Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 414: World-Class Confidence
On August 17, the day after Zhiyun’s flagship phone launch, the Internet was full of discussions about the S series of phones.

There are a large number of advertisements for the Zhiyun S17 mobile phone online. The opening screen advertisements of many APPs are advertisements for the S17 mobile phone, which then guide potential consumers to the pre-order page of the S17 mobile phone on Zhiyun’s official mall.

Mainstream online shopping platforms around the world have also begun to promote the S17 phone... The two major domestic platforms, Jingxi and Dimao, and the 'Duohai' shopping platform under Yihai Technology, which was nicknamed Kanyidao by people and focused on the sinking market in the early days, are now transforming to focus on short video live shopping platforms. These three major domestic shopping platforms have opened full-payment pre-order activities for the S17 and provided a lot of traffic support.

In addition, the business of Duohai Shopping Platform is not limited to the domestic market. In fact, it has multiple international versions, including North American version, ASEAN version, European version, Russian version, Indian version... It mainly relies on the Jump Video under the same parent company to conquer overseas and focus on cross-border e-commerce.

Duohai Shopping Platform is also the only e-commerce platform in China that has a global presence. Although it sells cheap goods overseas, it has grown rapidly around the world in the past year by relying on the traffic it brings in from all over the world through jumping videos.

The successful overseas expansion of Jump Video has driven the overseas expansion of many overseas shopping platforms... At the same time, it has also driven countless domestic manufacturers, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers, to expand overseas, resulting in the emergence of a new business model of cross-border small and medium-sized e-commerce.

Although its overseas business is still relatively small, it has a broad layout and has the traffic from Doudong Video and other overseas network platforms under Yihai Technology, so its development momentum is very fierce.

The main reason is that the large number of domestic products with low prices and good quality are too competitive overseas.

In addition to domestic e-commerce platforms and its own official mall, Zhiyun Group also has a large number of overseas e-commerce companies in its online sales channels for S17.

Overseas online shopping platforms, such as Amazon, eBay, including its global site; Canada's The Bay, the mainstream online shopping platform Mercado Libre in Latin America, Fruugo in the UK in Europe, Otto in Germany, Cdiscount and Fnac Darty in France; Rakuten Japan in Japan; and even Gmarket in South Korea; as well as Souq in West Asia, which is known as the Amazon of West Asia, Tokopedia in the ASEAN region of Asia, and Lazada, a subsidiary of Alibaba, and even Jumia in Africa.

Almost all mainstream online shopping platforms in all regions of the world have participated in the launch of the Zhiyun S17 mobile phone.

It can be said that Zhiyun's S series mobile phone is currently the only mobile phone product in the world that is sold on all mainstream platforms simultaneously around the world.

This shows the influence of Zhiyun S series mobile phones!

It’s lively online and offline too!

In fact, offline channels are still the main delivery mode for Zhiyun's various series of mobile phones... The online sales look lively, but the actual sales ratio is relatively low. Even in China where online shopping is relatively developed and complete, the online sales ratio is only about 40%, while offline sales still account for 60% of Zhiyun mobile phones.

At the same time, although there are many online platforms involved, in fact most of the online sales are completed in Zhiyun’s own official mall, which accounts for about 70%. Other platforms can only share 30% of the online sales share.

The above is still the domestic situation. If it is in overseas markets, the offline sales ratio will be even higher... After all, online shopping in many overseas regions is not as complete and mature as in China, and the mainstream sales model of goods still relies on traditional offline channels.

Therefore, the launch and sales of Zhiyun S17 mobile phone are also very lively in various offline channels in various regions.

As the main force of offline channels, operators from various countries had prepared various promotional materials and promotional plans early on, and began to cooperate in publicity after the press conference.

In some traditional pure sales channels, such as Weiku Trading's multi-national offline sales channels, many Weiku Trading franchisees are also cooperating in various promotions and displaying promotional photos of the S17 mobile phone in stores.

Zhiyun Group's marketing department prepared several months in advance and launched a large-scale intensive advertising and marketing campaign in the first thirty or so countries around the world where the product was launched...and what's interesting is that most of the advertising and marketing expenses were not paid by Zhiyun itself.

