Rebirth Tokyo 1986

Chapter 461 Nokia's New Plans
After making a small change to the fate of Japan's scientific research field, Masato Takeshita's work situation returned to normal.

He first convened a meeting with Skarin, Hiroaki Kobayashi, and others to discuss the future direction of the major subsidiaries and the target companies to be acquired.

Afterwards, they went to various subsidiaries to discuss more detailed matters.

"Scarizan, how's the MP3 player project coming along?"

"What are the specifications for size, memory, and battery life?"

Masato Takeshita's first stop was naturally Xinghai Technology.

Because the development of MP3 players is relatively urgent, it needs to be completed and brought to market as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, Sehan had already showcased its MP3 player at an electronics show in March of this year and plans to launch it in Europe and America this summer.

Xinghai Technology has fallen behind and must catch up as much as possible.

When asked by his own chairman, Scarin decisively let Hideyuki Hasegawa, the president of Seikai Electronics who was in charge of MP3 player development, answer.

He's recently become obsessed with handheld computer projects, but doesn't know much about them.

"President, the MP3 player we designed has 32MB of memory and can store more than a dozen songs."

"The battery pack consists of two cells, providing up to 30 hours of playback time."

Compared to South Korea's Sehan Corporation and the American company Diamond, which truly made MP3 players famous worldwide, Xinghai Group has a significant leading advantage in the field of research and development.

Therefore, in terms of battery life, Xinghai Group's MP3 players are significantly superior.

Of course, this is also related to Xinghai Electronics' two AA battery routes, which are twice the number of those of companies like Dimeng.

"Hmm, that sounds great. Do you have a prototype?"

"Yes, there is. This is the prototype we designed."

Hideyuki Hasegawa immediately pulled out a very small, square electronic device that could be easily held in one hand.

Since MP3 players are mainly innovative based on inspiration, and there are only about ten parts inside, the research and development is not difficult for Xinghai Electronics.

"It's alright, but I think you guys are still a bit conservative."

“We can easily increase the size of this thing by two-thirds. Go straight for 256MB, or even 1GB of flash memory chips.”

"32MB or even 64MB of memory space is too small and cannot meet everyone's music listening needs at all."

The world's first MP3 player launched by the former Sehan company only had 32MB of memory and could only support the download of 6 songs, which was far from enough to meet people's listening needs.

Later, Diamond Entertainment expanded the memory on this basis, allowing the MP3 player to store more than a dozen songs at the same time.

Simply doubling the capacity made Diamond's products quickly famous and made them synonymous with MP3 in the United States.

Most Americans even believed that Diamond Corp. had developed the world's first MP3 music player.

Apple's later rise to prominence in the MP3 market was also related to its massive storage capacity.

Compared to the pitiful memory of Sehan and Dimeng, Apple directly offers an MP3 player with 5GB of storage that can download thousands of songs.

It turns out that the effect is very good.

Although the initial version only supported downloading songs on Apple's own operating system and not on Windows.

But Apple's MP3 player still sells hundreds of thousands of units.

As for the design, Apple's iPod wasn't actually as amazing as everyone made it out to be.

Features like the scroll wheel are basically unnecessary. They're purely for differentiating Apple from other companies' MP3 players and increasing brand recognition among Apple fans.

Of course, after Jobs took office, the aesthetics of Apple products improved significantly.

The classic off-white design definitely looks more stylish than those from companies like Diamond.

"Also, the product design is not good."

Masato Takeshita looked at the dark, unremarkable MP3 player in front of him and couldn't help but shake his head repeatedly.

Xinghai Electronics needs to further improve its industrial aesthetics, at least to the level of Apple.

Whether the product is good or not is another matter, but it looks very high-end, stylish and beautiful.

“We can easily expand the product to the size of a cigarette pack, and then design the product color to be milky white.”

Compared to the deep and understated nature of black, white products are much more eye-catching, making them perfect for the initial product promotion phase.

As for black, and even silver, blue, etc., it's not too late to promote them after our own products have established their brand.

"Milk-white, I understand."

Hideyuki Hasegawa immediately understood what his chairman meant when he thought of the color scheme of a classic phone the company had released.

