Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 253 Zhiyun Stock Price Fluctuation
When Xu Shenxue started working on smartphones, he was still in the old factory of WeCool Electronics.

At that time, the smartphone project team was established in the office building in the factory. Later, with the expansion of the smartphone project team and the establishment of an independent subsidiary, Zhiyun Technology, it moved to the Qianshan Insurance Building.

As Zhiyun Technology grew and the C1 mobile phone continued to be popular, Zhiyun Technology occupied more and more office buildings of Qianshan Insurance. Before long, it simply acquired the entire Qianshan Insurance Building and renamed it "Zhiyun Technology Building".

However, Zhiyun Technology's development speed was still too fast, with an increasing number of subsidiaries and too many employees.

In order to meet the demand for office space brought about by the rapidly increasing number of employees, Zhiyun Technology has been renting or purchasing office buildings all over the world in Shenzhen for a long time.

However, it is not a good idea to disperse all the employees of the entire group in this way, and Zhiyun Group is not short of money.

Therefore, after the company went public, it officially launched the company's headquarters park plan. The plan received strong support from the local government and assisted Zhiyun Group in purchasing large tracts of industrial and commercial land.

Finally, Zhiyun Group built the group headquarters park on this vast land, planning to construct six super-high-rise office buildings and a large number of podium buildings, as well as many low-rise office buildings for special purposes.

In addition to this large office area, three employee dormitory communities are planned and constructed directly behind the office area.

The office area, dormitory area, some schools, supermarkets and other supporting facilities together form an enormous headquarters park.

After the construction of the headquarters park began, it was not completed all at once, but was divided into three phases. In the past few years, some supporting facilities such as office buildings and dormitory buildings have been built one after another.

Some of its subsidiaries have already moved there before, and after the entire headquarters area is completed, Zhiyun Group’s headquarters will also move there.

The relocation of the entire headquarters is relatively complicated, mainly because Zhiyun Group’s headquarters has a large number of business departments and a large number of various office facilities.

They had to relocate without affecting the normal work progress, especially the smart terminal R&D departments. The R&D tasks of these R&D departments have always been relatively tight, and the scale of these core departments is also large.

The core mobile phone business department of the group, namely the 'Mobile Communication Terminal Division', has more than 6,000 R&D employees.

Therefore, the relocation of the entire headquarters is not something that can be completed in one or two days, but is carried out step by step, every day, with a part of the department being relocated every day.

The entire relocation work lasted until late October when it was finally completed.

During this process, Xu Shenxue himself moved his daily office from the Zhiyun Technology Building to Building A of the headquarters park.

Zhiyun’s headquarters has six super-high-rise office buildings, all of which are over 200 meters high. These mobile office buildings stand tall in the area along the seaside of Qianshan Mountain. This large-scale office complex can be seen from a long distance.

And at night, it is even more dazzling!
Among these six office buildings, A occupies the best location, being located in the center close to the sea. It is also the largest and tallest office building.

The entire building has 52 floors, four underground floors, and a huge helicopter landing platform on the top of the office building.

Zhiyun Airlines, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, owns quite a few helicopters.

It’s just that most of Zhiyun Aviation’s helicopters are deployed overseas, and there are relatively few in the country.

Helicopters are relatively cheaper than business jets, and they are also very convenient to use in some countries, such as the United States. Therefore, a number of them were purchased to meet the travel needs of senior company executives and important customers.

However, it is still a little inconvenient to use helicopters in China. It is difficult to fly whenever you want. There are not many airports that can take off and land helicopters. It is also very troublesome to apply for various routes every time you fly.

Therefore, Xu Shenxue and other group executives basically take cars for daily travel, and take business jets for long-distance travel. They only take helicopters in some special circumstances.

Regardless of whether it can be used or not, in order to meet some special needs in the future, Zhiyun Group built helicopter landing and take-off platforms on the rooftops of the six office buildings when it built its headquarters building.

