Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 119 Why can’t Japan make such a smart phone?
On the evening of August 1st, at almost the same time, a TV station in neighboring Tokyo was broadcasting an interview special report.

The footage showed a large number of Japanese people queuing outside the store of a local cooperative operator to buy Zhiyun S9.

At the beginning of the program, the host introduced to the audience that the Zhiyun S9 mobile phone was sold simultaneously in many places in Japan, which caused people to queue up to buy it.

Then he added: "It is worth noting that this is not the first time that Zhiyun mobile phones have caused people to line up to buy them in China. When Zhiyun mobile phones first entered the domestic market in April, they also caused people to line up to buy them because of the severe shortage of supply!"

In addition, in June, the Fruit 3GS landed in our domestic market, which also caused people to line up to buy it. "

"In the past July, according to our survey, a total of about 230,000 smartphones were sold in the smartphone market in July."

"Among them, Apple phones account for 48 percent of the market share, and Zhiyun phones account for 41 percent of the market share!"

"The above two companies account for 89 percent of the market share, while HTZ, ranked third, has a market share of only 4.7 percent, Kyocera has only 2.1 percent, BlackBerry has 1.8 percent, Sony has 1.7 percent, and the others have 0.7 percent."

"Among them, only two Japanese companies, Sony and Kyocera, made the list, and they only account for 3.8% of the market share!"

After explaining the current market situation, the host asked the two guests invited to the show a soul-searching question: "Fruit companies can make such excellent smartphones, and Zhiyun Technology can also make excellent smartphones, so why can't our Japanese mobile phone companies make excellent smartphones?"

This very sharp question made the executive of a Japanese mobile phone manufacturer who was serving as the guest look very unhappy.

Then a professor who teaches at a university and has been researching the technology of the communications industry for a long time said: "This question is actually not easy to answer, because it involves a series of very complex issues. It requires targeted discussions from the aspects of business operations, local market size, scientific research and innovation capabilities, labor costs and other aspects!"

An executive of a mobile phone manufacturer said: "Our company and other mobile phone manufacturers in Japan have already started smartphone projects and are currently investing heavily in research and development. However, the research and development of smartphones is more difficult than we expected, from chips to screens, etc.!"

The professor next to him said, "That's right. The technical difficulty of modern smartphones is much higher than that of feature phones. The issues that need to be considered are very complicated!"

The host immediately asked: "Oh, then professor, can you explain to us how difficult it is to design and manufacture smartphones nowadays?"

The professor immediately said: "Okay, let's take the newly launched Zhiyun S9 and Fruit 3GS as examples. In fact, most of the components they use are from other manufacturers. Zhiyun Technology and Fruit are typical design companies. They do not develop and produce these core components, but purchase the best parts from companies around the world and then integrate them together!"

"But everyone can buy all the spare parts, so why can't other mobile phone manufacturers make them?"

"This involves the hardware system integration capability. The S9 phone has more than a thousand parts, but weighs only 128 grams, is only 125 mm long, 59 mm wide, and only 8.7 mm thick."

“How to cram more than a thousand parts into this small volume and make them effectively connected and work stably will be a huge and difficult project.”

"This kind of hardware integration capability is a great test of a company's R&D capabilities."

"In addition to hardware integration capabilities, there are other aspects, such as the thickness I just mentioned."

"The thickness of Zhiyun S9 is only 8.7mm, which is an amazing data!"

"When the news was first released, many people couldn't believe that the data was real. Many mobile phone manufacturers expressed doubts, including me."

"Because the internal space of a mobile phone is already very compact, even if the thickness is reduced by just one millimeter, the technical difficulty of the entire mobile phone will increase several times. However, they reduced the thickness of the body from 1 millimeters of C to millimeters. This is very difficult and it is hard not to suspect that they are lying."

“Many mobile phone manufacturers can make smartphones that are 12 millimeters thick, but there are not many smartphones that are less than 10 millimeters!”
"For example, our domestically produced Toshiba TG01 has an amazing thickness of 9.9mm, but it also comes at a great cost..."

"But Zhiyun's S9 has achieved a thickness of 8.7mm... This data is no longer amazing, but rather suspicious."

"Of course, now we all know that the data is real and they really did it."

"Then the question is, how do they do it?"

At this time, the beautiful female host spoke up at the right time: "Oh, how did Zhiyun Technology do it?"