Instead, the money comes from numerous cooperating channel merchants, including operators and pure channel merchants such as Weiku Trading... At the same time, the advertising costs and traffic generation costs of many online shopping platforms are mostly paid by local channel merchants, or simply by the online shopping platforms themselves.

Therefore, for this advertising and marketing campaign that seemed to be large in scale and costly, Zhiyun Group only paid for a part of it, and the other part was paid by the channel partners themselves.

At the same time, some channel dealers will organize some subsidy and preferential activities in order to attract traffic and increase sales... These subsidy funds need to be borne by themselves, Zhiyun doesn't care.

Under the intensive bombardment, the full payment pre-order data of various online platforms came out very quickly.

On the first day of opening the full payment pre-order channel, to be exact, within just one hour, the 25 million mobile phones put on the various online platforms were sold out, and then entered the pre-order queue mode.

In China alone, all 10 million units of stock on various online platforms were sold out on the first day, and were ready for unified shipment only three days later.

Sales officially opened three days later, and some offline Zhiyun flagship stores with large traffic flow once again ushered in the annual rush to buy mode.

At the Zhiyun flagship store in Qianshan, Shenzhen, the queue length once reached seven or eight hundred meters.

The same is true in many other countries.

Zhiyun S series mobile phones are still the mobile phones that can be snapped up on a large scale around the world.

With such hot sales... the 45 million mobile phones prepared by Zhiyun Group were all sold out on the first day of their official release.

Even in the Korean market, which has not had a good sales performance for a long time, the spot stocks were sold out within the first day.

Although Zhiyun Group does not have much spot stock in the Korean market, it is still not easy.

The market here is so weird. Six-star mobile phones have an absolute advantage in the local market. Year after year, although Zhiyun mobile phones are getting better and better and far surpassing Six-star Galaxy in all aspects, they just can't sell many.

The Korean market sells about 14 million mobile phones a year, but Samsung alone accounts for about 10 million units, leaving only 4 million units for competition from manufacturers such as Zhiyun, Fruit, and LG.

Among them, Zhiyun is the second largest player in the market. Relying on the powerful performance of the S series, it has grabbed about 18% of the market share, with an annual sales volume of about 2.5 million units... Don't think it's a small amount, it's already very impressive. A few years ago, it only had a market share of 7 or 8 percentage points. Zhiyun Group's local marketing team in South Korea relied on the young market and then gradually cultivated it to step by step increase its market share to 18%.

Next are fruits, LG and Wecoo Electronics.

The fact that Zhiyun phones can sell 2.5 million units in a special market like South Korea shows how powerful Zhiyun phones are... There is no flaw in terms of performance, ecology, etc., which is why it can sell 2.5 million phones in a special market like South Korea.

Therefore, when the Zhiyun Korean sales team exceeded the annual sales of 2.5 million last year, the group headquarters even sent them a special internal commendation notice, praising their efforts and strength.

Zhiyun S series mobile phones can snatch the market share from four-star brands in the Korean market, which further proves the strength of Zhiyun S series mobile phones.

Not to mention other markets, the market share is quite high.

For example, in the neighboring Japanese market, annual sales of smartphones were around 3,200 units last year, and this year is expected to be even higher. Analysts believe that it is possible to reach between 37 million and 38 million units.

In this market, although Zhiyun is a high-end mobile phone brand, it actually occupies the largest market share, which was about 41% last year. 11 million Zhiyun mobile phones were sold in a year, mainly the Zhiyun S series.

The second largest player in the market is Apple, which has a market share of more than 20%. Next are Japanese companies such as Sharp and Sony, followed by Four Star and Vico Electronics...and Huawei, a domestic company, also has a small market share in Japan.

In the Japanese market, the market share of Zhiyun mobile phones is even higher than in China... Zhiyun S series mobile phones are veritable street machines in Japan and can be found everywhere.

In the domestic market, although Zhiyun is the leader, it is a high-end mobile phone and is expensive, and the domestic market is very large.