The more than 40 floors of Building A are the office areas for Zhiyun Group’s senior executives and some strategic agencies of the group’s headquarters. Xu Shenxue’s office is also located on the 51st floor.

The office at the group headquarters is much larger than the original office in Zhiyun Technology Building and is more fully equipped.

Xu Shenxue’s previous office in Zhiyun Technology Building was actually not as exaggerated and large as outsiders imagined. In fact, Xu Shenxue’s office was in Liuhe Investment, and the office was only more than 100 square meters.

Of course, the supporting office area is very large, and the other office areas on an entire floor are departments of core institutions such as the Board Office, the General Office, and the Liuhe Investment Strategic Investment Office.

It is worth noting that this time Xu Shenxue did not come alone, but he also brought all the employees of Liuhe Investment with him.

Liuhe Investment leased the top two floors of Building A, 51st and 52nd, from Zhiyun Group for use as offices of Liuhe Investment.

Therefore, strictly speaking, Xu Shenxue is not working in the office of Zhiyun Group, but continues to work in the office of Liuhe Investment, an investment company in which he personally holds 100% of the shares.

Unlike what outsiders imagine, many of Xu Shenxue’s core institutions are not located in Zhiyun Group, but in Liuhe Investment.

Because Zhiyun Group is just one of his many companies, and it only holds about 50% of the shares, and it fully controls the company through the AB share method.

Although Xu Shenxue has 100% control over Zhiyun Group, Zhiyun Group is ultimately a listed company. In order to avoid many troubles, many things Xu Shenxue did did not actually go through Zhiyun Group.

The core enterprise that manages its many industries is not Zhiyun Group, but Liuhe Investment.

Liuhe Investment was originally a family business of the Xu family. Later, in order to make things easier, Xu Shenxue discussed with Xu's mother and Xu Weiwei and converted the shares of these two people into shares of each subsidiary company. Finally, Liuhe Investment became Xu Shenxue's personal company.

In Liuhe Investment, Xu Shenxue set up several core departments, such as the 'Chairman's Assistant Office'. This office is the core organization to assist Xu Shenxue in managing his massive industries. The more than one hundred assistant directors in it are all top elites.

Next came the general manager's office. This office was just a vase office at first, but gradually seven or eight secretaries came to work there.

But before Xu Shenxue got married, he transferred Secretary Li and other women to an investment company under his control and put them under nominal names.

In addition to these two offices, Liuhe Investment Company also has a strategic analysis department, which is actually a business intelligence department, as well as strategic investment departments, administrative departments and other logistics departments.

The core department of the entire Liuhe Investment is to assist Xu Shenxue in managing his huge business group.

With such investment in Liuhe, they would naturally follow Xu Shenxue wherever he went.

After Xu Shenxue moved to the group headquarters, the entire Liuhe Investment Co., Ltd. also moved to Office Building A in the Zhiyun headquarters park and leased two floors of Office Building A from Zhiyun Group.

Although Zhiyun and Liuhe Investment are both companies owned by Xu Shenxue, they still need to be divided, especially in terms of finance.

After moving into the Zhiyun headquarters campus, Xu Shenxue looked out at the seaside park outside and the huge headquarters campus below from his office on the 51st floor.

I couldn't help but sigh: "After hanging around for a few years, I finally have a place of my own!"

Ji Chenghe said, "Yeah, now when I think about the time when we were still in the old factory of Weiku Industry a few years ago, it seems like a dream!"

“Who could have imagined that we would develop to where we are today in just a few years?”
After hearing this, Xu Shenxue sighed inwardly. Even though he had a system and had predicted that his career would be very successful, at the time he only thought that it would reach a market value of several hundred billion US dollars, and at most a market value of one hundred billion US dollars.

But he also did not expect that Zhiyun Group would grow so rapidly and reach its current market value of 600 billion US dollars.

After thinking about the company's stock price, Xu Shenxue said: "The company's stock price has fluctuated a bit in recent times. We still need to work harder recently to boost market confidence!"

After hearing this, Ji Chenghe said helplessly: "Our company's stock price has indeed fluctuated greatly recently!"

