Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 566 The Huge Shock of the Beggar's Version of Virtual Devices!

March 21st, Saturday.

The Qianshan International Conference Center, the preferred conference center for the Zhiyun Group, once again welcomed a large number of guests.

The reason is simple: it's because of the spring press conference held by Zhiyun Group.

Zhuyun Group, including its various subsidiaries, holds numerous press conferences throughout the year, most of which are hosted by its subsidiaries.

For example, Zhiyun Semiconductor holds its own press conferences, usually in December, to release new generations of various chips, such as APO graphics cards and W-series SOCs.

Wistron Corporation, a subsidiary of Zhuyun Semiconductor that specializes in CPUs, will also hold a press conference during this period to release its new generation of CPUs.

Zhiyun Storage's product launch event is usually held in November, where they release the next generation of 3D NAND flash memory and DRAM memory, as well as the next generation of enterprise-grade flash memory.

Then there's another new smart terminal brand, 'NewCloud', whose launch events are in March and October... This year, NewCloud's spring launch event is actually just a week away, but the attention NewCloud brand receives is far less than that of Zhiyun.

Even many ordinary people don't know what new models XinYun has released, and most people don't even know what XinYun's main or flagship models are...

Zhuyun Group holds many press conferences and has many products, but not all of them or all of them can gain widespread global attention.

This spring, the most anticipated event within the Zhiyun Group is still the spring product launch... In addition to the traditional Zhiyun brand A series and SX/SXL series of mobile phones, a new generation of business laptops, tablets, and smartwatches will also be launched as usual.

For Zhiyun Group, the spring product launch event was originally a hodgepodge of smart terminal product launches!

However, in addition to these traditional smart terminal products, a new generation of virtual devices will also be released at this year's spring launch event. Furthermore, the mix of true and false information revealed by Zhiyun Group in advance has made many people aware that a "major" virtual device will be released at this year's spring launch event.

Starting at 260,000, this is a truly heavyweight product... Don't be fooled by its less-than-ideal performance, it's cheap!
The fact that they were able to reach a level of 260,000 virtual devices demonstrates the tremendous efforts that Zhiyun Group has made over the past year.

To reduce the price of a product that started at over 800,000 yuan a year ago to 260,000 yuan in just one year is extremely difficult, requiring various cost-reduction measures... It's actually even more difficult than simply developing a new generation of products with better performance.

For something like Zhuyun Group's Yun VW virtual equipment, if you just want to create a new product that's an upgrade, it's actually quite simple: just stack up the chips without thinking... The core hardware of Zhuyun Group's virtual equipment is all about computing power; everything else is secondary.

For example, the next generation of flagship virtual machines doesn't need many changes. Just replace the graphics card with an APO6000 and add a ZY48 chip, and that's it... Don't be fooled by the fact that it's just a chip replacement and seems like there's not much difference. In fact, this one thing alone can improve the overall performance of the Yun VW flagship model by at least two to three times!
Because it is expected to use a 5-nanometer process, coupled with 3D packaging technology, and adopt a new generation of GPU core architecture and a new generation of communication architecture, the APO6000 graphics card... has such powerful performance.

It can be used to perform different types of computing tasks, and its overall performance can be improved by several times, and even by seven or eight times for some specific tasks.

With just the APO6000 graphics card, even if all other hardware remains unchanged, the overall performance of the Yun VW flagship model can be increased by at least two or three times.

Moreover, the 5-nanometer process isn't limited to the APO6000 graphics card; there's also the new generation ZY48 chip, a dedicated big data processing chip that will see a significant performance boost.

The combination of these two factors is enough to bring a huge performance boost to the Yun VW flagship model!

Therefore, simply improving performance is not a big problem for Zhiyun Group at present, and can even be said to be a side effect... because the APO6000 graphics card was not originally developed for virtual devices. It was actually developed for the field of artificial intelligence training and operation.

It's only used for virtual devices; that's just a side benefit!

Significantly reducing the price of virtual devices and drastically lowering costs is an even more difficult task... Reducing costs while maintaining performance at a certain level presents a tremendous challenge for the engineers in the virtual device division.

Over the past year, the Virtual Equipment Division has been searching the world for various technical solutions and more suppliers in order to further reduce the procurement costs of various components.

And now, they have finally achieved it: a virtual device priced at 260,000.

After the press conference officially began, Xu Shenxue, unusually, personally took to the stage to host the conference.

At the press conference, he first introduced the A19 series phones, including the A19 standard version and the A19 Pro version. They adopted a new generation of in-display optical fingerprint technology, a glass back cover with wireless charging technology, and a waterdrop notch screen. The standard version features a dual-camera setup, while the Pro version has a triple-camera setup.

