ended and full-payment pre-orders opened on the official website in China at midnight, the number of pre-orders for Zhiyun's foldable phone reached 1.5 million units.

This number is naturally still somewhat lower than the total annual sales of foldable phones from other mobile phone manufacturers.

Samsung can sell tens of millions of foldable phones a year. However, Samsung's foldable phone sales in China are very low. Their foldable phone market is mainly in their home country, Europe, and the United States.

Let alone foldable phones, even the Galaxy series of Samsung phones don't sell very well in China.

In the Chinese market, Samsung phones can't compete with Zhiyun in the high-end segment, and with Weiku Electronics, Huawei, OPPO and Vivo, and Xiaomi in the mid-to-low-end segment... Since the phone explosion and fire incident, their phone sales in China have been extremely low, almost negligible in statistics.

Previously, the domestic foldable phone market was mainly dominated by a few domestic mobile phone manufacturers, but sales were very low, totaling only about three million units per year.

However, now that Zhiyun's foldable phone has been launched, the official pre-orders in China alone have reached 1.5 million units. The momentum continues, with additional sales on other e-commerce platforms and offline distribution.

If we then consider overseas markets, total sales are expected to exceed 10 million units within the next sales cycle.

For a high-end, expensive smart terminal product that is only in its first year on the market, this is already a huge success.

With a little more effort, its sales might even surpass those of Zhiyun Group's own A-series phones, potentially bringing Zhiyun Group over $20 billion in revenue and nearly $10 billion in profit annually.

However, on the other hand, a project worth over 20 billion US dollars is really just a peripheral business within the Zhuyun Group, whose annual revenue exceeds one trillion US dollars...

Even within the smart terminal business segment, the foldable phone business can only be considered a small business, and its importance cannot be compared with that of the S series.

So after the press conference, whether it was the senior management of Zhiyun Group, external investors, or even many practitioners in the industry chain, what they were really concerned about was the sales of the new generation S22 series mobile phones!
The S-series phones are the core projects that truly influence the mobile phone industry landscape and affect the profits and losses of a large number of investors!

Even ordinary workers in the industrial chain are watching the news closely, hoping that the sales of the S22 series phones will be booming, so that they can work overtime for a few more months and earn more overtime pay!
(End of this chapter)