Last year, a total of approximately 480 million smartphones were sold in China... Well, it is truly the world's largest smartphone market.

Zhiyun Group's various series of mobile phones have sold a total of 130 million units in China, accounting for 27% of the domestic market.

Among them, the S series of mobile phones are the main shipments, accounting for approximately 80 million units, and the rest are the C series, A series, and SX series.

As strong as Zhiyun is, it actually only has a 27% market share in China... Of course, this only discusses the number of mobile phones sold, not the sales amount and profits... If it were the latter two, there would be no comparison at all.

In China, although Zhiyun phones are very common, and many people even say they are street machines...but in fact, in many overseas countries, especially in developed countries such as Japan and regional markets, Zhiyun phones are actually more common.

Compared with the economic capabilities of domestic people, people in Japan and Europe have higher income levels, so there is less pressure to buy Zhiyun S series mobile phones.

How to put it, a Zhiyun S5199 standard version that costs 17 yuan requires more than a month's salary for most ordinary middle- and low-income groups in China.

In Japan, we don’t discuss middle and high incomes, we only talk about middle and low incomes. For example, an ordinary worker in the manufacturing industry earns about 17 or Chinese yuan... This means that even their middle and low-income earners only need about a week's salary to afford the S standard version.

The difference is quite large in Europe. In typical countries with relatively large sales volumes, such as Britain, France and Germany, the income of middle- and low-income earners is about 200,000 to 300,000 yuan a year, so it is relatively easy for them to buy a Zhiyun S series mobile phone...at least it is much easier for Americans.

These high-income regions are also the main overseas markets for Zhiyun mobile phones, especially the S series mobile phones, which sell very well in these places and occupy a very high share of the local market.

For example, in the UK, Zhiyun phones have a local market share of 36%, far exceeding Apple, 4-star and Huawei.

The situation is similar in major smartphone regions such as France and Germany.

Zhiyun Mobile is the market leader in the local market, followed by Mizutani, the perennial runner-up, and then Sixing... and then Huawei and Weiku Electronics.

That’s right…the Huawei mobile phone brand has begun to appear frequently in many overseas markets.

They rely on their own SOC design and integrate the excellent domestic electronic consumer supply chain. The mobile phones they make are still very good. Although the high-end market is still very difficult for them, they are doing very well in the low-end market, and even in the high-end market. They sell well in many overseas markets, and have begun to compete with Sixing and Weiku Electronics.

However, it is still difficult to continue to move up and shake the status of the world's fourth-ranked Weiku and the world's third-ranked Samsung.

Let’s not talk about the four stars for now. Although this thing is just a small country enterprise, its strength is still quite good. It has been the main competitor of Zhiyun and Fruit for a long time.

As for Wecoo Electronics, although many people say that it does not have core technology, it cannot resist the fact that it has a big brother... It clung to Zhiyun's thigh and, in the era of Little Blue MAX8, launched the combination of under-screen photoelectric technology and water drop screen for the first time, which successfully ignited the market.

Although other manufacturers have begun to launch mobile phones with under-screen optical fingerprint this year, they are already lagging behind.

With over 200 million mobile phone sales every year, Wecoo Electronics is still a very strong mobile phone manufacturer. Even though more than 50% of its mobile phone sales are brought by the Bluemi M series, which costs more than 1,000 yuan, its Bluemi MAX series shipped 30 million units last year. It is hard to say how much it will sell this year, but it is still possible to maintain a stable sales volume of 30 million units.

With powerful companies like Sixing and Weiku Electronics in the lead, it is actually very difficult for Huawei, OV and Dami to continue to move forward!
But it’s not without advantages…their advantage is the huge domestic market!
The domestic market sells 400 to 500 million smartphones a year. This huge market is enough to give birth to several mobile phone giants.

At the same time, one of their major advantages is that they can rely on the country's strong consumer electronics and semiconductor supply chain!

Zhiyun Group has already laid the foundation for them with a supply chain system that covers all levels, including mid-range, high-end and low-end. Not only do they not have to worry about being strangled, but the cost is also lower and the performance is better.