"Since our company released the new S12 flagship in June, our company's stock price has continued to rise, and in September it once again broke through the billion US dollar mark!"

"However, in the past few months, our company's high stock price is partly because the market has too high expectations of us, not only for sales volume but also for net profit, which has created a certain bubble."

"But the market is limited, and our company's product gross profit margin has also declined. So after the third quarter financial report was released, this part of the bubble burst, and our company's stock price fell sharply!"

"Four months after our company's flagship product, the S12 series, was launched, the total sales volume exceeded million units. This sales performance can be said to be unprecedented, but those analysts outside still believe that we have not met market expectations. Those crazy analysts expected million units!"

“I don’t know how they estimated it!”

"Our group's overall gross profit margin has reached 40%, but investors are still not satisfied. Previously, the capital market generally believed that we could maintain last year's ultra-high gross profit margin of 50%!"

"But how is this possible!"

As he spoke, Ji Chenghe felt somewhat helpless!

Looking around the world, no company can make more money than Zhiyun!

The new S12 series mobile phone alone has sold over million units, a full million units in more than four months. Apart from Zhiyun's new S series flagship, is there any other company's product in the world that can compare with this?
Even Apple’s new flagship, the Fruit 5/5 Plus, is selling like crazy, but not as much as the Zhiyun S12 series!

The Zhiyun S series is currently the best-selling mobile phone on the planet, and the profit is super high!

But those analysts and investors are still not satisfied!
Ji Chenghe said: "In addition, the outside world's expectations for our C series, A series and SX series are generally too high. Although these mobile phones are selling well, it is still difficult to meet their expectations!"

"At the same time, in order to increase sales, our spending on hardware and marketing costs for these mobile phones is also relatively high, which has lowered the gross profit of these mobile phones!"

"In addition, our group's business lines have gradually increased, and core components such as chips, screens, and batteries have begun to be produced and sold by ourselves. The supply of these components has also reduced our gross profit!"

"In the end, our group's gross profit in the third quarter was only 40 percent, which failed to meet external expectations."

Xu Shenxue said: "Playing the whole industry chain has both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that we can control it independently and increase the total profit. But as for the disadvantages, those investors obviously don't think much of it. They want us to become an asset-light company, just like fruit, so that they can better squeeze the supply chain and turn the profits from mobile phones into their own net profits."

"But we are not imitating the fruit industry. Although the gross profit margin of the terminal business is important, the autonomy and control of the supply chain is more important, and the increase in total profit is also more important."

Xu Shenxue started Zhiyun Technology for a purpose other than making money in the conventional sense, also to make Zhiyun Technology's smart terminal products act as the locomotive to drive the development of the entire supply chain.

What he wants is an industrial chain, not just a certain product!
These are two completely different concepts!
Therefore, no matter how outside investors criticize, it will not shake Xu Shenxue's strategic policy: continue to unswervingly follow the path of the entire industrial chain.

Through wholly-owned subsidiaries, holding subsidiaries and strategic investments, we control the entire consumer electronics industry chain and even the upstream and downstream chains of the semiconductor industry chain, and then integrate them to promote the development of the entire industry chain.

He had to do it!
Because if we don’t do this, Zhiyun Technology will be like a castle on the beach, which will collapse as soon as the tide comes.

What Xu Shenxue has to do now is to gradually replace the sand under the castle of Zhiyun Technology with concrete, and eventually turn Zhiyun Technology into a concrete building fortress on the seaside.

No matter how strong the wind and waves are from the outside, you can remain as still as a mountain!
But the investors don’t like Xu Shenxue’s idea!
So after Zhiyun released its third-quarter financial report, investors also voted with their wallets. After hitting the 600 billion US dollar mark in September, Zhiyun Technology's stock price fell again.

This time the decline was quite severe, with tens of billions of dollars falling.