In terms of overall design, it is actually quite similar to other Android phones... This is also the core positioning of the A series phones: to target other flagship Android phones, especially the Samsung Galaxy series, and incidentally suppress the increasingly popular Vcool Little Blue Max series in recent years.

It sets a new standard for flagship products from other brands...

With the standard version costing over 4,000 yuan and the Pro version only costing a little over 5,000 yuan, the Zhiyun A series phones are right there, making it very difficult for other phone manufacturers... If they want to surpass the A series in price, consumers will ask: Why are you selling for more than the Zhiyun A series?

Is it better performing than the A series? Or does it have more cutting-edge technology? Or is its system optimization superior to Yun OS? Or is its ecosystem better than Yun Apps?

Or do you think your own brand has a stronger appeal than Zhiyun's?
Come on, tell me, in what aspect is your flagship phone better than the Zhiyun A series?

The ceiling for Zhiyun A-series phones is right here, making other phone manufacturers very uncomfortable... The price can't be raised, and if the price can't be raised, then the premium isn't high enough, and if the premium isn't high enough, then the gross profit margin isn't good, and at the same time, it's more difficult to stack up hardware.

You can't really be a spendthrift and use all the top-of-the-line components in a phone priced at over four thousand.

This is also one of the reasons why many mobile phone manufacturers, including Samsung, have had great difficulty in breaking into the high-end price range in recent years and have been stuck in the 4,000-plus price range... Zhuyun Group has put out a very disgusting Zhuyun A series phone!

So even though the sales of Zhiyun A-series phones aren't great, now only around ten million units per year, the Zhiyun Group still values ​​them highly... This is one of the competitive advantages of the Zhiyun S-series phones!

Another competitive advantage is the low-end version of the standard version of the Zhiyun S series phone, which is priced at just over five thousand yuan. This phone is not only an important volume seller in the Zhiyun S series, but also one of the competitive advantages of the Zhiyun S series!

The S-series phones, packed with cutting-edge technology, only cost 5,200 yuan for the newest model... If other phone manufacturers' flagship models are priced above 5,000 yuan, consumers will question them and say: "It's so expensive, I might as well buy a Zhiyun phone!"

This spring's A19 series phones continue to play a crucial role in protecting the Zhiyun S series phones... Their design and market positioning are all aimed at targeting the high-end models of other Android phone manufacturers!
In addition to the A19 model, Xu Shenxue also released the S19X and S19XL, two typical models for clearing inventory, at the press conference. Although these two phones look ordinary, they are very attractive to many users who want to use Zhiyun phones but are short of money or unwilling to spend too much money to buy a phone.

Because the entire S19X and S19XL series adopted 3D face recognition technology this year.

Even now, 3D facial recognition technology is still considered a core technology for high-end mobile phones, used in the Zhiyun S series, Apple series, and domestic Huawei flagship phones.

Previously, other Android manufacturers had also tried to use 3D face recognition technology, but none of them were very successful... On the one hand, the technology of the suppliers they found was not good enough... The patent wall of 3D face recognition technology is already very thick, and it is too difficult for other manufacturers to bypass it. They can only try to bypass it by taking some immature technical routes, but the final results are not very good.

On the other hand, their 3D facial recognition technology is expensive, and their brand and flagship prices cannot support such high costs, resulting in low sales. If sales are too low, the costs cannot be spread out, leading to extremely high average costs per unit.

Not everyone can be like Zhiyun, selling over 200 million smartphones a year, each costing several thousand yuan.

Many mobile phone manufacturers struggle to sell millions of their high-end models each year!

With such low sales volume, playing with expensive, cutting-edge technology would not only fail to generate profit, but would likely result in losses.

Meanwhile, as under-display optical fingerprint technology gradually matures, Wanjin Technology, a subsidiary of Zhiyun Group, and Qianding Technology, a third party, have successively launched mature under-display optical fingerprint technology to the market.

Therefore, many Android manufacturers simply abandoned the expensive and poorly implemented 3D face recognition technology and instead fully embraced under-display fingerprint recognition technology. Even Samsung has switched to this technology route.

The situation is different for Zhiyun Group. They have been working on 3D facial recognition technology for many years and have driven the development of three generations of 3D facial recognition technology. Moreover, due to their huge sales volume over the years, they have already reduced the high cost of 3D facial recognition technology in the early years to a very low level.

While advanced third-generation 3D face recognition is still relatively expensive, the cost of early first-generation 3D face recognition technology, while not exactly cheap, wasn't much more expensive than under-display photoelectric recognition modules.