"Yes, this is the MP3 player I redesigned. I hope the lab can make modifications according to this requirement."

Masato Takeshita quickly drew the product he had already conceived, referencing the Apple MP3 player from his previous life, onto paper, so that everyone could clearly see what the product he wanted to look like.

If he only talks about it and doesn't draw, there will probably be more twists and turns.

Besides design and memory, he also wanted to change the MP3's charging mode so that the product could use rechargeable batteries like a mobile phone.

But considering that the company had not yet launched an MP3 music phone, the young man decisively abandoned the idea.

The timing would be more appropriate to launch a new MP3 player after their own MP3 music phone has been released.

On the one hand, new innovations can be used to consolidate brand value; on the other hand, there are cost considerations.

Currently, both flash memory chips and rechargeable batteries are extremely expensive. If all of them were to be developed, the retail prices for end-users would skyrocket.

If we wait a few more years, the prices of both flash memory chips and rechargeable batteries will come down, and it will be perfectly feasible to start the project then.

"Yes, Chairman. But 256MB memory chips are very expensive. Could we also launch a 128MB model at the same time to give users more choices?"

Hideyuki Hasegawa felt that his chairman was too radical and wanted to produce a lower-spec version.

“可以，只要能在9月份之前完成研发任务，你就算推出64MB、512MB、1GB……大小的MP3都没问题。”

Except for the 32MB version, which has a very small capacity, it works fine for MP3 players of other capacities.

Because MP3 music players of various capacities will each have a certain market share.

"Yes, Chairman, I understand."

Hideyuki Hasegawa nodded solemnly and decided to develop his company's MP3 player business by releasing the Starry Sea mobile phone.

We need to conduct research and development and produce products at all price points.

After discussing the main task of MP3 playback, he brought up the topic of adding MP3 functionality to mobile phones again.

"I hope that our MP3 phone can be available to everyone next summer."

"And this feature will be added to all future mobile phones manufactured by the company."

Hearing their chairman's serious and earnest voice, Scully and Hideyuki Hasegawa understood that this was not a request for their opinions, but an order.

Therefore, the two of them quickly and respectfully responded.
"Yes, President!"

Besides the MP3 function, Masato Takeshita also wanted to work with color screens on mobile phones.

Will our color screen phones be available on the market this year?

Despite Masato Takeshita's advice, the title of the world's first color screen mobile phone was won by Siemens.

That's alright, though. Siemens' color screen phones are still in the experimental stage and can only be sold in small quantities. Xinghai Electronics' goal is to distribute their products worldwide.

"No, there are still many technical challenges."

Hideyuki Hasegawa shook his head helplessly. There were too many problems with color screens, and they required a lot of innovation and improvement.

It's estimated that there might be only a slight chance of it happening by the middle of next year.

"Hmm, no need to rush, take your time."

Color screens are a type of technological innovation that requires research strength, but also a bit of luck; there's no use rushing it.

Unlike MP3 music players, which are more about application innovation, he needs to be pushed to speed up the research and development process.

"Yes, I understand."

Besides a color screen, mobile internet access is also something Masato Takeshita wants to know.

When will our mobile phones have internet access?

"We expect to launch our first mobile phone that can access the internet and send emails by the end of this year."

"From now on, everyone can send and receive emails anytime, anywhere."

The development of the internet access function for Xinghai mobile phones is progressing very smoothly, and it has now entered the contact and debugging stage with NTT.

If all goes well, it will be available to everyone soon in the second half of this year.

"Very good, remember to control costs."

"Yes, please rest assured, Chairman, we will only use it for high-end brands in the early stages."

"OK, that's good."

When it comes to mobile phones, Masato Takeshita always has endless inspiration. The three of them chatted from afternoon until evening before reluctantly ending their meeting.

"From then on, Xinghai Technology developed in this direction, consolidating our dominant position in the mobile phone industry."

With the guidance of Masato Takeshita, a visionary, Xinghai Electronics finally surpassed Motorola, the previous leader, after the advent of the 2G era for mobile phones.

After that, although Nokia's sales soared thanks to the large European market, it was still firmly suppressed by Xinghai Electronics.