Some domestic news media have published a lot of news headlines about the so-called Zhiyun stock price crisis, with titles like "Zhiyun's stock price evaporated by 10 billion US dollars overnight" and "Zhiyun's stock price evaporated by 50 billion US dollars in half a month".

It's all very scary.

But in fact, the sales of Zhiyun's various smart terminal products and various semiconductor parts and components have been rising steadily and are much higher than the same period last year.

Even though the A series of mobile phones, which were considered to be Zhiyun's most failed product last year, were not favored by the outside world, the sales of its new A12 have met expectations. Tens of millions of units were sold within three months of its launch, and the annual sales are expected to reach million.

This sales volume and revenue are only slightly lower than the Galaxy 3 series of the next-door four-star. Among the high-end mobile phone products in the world, it is second only to its own Zhiyun S12 series, Fruit 5 series, and the four-star Galaxy 3 series.

If we go further down, there is a huge gap. Many mobile phone manufacturers’ high-end flagship phones cannot even sell 10 million units a year.

There is also the C5 series. This year's C series has taken the approach of increasing hardware configuration while lowering the price of the standard version, which has also allowed the C series to regain its reputation from previous years and its sales are quite good.

It occupies a unique position among various mid-range mobile phones worldwide, with high sales and high profits.

The three main smart terminal products, namely PC products, tablet products and smart watch products, also performed well.

The total sales of Zhiyun notebook series exceeded 20 million units in the first three quarters of this year, an increase of about 30% compared with the first three quarters of last year.

The Zhiyun tablet series sold 18 million units in the first three quarters, which is also a good sales volume.

Zhiyun notebooks and tablets have become important products in the current mid-to-high-end office equipment. Taking China as an example, most high-tech companies will choose Zhiyun notebooks when equipping their employees with portable and light office laptops.

For example, in the fields of software development, design, video editing, etc., designers like to use Zhiyun's YunBook14 or 15, especially the 15-inch high-performance version, which has powerful performance and is easy to carry.

At the same time, Zhiyun notebook also has some exclusive software specifically for corporate office, which can facilitate collaborative work.

For office use, Zhiyun's laptops have no disadvantages other than being expensive!

As for tablet computers, after passing the first year of market cultivation, Zhiyun's tablet computers have now become a major product for mobile lightweight office work.

Although this thing is not very practical to use, it has a new concept and looks very technological and fashionable!

Just imagine, the boss is talking in front, and the secretary or assistant behind is taking notes with paper and pen or with a tablet computer. Those are completely different feelings.

The former is a local boss with no future and a business full of decadence.

The latter is a high-tech enterprise that looks promising at first glance!

Of course, some companies purchase tablet computers, try them out for a while, and then throw them aside... This thing has too many limitations to use and feels a bit flashy.

So starting this year, Zhiyun Technology's tablet computer division has also noticed these trends. In order to seek growth points, it has focused on promoting learning and entertainment usage scenarios in addition to continuing to market and promote office usage scenarios.

For ordinary young people, tablet computers are promoted as being able to be used to watch TV series, play games, and are convenient to carry when going out. With a small keyboard, they can also be used as laptops.

As for the student market, the product is promoted to parents of students, saying that this thing can be used for children's learning, such as letting older children watch some learning videos and online classes, while younger children can also gain knowledge by playing some educational games.

For this purpose, we also contacted some online education institutions and children's content companies to customize various content, and then integrated them, so that the tablet computer was transformed into a learning tool for children.

The last smart watch product is more single-minded. It is purely a toy for young technology enthusiasts and sports enthusiasts. The overall market is relatively limited, and sales in the fixed market are relatively stable. Therefore, the incremental market mainly relies on the development of some emerging markets.

The above-mentioned three relatively important products, namely notebooks, tablets and smart watches, are also important sources of revenue for Zhiyun Group. Their overall performance is much better than last year, and the growth is considerable.

Finally, there are some miscellaneous ecological chain products, such as mobile phone cases, unlimited version Bluetooth keyboards, mice, chargers, data cables, power banks and other spare parts for smart terminals.