After all, the S-series phones from Zhiyun Group equipped with 3D face recognition modules have been on sale since the S15 Max in 15, which is almost five years ago, and the total number of units shipped has exceeded one billion.

With such a massive production volume, the cost of 3D face technology has long been diluted to the extreme!

This is also a key reason why Zhiyun Group was able to adopt this technology in the S19X and S19XL models, which were being cleared out of inventory: they were cheap!
This gives the new generation of SX/SXL models a good competitive advantage in the market: you can buy a smart phone with 3D face recognition for just over three thousand!
Although it's not great in other aspects, it does have 3D facial recognition!
In other aspects, the SOC chip used is the old S803, which was launched in 17 and used in the S17 phone... If it weren't for the S19X/S19XL phones, Zhiyun Group would have already stopped producing this chip.

The memory specifications also seem quite good on the surface. The S19X comes with 6GB of RAM, while the larger-screen version, the S19XL, comes with 8GB of RAM.

但是别看内存容量大，实际上采用的是10A工艺的LPDDR4内存……这种内存都是智云储存在16年推出的产品了，当年最早是用在S16系列手机上，智云储存还有更先进的10B工艺以及10C工艺内存。

In other words, this memory is already two generations behind the advanced manufacturing process.

Of course, because of its low price, this type of memory is still the mainstream memory in a large number of smart terminals. It is used in Zhiyun's new cloud brand and a large number of mid-to-low-end mobile phones from Weiku Electronics.

Therefore, when buying a mobile phone, don't just look at the memory size, but also at the specific model of the memory and what manufacturing process it uses... For the same 8GB capacity memory, the performance difference between 8GB memory with 10A process and 8GB memory with the most advanced 10C process is huge... and the cost is also huge.

The same situation exists with flash memory chips. The surface data also shows a starting capacity of 64GB, with the highest capacity version reaching 512GB... However, they all use the fifth-generation 3D NAND chips from Zhiyun Storage, which have 108 stacked layers. This is a very mature flash memory chip product that Zhiyun Storage is currently shipping in large quantities.

This product is also an old product from 2017. Above it are the sixth generation product with 138 layers and the seventh generation product with 156 layers... As for the more advanced eighth generation flash memory chip, it also exists, with the number of layers stacked up to 200. However, this eighth generation flash memory chip is extremely expensive and is not currently being shipped in large quantities for the consumer market. It is mainly used in the high-end enterprise-level flash memory market.

The SX and SXL series phones were originally designed to clear out inventory, and have always used mature components. The three main chips are all mature, older products, with low cost and ample production capacity... the same goes for the batteries and screens.

This year's S19X and S19XL are no exception!

This can be seen from the fact that the S19X/S19XL phones continue to use a small notch screen instead of the Smart Capsule screen that Zhiyun Group has been using for two or three years... On the one hand, it is to differentiate the appearance from the flagship series, and on the other hand, it is because the first-generation 3D face recognition technology used on it does not support the Smart Capsule mode... The first-generation 3D face recognition module is too big to fit into the Smart Capsule mode!
To put it bluntly, Zhiyun Group is simply taking the discontinued S16 series phones out of the box, changing their name, and putting the SOC chip from the S17 phones back on the market... Zhiyun Group has been using this old trick for years, and not only industry insiders but even consumers know about it.

Many consumers even regard the SX and SXL series as older refurbished models from Zhiyun Group... Although their performance is outdated, they are still Zhiyun phones and carry the lineage of the S series, so they still have no shortage of consumers in the market.

The only problem is that it will cause the prices of older S-series phones to drop in the secondhand market, and their resale value will not be very good... but Zhiyun Group doesn't care.

If the retention rate of models within the last two or three years, especially flagship models, remains at a relatively high level, it will be enough to dispel the concerns of many users who want to buy a new flagship phone.

A significant number of Zhiyun S series users change their phones every one or two years. They sell their old phones after a year or two to recoup some of the money and then use the proceeds to buy a new phone.

Of course, relatively few users actually consider selling their used phones to trade in for new ones... Most people won't actually sell their old Smart Cloud phones.

Some users actually use their phones for several years, and only consider getting a new phone when the phone is really worn out, such as when it is dropped and broken and they don't want to repair it, or when the storage capacity is not enough, or when they want to play new games and find that the old phone is a bit laggy. They either throw away the broken old phone directly or use it as a backup phone.

Some users buy a new phone every year and give the old one to their spouse, parents, or children. Of course, there are also those who buy a new phone for their children and then use the old one that their children used.

There are all kinds of people.

