Rebirth 08: Rise from copycat phones

Chapter 583 VR Virtual Devices from Various Companies Have Arrived
Moreover, the "Little Blue" brand under Vcool Electronics is quite well-known... Its Little Blue MAX is one of the few high-end mobile phone models on the market, mainly targeting the price range of three to four thousand yuan, and its shipment volume can reach thirty million units.

Globally, it's a well-known high-end mobile phone series. In terms of sales of high-end mobile phones, it is second only to the Zhiyun S series, Apple, and Samsung Galaxy series!
This means that the Bluey brand has a large number of fans, and some of these fans are financially well-off.

Furthermore, Vcool Electronics has always been willing to spend money on advertising.

Considering various factors, many people in the automotive industry believe that it is impossible for the 2020 Blue Car to achieve a sales explosion... but there is a good chance of a modest success.

Of course, the specific outcome will depend on the market's feedback!
After the press conference, Vcool Electronics followed the example of Hailan Auto and started online pre-orders... at 1 a.m. that night.

Vcool Electronics Group issued a public announcement stating that it has received orders for 35,000 Bluegogo 2020 vehicles... However, it is difficult to say whether the order number is true or not, as the order page does not directly publish the data.

Unlike Hailan Auto, which directly displays the order sequence number on the order page, allowing users to know the order quantity based on this order number.

However, the 35,000 orders for the Bluegogo 2020 in just one hour still caused a huge sensation!

If it were Hailan Auto with over 30,000 orders within an hour of the launch event, it would definitely be a failure, and the stock price would plummet.

In May, Hailan Auto held its annual new car launch event, and the number of orders exceeded 500,000 in one day. The new model, Hailan HEV, received 150,000 orders... And these are real figures, all of which are non-refundable deposits paid by users, without any exaggeration.

However, Hailan Auto is Hailan Auto, and Weiku Electronics' Xiaolan Auto is Xiaolan Auto; there are huge differences between the two.

For a mobile phone company that has entered the smart electric vehicle industry from another sector, receiving 35,000 orders in just one hour of launching its first model is already a huge success.

This drains the loyal fan base of the Bluey brand, coupled with huge advertising and marketing expenditures, and the strong backing of the Weiku Electronics Group!

There's even Xu Shenxue involved.

Although Xu Shenxue did not publicly endorse Xiaolan 2020, he still attended the press conference, and Weiku Electronics is one of his main companies.

All these factors combined led to the Bluegogo 2020 receiving 35,000 orders in the first hour after its launch... Despite the doubts about its authenticity, major media outlets didn't care and started reporting on it one by one.

In addition, the aggressive online marketing campaign launched by Vcool Electronics Group caused news about the Bluegogo 2020 car to quickly top the lists on major news platforms.

As a result, throughout the daytime of the following day, many people received information about this car from various channels!

Many people were surprised to see that Xiao Lan was now making cars, and they seemed to be selling them quite well, having sold 35,000 units in just one hour. That seemed pretty impressive.

Then people will click in to take a look, pay attention to a few things, and discuss it with their friends.

This is just the beginning. Although Bluegogo 2020 has just been released, the executives at Vcool Electronics are very clear about the principle of striking while the iron is hot. They play this game in the mobile phone industry and know a lot about various marketing tricks.

Five days after its release, the first Blue 2020 was delivered... Vcool Electronics had already started small-batch production of this car a month ago, and had already stocked thousands of vehicles. In addition to using some of them for display and test drive in various offline flagship stores, the first batch of 500 cars were also delivered!
Of course, what ordinary people don't know is that a significant portion of the first batch of Bluegogo 2020 car owners were various self-media bloggers... who had arranged it in advance.

After the cars were delivered, all sorts of fans, car owners, and self-media bloggers started posting various videos.

For a time, the popularity of Xiaolan 2020 not only did not decrease but increased, and it continued to dominate the rankings on various social media platforms.

There are tons of test drive videos and owner review videos.

The continued popularity, coupled with the ongoing investment in advertising and marketing funds, and the fact that this car is really good-looking... it's like the Aqua SEC7 gave birth to an illegitimate child!
The Ocean Blue SEC7 starts at several hundred thousand yuan, which is unaffordable. Moreover, to be honest, a two-door sports car is not very practical and is not suitable as a family sedan.

However, the Bluegogo 2020 starts at 200,000 yuan after subsidies, and has a range of 700 kilometers, making it very cost-effective... Its appearance is also young and stylish, with a futuristic feel and a sporty style, which attracts the purchasing desire of many young people from middle-class families.