There are also smart home products with home smart host as the core, such as smart TVs, sweeping robots, smart refrigerators, smart air conditioners, smart water heaters, smart headlights, etc.

Except for the home host which is a self-developed product of Zhiyun Technology, other products are actually developed in cooperation with some home appliance manufacturers. They are responsible for providing some basic hardware, Zhiyun is responsible for intelligentization, and then integration and integration into the entire smart home ecosystem. However, the sales of these smart home ecosystem products are quite average... too expensive!
Finally, there are some inexplicable small products, such as dancing robots, smart desk lamps, and a 360-degree accompanying selfie drone jointly launched with Xiaojiang Technology, etc. Their main features are novelty, fun, and high technology, but they are useless.

It cannot be said that they are completely useless. At least the 360-degree selfie drone is still somewhat useful. It’s just that the internet celebrity economy has not yet taken off, so there is no market for shooting these videos, so the market is very niche for the time being.

In addition to the above-mentioned terminal products, Zhiyun Technology also has a large business of various smart device parts and chip foundry business.

Typical of these are various chip products, including mobile phone SOC, memory, flash memory, various auxiliary function chips, domestically sold AI chips, computer CPUs with SOP instruction sets, and computer independent graphics cards OP graphics cards that have been launched on the market but have little sales.

Finally, the chip foundry business has developed well and has basically monopolized the domestic advanced process chip foundry business. However, the main business is still for internal foundry within Zhiyun Group, and there are relatively few external foundry businesses.

It is worth mentioning that another domestic mobile phone SOC product, namely Huawei’s K series chip, is also manufactured by Zhiyun Microelectronics.

Then there are some subsidiaries' smart terminal spare parts business. In addition to internal supply, some of them are sold to the outside, such as screens.

The entire Zhiyun Group's industrial line is actually very extensive, but most of the businesses are just average. The real money-making business that supports the main revenue and profits of the entire group is still mobile phone products.

Especially the S series phones!

As long as the sales of the above-mentioned products do not decline, Zhiyun Technology will be as stable as a rock. As for the slight fluctuations in the stock price, these are not important.

After finishing the work in the headquarters park, Xu Shenxue also took some time to accompany Lin Yaxian, and then also spent some time with other women.

After the women who had previously worked in the general manager's office were transferred from Liuhe Investment's general manager's office, they were first given nominal positions in a small company.

Then everyone was given a certain amount of funds. Those who didn't want to go to work could directly buy properties, wait for the rent, and then enjoy the life of a rich wife.

If she wants to continue to work hard, we will just buy the industry she wants. If she wants to start a business, we will give her cash and arrange for someone to help her start the business.

This can actually be regarded as giving them some personal property and security.

If you want to talk about feelings for these people who stay by his side, Xu Shenxue definitely doesn't have much, but it's not to the extent that he ignores them once they put on his pants.

As long as you follow me, I can give you certain guarantees...

Then some of these women chose to directly take the property, saving trouble and waiting for it to appreciate in value while collecting rent, and then they would get close to Xu Shenxue every day when they had nothing to do. Secretary Jin and Secretary Qian were typical. For a period of time, they did not go to work or collect rent. They stayed in the big villa every day, trying to make Lin Yaxian happy, calling her sister in various ways, and acting like a little maid.

Then he was kicked out by Lin Yaxian...

But she still didn't give up and always wanted to run to the big villa so that she could come for a walk in the evening. In fact, they also lived in a villa nearby. Xu Shenxue later bought several villas nearby to accommodate them, and several people lived together in one villa.

Secretary Li was more ambitious. She used the money given by Xu Shenxue to start her own business. However, her business was quite ordinary. After opening a bookstore, she opened a coffee shop. Not giving up, she opened a flower shop...

There are three things a petite bourgeois woman needs to open a store, and she opened all of them.

Then the bookstore was losing money, the cafe was not doing well either, and the flower shop was better, but it didn't make much money either.

Fortunately, she was still sober enough. Although she had all three pieces of the petty bourgeoisie set, she didn't spend much money on them. They were all small investments.