The so-called resale value is generally only of concern to so-called electronics enthusiasts, users who want to use the latest models but are short of money, and secondhand dealers... The vast majority of mobile phone users don't actually care about these things.

In reality, most of the so-called "Zhiyun second-hand phones" on the market are not actually intact second-hand phones sold by individuals to recoup losses.

A significant portion of secondhand phones are those that users have worn out, for example, with cracked screens. Not wanting to spend a lot of money on repairs, they sometimes choose to sell them to recyclers. The recyclers then replace the screen with a generic one and sell it as a supposedly 90% new secondhand phone…

A significant portion of these phones are obtained through illegal channels. For example, after a thief steals a phone, it ends up in the hands of vendors on the black market. Some of these vendors use hacking techniques, such as deception and hotlinking, to try and steal the owner's ID password.

If you can't crack it, then you can just flash the firmware, but this will cause 3D face recognition to fail.

Some even dismantle the machines and sell the parts... Other vendors use these parts to assemble new so-called second-hand machines!

Basically, there are phones on the market that supposedly have 3D facial recognition, but they don't actually have the 3D facial recognition function... They're basically all obtained through these illegal channels.

In response to this situation, Zhiyun Group has been continuously encrypting many components of the S series phones... The first one was the 3D face recognition module, which becomes unusable if the phone is illegally and forcibly flashed.

Later, encryption was added to the screen and battery, but for now it only prompts for illegal third-party batteries and screens, without affecting actual use.

Now, Zhiyun Group is considering a drastic measure: deep encryption. Without the ID password, forcibly and illegally flashing the phone will render it unusable unless the ID password is entered and the phone is reconnected to the internet to unlock it!

Of course, if criminals simply disassemble the phone and sell the parts, there's not much that can be done, as many components cannot be encrypted.

In short, the goal is to curb the illegal secondhand mobile phone market!

The reason Zhuyun Group did this was not to do charity, but to prevent a large number of illegally sourced second-hand mobile phones from impacting the new mobile phone market!

Zhiyun Group is also hoping that the sales of the SX/SXL series phones will continue to rise.

In addition to the two series of mobile phones, the spring launch event also unveiled the new Yun Book computer, tablet, and smartwatch. However, the event was not hosted by Xu Shenxue himself, but by Ji Chenghe.

There's not much to say about these three smart terminal devices; they're all routine upgrades, and even their appearance hasn't changed much.

When Xu Shenxue returned to the stage, he began to introduce the new generation of virtual equipment.

The flagship version doesn't have many major changes; it's just some upgrades to the regular hardware and slight changes in appearance. Overall, the differences are minimal, still consisting of four APO5000 graphics cards and a ZY38 chip.

It's called a new generation model, but it's just a rehash of the same old thing. There's no change in performance, only the price has been slightly reduced... However, considering that the previous two virtual machines were also frequently on sale with discounts, and that Zhiyun's official website had a limited-time discount in China during Double Twelve, the flagship version with the robotic arm was only 3.5 million.

Today, the top-of-the-line flagship Yun VW S3, equipped with a robotic arm, four APO5000 graphics cards, and four ZY38 chips sharing computing power, is priced at only 3.45 million. In reality, the price reduction isn't that significant; it's just a gradual decrease in the usual price range.

The real changes are in the versions priced under one million... because they use new graphics cards!
The new deluxe version of the Yun VW X3, featuring four APO4600S/80GB graphics cards, a computing power combination of four ZY34 chips, and a top-of-the-line robotic arm, is priced at only 1.53 million!
The newly launched high-end version, Yun VW N3, comes with a standard-performance robotic arm and uses a combination of two APO4600S/80GB graphics cards and two ZY34 chips for computing power, all for a price of only 820,000!
The newly launched standard version of Yun VW M2 uses a combination of three APO4500M/64GB cards and two ZY34 chips for computing power, along with a low-end robotic arm seating system, and is priced at only 450,000.

The above are just changes in computing power combinations; in fact, the overall performance changes are not significant, and the impact on the market is also minimal.

The one that really had a big impact was the youth version, namely the Yun VW 20 L1, which was rumored to be the "beggar's version"...

It comes equipped with two APO4500M/64GB graphics cards and two ZY34 chips. It does not include a robotic arm seating system as standard, but only a woven soft seating system. All other hardware components have been significantly downgraded, resulting in a final price of 260,000!

Two hundred and sixty thousand virtual devices – this is the biggest surprise that Zhiyun Group has given to consumers and the entire virtual industry at today's spring launch event.

No matter how severely its performance has been downgraded, no matter that it doesn't even have a robotic arm seating system... it only costs 260,000!