The professor then continued, "According to our disassembly analysis, we found that it is the result of the combination of the highly optimized and reasonable internal overall structural design, the special-shaped polymer battery, and the aluminum alloy body!"

"And almost every one of them is a world-class problem!"

"Internal structure design integration. As I said just now, this is a very complex hardware system integration problem!"

"In addition, as we all know, this S9 phone uses a very rare aluminum alloy. It is not without precedent to use aluminum alloy to make mobile phones, but that was in the era of feature phones. Only Apple has tried it in smartphones before!"

"The first generation of Apple phones used an aluminum alloy back cover, but due to signal problems and color matching issues, Apple eventually gave up on this and adopted a plastic body for the 3G and current 3GS phones!"

"However, the Zhiyun S9 still uses an aluminum alloy solution, and in multiple tests, the signal attenuation of the phone is not obvious, which is enough for normal use!"

"What is most amazing is that their aluminum alloy body is very thin and light, and it also ensures high strength despite being so thin and light!"

"Compared to solving the signal problem with clever design, the extreme lightness and high strength of this aluminum alloy are more worthy of our attention."

"It is not easy to achieve such high strength for aluminum alloy. This involves a series of material formulation and processing technology issues. We don't know how Zhiyun Technology did it, but what is certain is that, except for Zhiyun Technology, there is no other manufacturer in the world that can do this!"

"According to some industry insiders' investigations, we can be sure that they used a new aluminum alloy material and adopted a very unique processing technology to finally produce this extremely light and thin body while ensuring strength!"

"There is also the color scheme. It is very difficult to color aluminum alloy. Previously, the colors that major manufacturers could achieve were generally silver-gray. But everyone has also noticed that this time, Zhiyun S9 has also launched a bright black color scheme. And after our testing, the paint on the body is very strong and not easy to fall off!"

“That means they used a completely new colorant and a completely new coloring process!”

"There is also the signal problem. Zhiyun Technology has cleverly adopted a three-stage structure, which solves the signal problem while maintaining the overall strength and appearance. I have to say that this is a genius idea... But it is a pity that this three-stage design has been fully patented by Zhiyun Technology, and other mobile phone manufacturers can no longer use it!"

"Just from the three major issues of the strength, color and signal of this aluminum alloy body, we can initially see that it is not easy to make advanced smartphones today!" "If you want to establish your own unique advantages and gain market recognition, it will be even more difficult!"

"In addition to this very unique aluminum alloy body, the Zhiyun S9 also has a series of very unique internal design structures."

The beautiful hostess came out to show her support again: "What's the unique design?"

"For example, their battery pack is not removable, which is not surprising to us...but their battery is a special-shaped battery, not the common flat rectangular, but a very rare L-shaped one..."

"Before opening the S9, many people were very curious and couldn't even understand how they could maintain such a long battery life after stuffing so many parts into such a small body!"

"We bought the phone today and opened it to understand... In order to increase the battery capacity, Zhiyun Technology changed the square shape of the battery to a heterogeneous one, and then increased the battery volume within the limited internal space of the phone, and finally increased the battery capacity and battery life!"

The professor talked a lot about how excellent the Zhiyun phone was and how difficult it was to make it... The host on the side also agreed with him.

The executives of Japanese mobile phone manufacturers nearby also talked about various difficulties, sometimes talking about the large enterprise system, sometimes talking about enterprise costs... In short, it’s not that we don’t work hard, but that this thing is too difficult to deal with.

However, for the sake of the show's effect, the host naturally did not indulge him and immediately continued to challenge him: "It seems that smartphones are really difficult to make, but why can Americans and Chinese make them, but we Japanese can't?"

"In the domestic smartphone market, we only occupy 2.1% of the market share!"

It was this question again, which made the representative of the Japanese mobile phone manufacturer on the other side sweat on his forehead... He took a deep breath and said: "In fact, we can't look at Zhiyun Technology with traditional thinking. This is not a traditional Chinese company... It is actually a multinational company established in the global industrial chain!"

"The SOC chips in their S9 phones mainly come from Qualcomm and Texas Instruments in the United States, the baseband comes from Qualcomm, Infineon and Spreadtrum, the running memory comes from Four Star, the flash memory comes from Toshiba in China, the screen comes from LG, the lens comes from Nikon in Japan, and the battery comes from Desay... In addition, many parts in their C1 phones have similar situations, and the proportion of spare parts occupied by Japanese companies is even higher."