Zhiyun Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, can provide SOC and other chips for manufacturing mobile phones. Zhiyun Storage can provide memory and flash memory chips... Behind it is Zhiyun Microelectronics, the world's largest and most technologically advanced semiconductor manufacturer.

Huaxing Technology and BOE can provide a variety of mobile phone screens, from the top-level OLED screens to low-end and cheap LCD screens.

Qianding Technology can also provide fingerprint modules. At the same time, they also launched an under-screen photoelectric fingerprint module this year. In the field of mobile phone unlocking technology, their technology is very powerful. They are already the third largest unlocking solution manufacturer in the world... and the first two are subsidiaries of Zhiyun and Fruit, and do not supply to the outside world.

At the same time, Qianding Technology also provides chip products such as touch ICs and other chips required by mobile phones.

Then there are the world's top-notch acoustic component supplier Ansheng Technology, the world's top-notch lighting component supplier Yuanhua Technology, the world's first-tier camera module supplier Nanjiang Technology, and a large number of other supply chain manufacturers that are either the best or the second or third best in the world.

In addition, there are world-class OEM manufacturers such as Vicoo Industrial, BYD, and Luxshare.

China has a complete consumer electronics supply chain that is world-class in all aspects... a supply chain system that even Fruit and Four Star cannot escape.

This is the greatest confidence of domestic smart terminal manufacturers!

Relying on this set of top-level consumer electronics and semiconductor supply chains, domestic smart terminal manufacturers, even if they cannot compete with giant companies like Zhiyun, still have strong international competitiveness and are gaining ground in the domestic and overseas markets.

Even in special markets like the United States, domestic mobile phone companies have entered the market.

Not to mention other markets, Chinese mobile phones can be seen everywhere!
If we include foreign brands, there will be even more domestically manufactured smartphones, such as Apple, Samsung, LG, Sharp, Sony, etc. In fact, most of their mobile phone production capacity is in China.

The annual production capacity of smartphones in China can reach nearly 1.5 billion units, with only tens of millions of units left in other countries, such as Vietnam, India and other places.

It is no exaggeration to say that smartphones made in China have monopolized the global market!

Behind this is the country's powerful consumer electronics and semiconductor supply chain.

Even Zhiyun's biggest competitor, Apple, has begun to use high-end OLED screens from Zhiyun's controlled subsidiary, Huaxing Technology, this year.

At the same time, as the cooperation contract between Apple and Qualcomm in the communication baseband is about to expire, Apple is facing a substantial price increase from Qualcomm. At the same time, both Intel and its own baseband are not going well. Apple has actually begun to contact Zhiyun Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, to explore the possibility of purchasing Zhiyun 4G communication baseband.

Don’t think this is impossible. Zhiyun Group is actually very happy to sell communication basebands to Apple... Anyway, if they don’t make the money themselves, Intel or Qualcomm will make it.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group has a relatively positive attitude towards this cooperation negotiation, and is even willing to make certain price concessions... Of course, this discount is limited to "no price increase".

Forget about price cuts... Zhiyun Group and Qualcomm have a very good understanding in the field of communication basebands... Both adopt the model of buying a SOC and giving away a communication baseband, but if the other party buys a single baseband, hmm... the price will be very expensive.

At the same time, it refused to authorize the CDMA2000 patent to any other party, resulting in the fact that MediaTek, Warwick and Intel are currently unable to develop CDMA2000 basebands.

At the same time, TD-LTE, one of the domestic exclusive 4G, has a special baseband. Previously, only a few domestic manufacturers such as Zhiyun and Huawei had authorization, but Qualcomm, Intel and MediaTek did not have the patent for this communication baseband...

Later, Qualcomm got angry and bypassed Zhiyun's patent to develop their own TD-LTE baseband, but Intel and MediaTek still do not have this communication baseband.

In the current market, only Zhiyun and Qualcomm can provide truly all-network communication basebands that can meet two 4G and three 3G communication modes.

This means that Apple will either have to choose Qualcomm's baseband or Zhiyun's... no matter which one it chooses, it will suffer a loss.