This price alone guarantees huge sales, which in turn will drive rapid growth in the overall stock of virtual devices!
Therefore, the happiest people upon seeing this 260,000 yuan youth version virtual device are not even the virtual device supply chain manufacturers within the Zhiyun Group or ordinary individual consumers, but rather a large number of internet companies in the virtual content industry!

What has the biggest impact on the current virtual content market? The existing stock of virtual devices!

The difference in market size between one million virtual devices and ten million virtual devices is enormous!

At the Magic Light Technology company in Shanghai, a large group of employees who had gathered to watch the press conference cheered when they saw the final price of 260,000 yuan for the youth version of the virtual device… This meant that a large number of virtual users would enter the virtual world in the future, which would be a huge boon to their company's core product, the virtual game Magic Light Demon Blade!

Meanwhile, in a villa in a neighboring city, a middle-aged man watched the press conference and finally made up his mind. He said to the old man beside him, "Dad, I've decided. I want to expand the investment in the virtual experience center, go beyond our home city, and enter Shanghai and the surrounding markets. We'll focus on the Yangtze River Delta region as our core business area and then radiate outwards to the entire Yangtze River Delta region!"

"I have made ample preparations in the past six months. Talent development in the company has been gradually established. I have accumulated more than 100 technical talents who know how to maintain virtual equipment. The business model of the virtual experience center has also been successfully implemented. In the past six months, the earliest virtual experience center has been extremely popular, with a stable occupancy rate of 100% during the day. Even including the early morning hours, the occupancy rate has reached 90%."

"The investment in this virtual experience center has already recouped most of its costs, and we expect to break even within a year!"

"The business model has been successfully implemented, and the online and offline promotion has been well-established. Now that we have this youth version of the virtual device, the investment scale will be greatly reduced. Virtual devices are a hard currency, and virtual experience centers are a new market that is highly favored by capital and relatively easy to raise funds."

"My goal is to open fifty chain stores, and then, depending on the market and financial situation, strive to expand to more than one hundred!"

The old man said, "Since you continue to be optimistic, then go for it. Investment opportunities that can recoup the investment cost in a year are rare these days. You should seize the opportunity!"
"But this is no longer a small-scale operation with just two or three virtual experience centers. It involves a massive investment in hundreds of experience centers. Company management and operation, as well as the most important aspect of store selection, cannot be ignored and must be approached with utmost care!"

"In terms of funds, you don't have enough. Your family can also provide some support, but not much. If you sell some fixed assets and stocks, I can probably raise about 300 million yuan for you within six months."

"If things go well..." The old man paused for a moment before continuing:
"I will pledge the shares of my family company, which will allow me to prepare another two billion yuan for you!"

"My son and I will take this gamble!"

Xu Shenxue was unaware that his release of the youth version of the virtual device had caused some ripples in the outside world, though these ripples were, of course, expected.

Why go to all the trouble of creating a basic version of virtual equipment? It's all about lowering the cost for people to buy virtual equipment, reducing the barrier for investors to enter the virtual experience center, ultimately expanding the stock of virtual equipment, and truly igniting the entire virtual industry chain.

So all of this was expected!

As soon as the press conference ended, a large number of news reports about the conference appeared online. Various news media, including a large number of self-media, and even ordinary people reported on the various products presented at the conference.

The Yun VW L1, a youth-oriented virtual reality device, is the focus of many news reports!
Some news media even used the phrase "Zhiyun Group/Xu Shenxue completely ignited the virtual industry" to describe the important role of this budget-friendly virtual device!
The series of virtual devices released last year can only be said to have initially opened up the virtual industry market!
Then this Yun VW L1 virtual appliance completely ignited the market!

The resulting market impact will be enormous...

And that's exactly what happened. At midnight after the press conference, Zhiyun's virtual devices were listed on the official website, opening a deposit pre-order channel for the three core markets of China, Japan, South Korea, and Europe!

Within just one hour, the number of pre-orders for the new generation of virtual devices exceeded 500,000!

It has brought a huge shock to industry professionals, investors, and netizens around the world!
This isn't a phone that costs a few thousand yuan, nor is it a car that, while expensive, is actually a necessity for families. It's a virtual device that starts at 260,000 yuan... It's just an expensive toy!

Even if we take the cheapest model, priced at 260,000, as an example, that would still be 130 billion. In reality, it would be far more than that, because the Yun VW M2 series, which costs more than 400,000 tons, accounts for a significant portion of the sales.

External estimates suggest that, in total, Zhuyun Group secured over 150 billion yuan in pre-orders within just one hour!
(End of this chapter)