I can't afford the Aquamarine SEC7, but I can definitely afford the Little Blue 2020!
Due to various factors, the number of orders for Bluegogo 2020 continued to rise, and soon exceeded 100,000 orders!
Soon after, Vcool Electronics Group officially announced that the number of orders for the Bluegogo 2020 had exceeded 100,000 units!
This news has sparked much discussion and attracted significant attention from the automotive industry and other companies also preparing to enter the field of intelligent electric vehicles.

They would think that companies like Vcool Electronics, which don't have much core technology, can still assemble a smart electric vehicle by simply adopting existing technologies, and it sells very well.

Why can't we?
We can do it too!
On the rice side, Lei Jun convened a meeting with senior executives and core R&D personnel from his automotive business team to repeatedly study and discuss the Bluegogo 2020.

In the end, they abandoned many of the original design plans for the car's exterior and decided to go for the "illegitimate child" route of Bluegogo 2020... This route has been proven feasible by the market, so there's no reason for them not to do it.

Anyway, DaMi has always regarded Vcool Electronics as its main competitor. If Vcool Electronics can do this, then so can they!

Then, Huawei is also accelerating the development of the intelligent electric vehicle field.

Many other companies in other industries are also accelerating their expansion into the electric vehicle industry. Of course, most of them are just participating through PowerPoint presentations. Most of these companies will ultimately fail, and some may not even be able to obtain the necessary manufacturing qualifications.

The companies that have truly reacted strongly and are currently taking proactive measures are the existing traditional automakers in China and a small number of emerging automakers with mass-produced vehicles.

They are all making various plans, the most important of which is to reduce the prices of some existing models in order to cope with the impact.

On the other hand, Hailan Auto is relatively calm... Hailan Auto's core brand, Hailan, takes the route of high-end luxury intelligent electric vehicles, and has core technological advantages in autonomous driving and solid-state batteries. They are the ones who have always been the ones threatening others, and it is difficult for any car company to threaten them.

For Hailan Auto, the biggest problem now is not the threat from other automakers, but its own insufficient solid-state battery production capacity and insufficient vehicle production capacity... Hailan Auto is currently experiencing a supply shortage.

Ella, a sub-brand that targets the mid-to-low-end market, was affected to some extent, but only to a certain extent.

The sub-brand Ella is also backed by the Hailan Auto Group. Many consumers buy Ella cars because they are attracted by the strong strength of its parent company, Hailan Auto. Many Ella car users have the mentality: I can't afford a Hailan car, so I'll get a low-end version of Hailan: Ella!

The domestic smart electric vehicle market has been stirred up by the release of the Bluegogo 2020 by Vcool Electronics.

At the same time, new changes have emerged in the virtual device market!

In early October, Apple officially released its first virtual reality device, a VR headset that combines VR glasses, a computing power unit, and keyboard/mouse/joystick controls. The device is priced from approximately RMB 120,000 and uses an APO4500M/24GB graphics card that they specially customized from Zhiyun Semiconductor.

Zhiyun Group did not previously publicly sell the APO4500M 24GB version graphics card, but it could be made for major clients like Apple when they requested a custom order.

While this device lacks the omnidirectional treadmill feature, making it difficult to achieve a truly immersive experience, the visual effects are still quite good. About a week later, Fourstar also released their VR virtual reality device, featuring the same VR display and keyboard/mouse/joystick controls.

Seeing that their foreign counterparts had already developed their own VR virtual devices, Vcool Electronics' Virtual Devices Division also hurriedly released its own similar VR virtual devices.

The VR virtual reality devices made by Vcool Electronics are relatively cheaper, with a domestic price of only 89,000 RMB... This is mainly because they use a lower-end APO4500M/16GB graphics card, resulting in lower costs and a lower selling price.

In just half a month, three of the top four smart terminal manufacturers have successively released their VR virtual reality devices!

Only Zhiyun Group remained unmoved...

Why?

On the one hand, Zhiyun Group itself is already developing virtual equipment such as omnidirectional treadmills, which are high-end virtual equipment with high prices and high profits.

In addition, there is another crucial factor: all the core components of the VR virtual reality devices released by the above three manufacturers are supplied by Zhiyun Group!
For example, the core APO computing power card and X5 graphics card!

The fifth-generation Micro OLED screen in the VR glasses provided is also a product of Huaxing Technology, which is controlled by Zhiyun Group!
These three core components alone are enough to take away the vast majority of the profits of these VR virtual reality equipment manufacturers!
Therefore, Zhiyun Group told some companies in the industry a long time ago that it would not make VR virtual reality devices itself.

Anyway, you can take most of the profits without doing it yourself, and you can also expand the market size... How can the market size be as big as selling by a bunch of companies together!

Furthermore, if Zhiyun Group were to manufacture VR virtual reality devices itself, acting as both referee and player, it would make other companies very uneasy.