However, Nokia's rise also brought Xinghai Group a happy problem—monopoly.

Yes, it's a monopoly.

Xinghai Electronics and Nokia together have a combined market share of over 50% in the mobile phone market.

Even if Xinghai Group could find an excuse to say that Nokia was outside of its system, it probably wouldn't have much effect in the face of such a clear shareholding structure.

There's nothing we can do about it, ever since Nokia was acquired by the Starsea Group.

Although the young man opened the door to financing from the Finnish government and European capital several times in an effort to maintain Nokia's position in the European market, the Starsea Group still owns 55% of Nokia's shares to this day.

These shares are rapidly becoming the death knell for both companies.

Thinking of this, Takeshita Masato silently recited it in his mind.

"It seems it's time to bring Nokia back to the market."

With Nokia relisted, Xinghai Group can retain its position as the largest shareholder, but it will lose control of Nokia.

Unlike now, even if all other shareholders object, Xinghai Group can force Nokia to comply with its orders.

At the same time, going public also allows Nokia to share its profits with various capital groups.

With shared interests, American capital such as Goldman Sachs, European capital such as Deutsche Bank, and Xinghai Group will no longer consider targeting Xinghai Group.

In this way, the crisis of monopoly will naturally disappear.

Of course, even so, Starsea Group still held too many shares in Nokia.

Masato Takeshita's ultimate goal is to reduce it to around 25%.

This approach maintains Xinghai Group's influence over Nokia while also reassuring various investors, making it the most suitable ratio.

Once he had the idea, Masato Takeshita immediately took action.

After having dinner at home, he dialed the phone with Jorma Ollila, the president of Nokia, who was in Finland.

“Jorma, I’m ready to relist Nokia.”

"Relisting, really?"

Upon hearing this, Ollila was initially startled, but then her heart immediately filled with ecstasy.

If Nokia were to relist, wouldn't that mean I could finally regain control of Nokia?

"That's right. Where do you think it would be better to list first?"

The young man sensed the joy hidden in Ollila's voice, but he didn't say it aloud.

This is only human nature; who doesn't like the feeling of having great power?
Although the Star Sea Group has not interfered with Ollila's work since he took office, having a boss above him is always unsettling.

This is also a major reason why both Gerstner and Chambers ultimately chose to leave Starsea Group.

Xinghai Group is indeed a good company. There is not much backstabbing and intrigue within the company. Departments can discuss matters together and there will be no serious conflicts between them.

However, the Xinghai Group has always been Masato Takeshita's company, and the two of them could not wield absolute power within it.

Nokia was located on the periphery of the Starsea Group, giving Ollila greater freedom.

But no matter how high you go, it's not as high as having complete control over everything.

Although he was grateful to the Xinghai Group and thought that Masato Takeshita was a very visionary leader, these were secondary options compared to the allure of gaining the highest power at Nokia.

"Hmm, I think it might be better to launch in Europe first."

Nokia's headquarters are in Europe, and he prefers to make more deals with European capital.

As for Japan and the United States, they can list there later. After all, once the company is listed, it can continue to list on stock exchanges in other countries.

"Okay, how about launching it in Finland first?"

"I don't think it's necessary. Let's choose London and Frankfurt instead. Finland is too small and not suitable for us to list."

London, England, and Frankfurt, Germany, are two of Europe's most important financial cities.

London has a higher status in the financial sector, but Germany is the economic center of Europe, so both are very suitable.

"So you mean, a simultaneous listing in both locations?"

"Yes, given our current size, we can certainly do that."

At this point, Ollila's tone was filled with pride.

Under his leadership, Nokia transformed from a company on the verge of bankruptcy into a Fortune 500 company with a valuation of tens of billions of dollars.

If it goes public, it could even reach a market capitalization of $100 billion.

“Okay, you can make the decision. However, the company doesn’t have to be listed in the US, but the pre-IPO offering needs to be handled by a Wall Street investment bank.”

The United States currently wields too much influence in the world. If it were to lose Wall Street capital and prevent them from making money, it would definitely face severe consequences.

Nokia, which was aggressively expanding into the US market, simply could not accept this potential loss.

(End of this chapter)