After failing to start a business by opening a store, she asked Xu Shenxue what to do and gave her some advice.

Xu Shenxue directly asked her to combine the bookstore and coffee to create a super petty bourgeoisie bookstore... and by the way, he also instilled in Secretary Li what petty bourgeoisie is.

Holding a book and reading it in a small bookstore full of the fragrance of books, that is not called petty bourgeoisie...

Drinking coffee in a business-like coffee shop is not considered petty bourgeoisie...

As for the flower shop, let alone running a small flower shop, what has it got to do with being a petty bourgeois...that's called a self-employed individual business, and a very low-end one at that.

"You need to create a bookstore that looks very high-end but not too vulgar. It's best to have a Nordic style. The place should be large, the decoration design must look relaxing, the lighting must be good, and every corner should be suitable for taking photos."

"You often take selfies, so think about it, what kind of place would make you want to take a selfie and share it on WeChat Moments? It must be a place full of exquisiteness!"

“This bookstore too!”

"As more people post on WeChat Moments, more people come to the bookstore. With traffic, it will be easier to do business. We can make some money from selling books, and then sell some additional products. We can also set up a separate leisure beverage area inside the bookstore and make some coffee or other drinks for 20 or 30 yuan."

"After this whole process, I can't say how much money I can make, but I can definitely meet your needs!"

What did Secretary Li want? Although she didn't say it very clearly, Xu Shenxue knew something. Deep down, this person was still very interested in petty bourgeoisie, but it was a bit vulgar when he actually did it... Deep down, he still loved money.

I just like to wrap up love with all kinds of petty bourgeois things.

In this regard, Secretary Li is far inferior to women like Lin Yaxian.

Although Lin Yaxian also likes to paint, she never hides her career mentality, and she never acts in a timid way when doing things.

She was also interested in art, so after graduation she started organizing various art exhibitions and auctions. Later on, she realized that this was really difficult to do, and since she couldn't make much money, she simply gave up.

Later, when she wanted to get involved in perfumes, she simply pulled Xu Weiwei and a few of her close friends together to create a cosmetics brand. Last year, it officially entered the market. Although this company is not well-known outside, it has a great reputation in the wealthy circle.

Many ladies and socialites would ask others and then buy some, even if it is just to give face or because they are simply curious about what kind of perfume the wife or sister of the world's richest man uses.

Therefore, in the past year, a new brand has quietly emerged in China's high-end cosmetics/perfume market.

Why is it so famous?

Lin Yaxian is working very hard to promote the product, and is very good at using her status as the wife of the world's richest man. She often holds various gatherings, such as charity dinners and auctions, and uses these occasions to promote her own perfumes to these people.

I don’t think it’s shameful to do this!

After Lin Yaxian's operation, the business of her Honglinwan Cosmetics Company is getting better and better, and it has already set up exclusive stores in the country's super high-end business district.

When it comes to business ability, Lin Yaxian can beat those women who came from general managers' offices... This has little to do with talent, but is mainly due to the difference in life experience, growth experience, and learning experience.

Lin Yaxian has been exposed to these things since she was a child. Even though she has never seen a pig run, she has eaten pork!
Xu Shenxue has always been supportive of these women starting their own small businesses.

Not only financial support will be provided, but also human resources and other support.

The reason why Lin Yaxian's cosmetics company was able to succeed was not because of her business talent or simply because she was rich, but because Xu Shenxue directly mobilized a group of capable people to help.

Lin Yaxian herself is actually just a hands-off boss!

This is actually quite good, as you can have your own career and still keep up with your life, it's the best of both worlds.

On this day, when Xu Shenxue just returned home, Lin Yaxian ran up to him and hugged him directly, then took out a pregnancy test stick mysteriously. Without waiting for Xu Shenxue to guess, she couldn't wait to say with a happy smile on her face:

"I am pregnant!"

The reader group has been disbanded and there will be no more groups in the future.

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(End of this chapter)