From the perspective of Zhiyun Group, although Apple is an enemy, Qualcomm is also a major competitor.

If possible, Zhiyun Group would be happy to provide the B4 series communication baseband at a relatively favorable price, causing Qualcomm to lose a large amount of revenue, and thus hitting Qualcomm...

It's to harm others and benefit yourself!
The relationship between Zhiyun Group and its competitors such as Apple, OnePlus, and even Qualcomm and Google is relatively complicated. Sometimes they have a tacit understanding, and sometimes they fight to the death. They have their own positions on different issues and make different choices.

The communication baseband field is a typical case.

With Zhiyun Group at the forefront, the domestic supply chain and terminal manufacturers have gained space for rapid development... How to say it, when many countries want to impose sanctions, fines, and become vigilant, they often look to Zhiyun first and then think about various things.

However, not much attention is paid to other Chinese companies.

Although this may sound a bit ignored and feel bad, it is a real advantage... Quietly entering various overseas markets, making money and grabbing market share is also good.

If you don’t have any real ability and try to be as high-profile as Zhiyun, you’ll die quickly!

Zhiyun is high-profile because he has strong strength. If other countries want to impose sanctions on Zhiyun, they have to consider it carefully... Otherwise, it is easy to kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred of their own. In some places, they may even kill one hundred enemies and lose one thousand of their own.

Just like the joke that is circulating on the Internet: "Everyone in the world knows that Zhiyun Group is involved in the military field. Why hasn't the United States included Zhiyun Group in the sanctions list and launched comprehensive sanctions against Zhiyun Group?"

"The American replied: "Because Zhiyun is really involved in the military field!"

The US military has purchased a large number of APO series graphics cards to train their military AI...

On the contrary, some other manufacturers that are not involved in the military field are often included in the sanctions list, or they carefully avoid various possibilities, and when faced with accusations, they jump out in a panic and say, "I didn't do that, don't accuse me."

But Zhiyun Group is not like that. They have never concealed the fact that they are involved in a large number of their own military projects, but they just keep the details of the projects highly confidential.

But so far, no country has blamed Zhiyun!
It is common practice for domestic technology giants to get involved in the military field... Boeing, Airbus, Google, Microsoft, Qualcomm, and Intel are all like this.

To some extent, if a company cannot participate in its own country's military projects, it only means one thing: its technology is not good enough!
Not to mention the world's top level, it can't even reach the top level in the country, so it can't participate in military projects.

Companies like Zhiyun Group have top-notch technology, and many domestic military projects will be carried out by Zhiyun Group, especially those involving semiconductor manufacturing and design, software engineering, and artificial intelligence.

Even if it defends itself by saying it had no involvement, no one would believe it...so it simply doesn't deny it.

If you don't agree, you can punish me!

However, to date, only the United States has been stubborn and banned the sale of Zhiyun Group's smart terminals and Internet services to individuals... but it still did not include Zhiyun Group in the list of comprehensive sanctions.

Because if the sanctions are really imposed, they will suffer even more. A large number of American technology and automobile companies will face the embarrassing situation of having no chips available and without many core components!

This is not to sanction others, but to stab oneself first... The targets are not ordinary Americans, but the American consortiums behind American companies...

The American consortium is not something that anyone can attack at will. If you dare to attack them, they will shoot you first!
This is also the reason why Zhiyun Group has such an embarrassing position in the US market... If you say it has not been sanctioned, the sale of smart terminals and personal consumer Internet services is indeed banned, but if you say sanctions, Zhiyun's various chips and enterprise services are still very popular in the United States.

It is very confusing for ordinary outsiders!
If the United States is like this, let alone other countries. Before imposing sanctions on Zhiyun Group, they must first consider whether they can bear the serious consequences!

What if Zhiyun Group strikes back? What if Zhiyun Group uses its influence to completely cut off your supply?
Even further, even if Zhiyun does not fight back, but only bans the products and services of Zhiyun Group, what will happen to your industrial production and economy?
You'll lose half your life!
Zhiyun doesn’t just sell mobile phones!

(End of this chapter)