"Look at their supply chain, which is spread across China, the United States, Japan, South Korea and other places!"

"At the same time, their business is almost all over the world. From America to Europe, Asia and even Africa, their Zhiyun phones can be seen!"

"They have set up R&D centers in Europe and the United States, and branches in major countries around the world, including one in Japan."

"As far as I know, the company is still controlled by an overseas company, and more than half of the board members are foreigners."

"Strictly speaking, this is an international giant enterprise...it is not a traditional Chinese enterprise!"

The host beside him was silent after hearing this... After a while, he said, "So, Zhiyun is not a Chinese company?"

At this time, the executive of the mobile phone manufacturer also realized that what he said was a bit exaggerated, and immediately said: "I didn't say it is not a Chinese company, but this company is different from the Chinese companies we traditionally know. I prefer to call it a 'multinational company headquartered in China! '"

The host was a little unconvinced and immediately asked, "But as far as I know, not only is their headquarters in China, but many of their important subsidiaries and even almost all of their production are in China!"

An executive of a mobile phone manufacturer said: "Apple's mobile phones are also assembled and produced in China. Not only Apple, but in fact most mobile phone brands, including a large number of mobile phone manufacturers in our country, are also assembled and produced in China. This does not mean anything..."

Well... no one recognizes Zhiyun Technology as a Chinese company, what is there to discuss...

Anyway, the mobile phone manufacturers will never admit that they are not only inferior to American mobile phone manufacturers, but also inferior to Chinese mobile phone manufacturers...

Therefore, Zhiyun Technology was forced to become a multinational corporation and even to attract American capital.

So much so that after the show was broadcast, many Japanese believed that Zhiyun Technology was a Chinese startup company controlled by Americans... Since the bigwigs in the industry said so, how could they be wrong?
In this case, there is nothing much to say... It is normal that we cannot compete with 'American' mobile phone companies.

It’s no wonder that these remarks have stabilized the sales of Zhiyun mobile phones in Japan... It’s not shabby to buy a mobile phone made in the United States!

However, in the neighboring Korean market, the sales of Zhiyun phones are rather dismal, with sales in July increasing by only 8 percent... Not only are the sales of Zhiyun phones not very good, but Fruit phones are also not doing well here, with a market share of only about 10 percent.

A pair of brothers in distress!
The remaining smartphone market share has basically been taken away by South Korea's four major brands and LG.

The Fruit 3GS is launched, but there is no news in Korea...

Zhiyun S9 was launched in South Korea, also quietly... News related to the S9 phone has been all over the headlines of news in countries around the world, but in South Korea, there are hardly any related news reports, not to mention the queues of people rushing to buy it that have appeared in countries around the world.

This has nothing to do with the performance of the phone, it's just a matter of sentiment among local consumers... Most local consumers are stubborn, no matter how good your foreign products are, I will never buy them... I only buy domestic phones...

Even if the four-star system is still a rubbish self-developed system, they are happy...

Therefore, Fruit and Zhiyun, which have conquered markets all over the world, suffered a disastrous defeat in the Korean market... How tragic it is.

In the smartphone market that Zhiyun Mobile has entered, including the US market, the Korean market has the lowest market share... Well, the same is true for fruits!
Even in so-called emerging markets like India and Indonesia where sales are not high, although the overall sales are small, neither Fruit nor Zhiyun have been so miserable... After all, although the total sales in the local area are low, the market share of these two companies is high.

Basically, the two companies together can occupy 70 to 80 percent of the local market share.

But the local Korean market... even someone as stubborn as Ji Chenghe has given up... just sell it half-heartedly and make as much money as you can.

Of course, such a special market as South Korea is still rare. Most markets are relatively normal. Even in the Japanese market, which is known for its xenophobia, Fruit and Zhiyun went in and killed them all!

On August 9, Zhiyun S was officially launched in Japan, but it was completely out of stock in just one day...

The 9 S phones initially allocated to the Japanese market have all been sold out, which also means that Zhiyun Technology has earned more than million US dollars in the Japanese market in one day!
The product was sold out in one day, with sales exceeding 20 million US dollars. This news caused a sensation in Japan...

(End of this chapter)