Therefore, Zhiyun Group simply promised that it would not do the work itself, but would only act as a core component supplier, so you can do it with confidence!
Not only do they not make VR devices themselves, but Zhiyun Group also encourages other companies to develop VR virtual reality devices, providing various forms of cooperation and technical support, and even offering necessary patent licenses to various manufacturers.

Of course... the prerequisite is that you have to use my APO graphics card.

As long as you use an APO graphics card, it comes bundled with many patent licenses required for VR virtual devices... Of course, appropriate patent fees will still be charged.

Zhiyun Group is not only a virtual equipment manufacturer, but also an extremely large and technologically advanced semiconductor manufacturer!
Selling APO is much more profitable than struggling to make low-end VR virtual reality devices with little profit!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Besides the three major smart terminal manufacturers, if nothing unexpected happens, more manufacturers will release their VR virtual reality devices in the coming months!

Domestic companies like Huawei, Xiaomi, and even OV are all developing VR virtual reality devices, while overseas companies like Google, Facebook, and even Microsoft are also involved.

After all, core components such as the APO4500M computing power graphics card from Zhiyun Group, the X5 gaming graphics card, the server CPU from Weizhi Technology, and the fifth-generation Micro OLED screen from Huaxing Technology are all available for purchase.

Then the more difficult part is building the virtual world... But there is a complete virtual world development kit provided by Zhiyun Group. As long as you are willing to invest money and bring in a bunch of top technical talents, you can also create it with a little effort.

Simply put, Zhiyun Group has essentially fed the food to various manufacturers... They only need to open their mouths to eat, greatly reducing the technical difficulty for major manufacturers to develop VR virtual reality devices.

Of course... the low technical difficulty mentioned here refers to large high-tech manufacturers, such as companies like Apple, Samsung, Google, Vico Electronics, and Huawei.

For ordinary small and medium-sized technology enterprises, it is much more difficult, especially in terms of R&D funding.

These days, people who work on virtual devices and virtual world construction are very expensive, with extremely high premiums.

Entry-level staff routinely earn millions in annual salary, while top-tier core technical talent can easily command tens of millions... The premium on their salaries is quite outrageous...

Fruit, Sixing, and Weiku Electronics, these three large companies, started working on it last year and it took them more than a year to complete. If it were other companies, it would have taken even longer.

However, it wasn't long before Huawei quickly released its VR virtual reality device, bringing the global VR virtual reality device market to four manufacturers.

The rapid release of VR virtual reality devices by the four major manufacturers in such a short period has sparked a huge discussion throughout the technology industry…

First and foremost, various internet companies, especially gaming companies, are naturally overjoyed and eagerly welcome this... They are content creators, and the more virtual devices there are, the better, as it means their user base will also grow.

Although the VR virtual reality devices developed by Fruity, Vcool Electronics, and Sixing are still very limited, they cannot be like Yun VW from Zhiyun Group, which allows for direct human movement and an immersive experience.

But having a VR experience for an immersive experience is good too.

Having some experience is better than nothing!
Regardless, the explosion of VR virtual devices can significantly drive the development of the entire virtual industry, a point that everyone agrees on.

While the internet industry is booming, other related industries have also been affected.

Especially the companies within the supply chain... I'm not referring to Zhiyun Group, but to other supply chain companies.

VR virtual reality devices are also industrial products. In addition to the core components provided by Zhiyun Group, they also require a large number of various other components and final assembly.

This is also a huge industry chain.

And this massive industrial chain is still in China... Suppliers of various parts and components are in China, and assembly plants are also in China.

Compared to the mobile phone industry chain, China has a stronger and more monopolistic control over the virtual device industry chain... because this is originally a supply chain dominated by the Zhiyun Group, and there is no corresponding supply chain abroad!

Therefore, while there was much discussion outside, manufacturers of virtual equipment supply chains in many cities across China were working overtime to produce various spare parts and were continuously purchasing more equipment and recruiting more workers to expand their production capacity.

Meanwhile, several large companies in the downstream electronics manufacturing sector, such as Vcool Industrial, BYD, and Luxshare, have also received a huge number of manufacturing orders... which in turn means a large number of jobs.

The development of the entire virtual industry, and even its current explosive growth, has brought more than just the rise in the stock prices of a few high-tech companies and the addition of virtual games as a form of entertainment for people... More importantly, it has spawned a completely new industrial chain, and one that is extremely large in scale, has extremely high output value, and employs a huge number of people!

Some even believe that, given time, the virtual device industry chain will grow to the scale of the mobile phone industry chain, becoming one of the main industry chains of the new consumer electronics industry.

(End of this chapter)