Restart life

Chapter 553, 0541 [Hongmeng·Yaoguang]

Wang Dongsheng walked into the launch event for the new HarmonyOS phone. Perhaps because there were so many business celebrities present, he didn't attract much attention from reporters.

Wang Dongsheng was invited because ByteDance has become a minority shareholder of BOE.

Moreover, HarmonyOS secretly invested in and established a joint laboratory with BOE to jointly research cutting-edge flexible OLED screen technology.

Samsung showcased a prototype of flexible OLED screens last year, and this year they displayed an even more mature prototype. However, the yield rate is very low, and mass production is not yet possible.

BOE, currently focused on LCD screens (for TVs and computers), has long sought to enter the mobile phone screen market. After HarmonyOS extended a cooperation invitation, Wang Dongsheng was very excited, and the two sides quickly reached an agreement.

The joint laboratory established by BOE and HarmonyOS is still in its early stages, but the research and development speed is very fast.

In another timeline, low-end phones could be supplied two years later. Five years later, with technological upgrades, high-end flagship phones could be supplied!
With HarmonyOS Technology providing funding for joint research and development, the timeline is expected to be shortened even further.

Wang Dongsheng was led to a seat by a staff member, and his neighbor was a Japanese man.

The two chatted casually in English, and Wang Dongsheng discovered that he had unexpectedly met a colleague.

This Japanese man is the representative of "Japan Display Corporation".

Japan Display Inc. was just established earlier this year. While seemingly unknown, it was formed by the merger of the display panel businesses of Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sony!

The young man proudly said, "The HarmonyOS Yaoguang we are launching today uses our screen, making it the world's first phone with a 1080P resolution. Mr. Chen released it before HTC, just one week earlier, so the HTC Butterfly can only be the second one in the world."

"Mobile phone screens can now achieve 1080P resolution?" Wang Dongsheng was extremely surprised.

Xiao Rizi laughed and said, "Our screen can not only achieve high resolution and high PPI, but also reduce power consumption, making the phone's battery life longer."

While major mobile phone manufacturers have relatively fixed suppliers, HarmonyOS and HTC are frantically expanding their supply chains.

Japan Display Inc. has just been established, and even with Hitachi, Toshiba, and Sony as backers, most mobile phone manufacturers are still hesitant to try using their screens.

Currently, only HarmonyOS and HTC are willing to use it.

This guy flew to China specifically to attend the launch event for the new HarmonyOS phone, hoping to take the opportunity to promote his own products.

However, OPPO isn't the only company capable of producing 1080P screens; their new phone uses a Sharp screen with the same resolution. But Sharp screens were released later, so phones using this Sharp screen won't be available for at least another two months.

Wu Ying and Rong Xiuli arrived together, having spent a considerable amount of time outside, being pestered by some reporters for brief interviews.

Both of them have had a rough year.

Wu Ying's Xingyao mobile phone was initially positioned in the mid-range market, but it was forced to take the low-end route by various competitors.

Rong Xiuli's Tianyu mobile phones have always focused on the low-end market while aiming to penetrate the mid-range market.

However, Xiaomi, OPPO, VIVO, and the four major Chinese smartphone manufacturers (ZTE, Huawei, Coolpad, and Lenovo) were too aggressive, and foreign manufacturers such as Samsung also expanded into the low-end market. Caught between these internal and external pressures, Wu Ying and Rong Xiuli found themselves in a dilemma, and their phone sales continued to decline.

Rong Xiuli said, "I heard that the CPU chip of HarmonyOS Yaoguang is the same one used in Xiaomi's new phone?"

"Lei Jun is a madman. Doesn't he worry that Xiaomi phones will explode after a while?" Wu Ying couldn't help but complain.

This chip, commonly known as the "Snapdragon S4 Pro," is a quad-core processor with performance that even surpasses Apple's A6 chip.

However, the trade-off is extremely high power consumption, high electricity consumption, and huge heat generation.

Xiaomi's new phone uses the world's best-performing chip, yet it's priced at only 1999 yuan. You can imagine how hot it will get during use.

The HarmonyOS Yaoguang is priced at around 5000 yuan. To enhance the phone's heat dissipation capabilities, the material cost alone increased by more than 200 yuan. This does not even include the R&D costs of the heat dissipation solution.

But a specific user group is thrilled; they bought a Xiaomi phone for 1999 yuan, and its performance rivals that of high-end phones costing 5000 yuan. A little heat is perfectly acceptable!
What's unacceptable is that our competitors are losing more and more users to Xiaomi.

Not long after, Lei Jun arrived.

The CEOs of OPPO and VIVO also made appearances.

In the smartphone industry, Chen Laozu still wields considerable influence and has a strong network of connections. When he launches a new phone, a large number of competitors come to "support" him, which is extremely rare in the industry.

Zhou Hongwei also came, and took the initiative to ask Chen Guiliang for an invitation letter. He had already decided to develop his own 360 mobile phone.

This trip is purely to learn from others and experience the atmosphere of a mobile phone launch event.

After a long period of noise, the lights went out, and the press conference officially began.

A dazzling cloud of dust appeared on the large screen, rotating, colliding, and merging to form a nebula shape. The camera zoomed in to reveal the Big Dipper. The swirl at the end of the dipper's handle shimmered brightly.

Accompanied by the startup music, the words "HarmonyOS·Yaoguang" appeared on the screen.

A spotlight shone on Chen Guiliang, who smiled and said, "This is the boot screen exclusive to the HarmonyOS Seven Stars series. I think it's pretty good, and we'll officially start using it this year." After saying this, Chen Guiliang began to talk about other things: "As everyone knows, I somehow became the richest person in China on the Hurun Rich List. This so-called richest person title is largely due to the surge in ByteDance's stock price this year. Why did ByteDance's stock price rise? Products like Weibo and WeChat aren't the main reason; the real reason is the performance announced by the HarmonyOS phone..."

"Before the official launch of the phone, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce some news. HarmonyOS Technology has completed its capital restructuring and passed the IPO review. It will officially list in Hong Kong in three days..."

These words caused a commotion throughout the room.

In fact, some of the guests who attended already knew the news, but the official date had not been confirmed during the quiet period.

Now we can finally announce the news.

Chen Guiliang then talked about how HarmonyOS was founded and how the company grew step by step, and displayed the company's senior management and core members of the R&D team on the big screen.

He thanked the senior executives and R&D staff one by one, then thanked all the employees, and then told all sorts of inspirational stories.

Finally returning to today's new device, Chen Guiliang said, "The second model in the HarmonyOS Seven Stars series, why is it called Yaoguang? Yaoguang symbolizes dawn and rebirth, symbolizing the power of change. The launch of HarmonyOS Technology is a rebirth, and this chip in my hand is the revolution..."

Chen Guiliang held up a small transparent box and showed the camera the chip inside.

"This is our self-developed power chip. HarmonyOS has no foundation in chip manufacturing, so everything has to be built from scratch. At first, everyone was too optimistic, thinking that it could be made two years ago. Initially, we wanted to integrate it with HarmonyOS TianShu. Then we thought that it could be made last year and wanted to integrate it with HarmonyOS TianShu Pro. Unfortunately, but also very happily, this year we have finally achieved mass production and officially integrated it with TianShu YaoGuang..."

"Currently, mainstream mobile phone power chips have a peak conversion efficiency of 85%-90%, and their efficiency drops significantly at low power output, with electrical energy being dissipated as heat. We have adopted a more advanced process and topology to achieve a peak efficiency of around 90%-92%, and maintain an efficiency of 74%-76% at 10% low load..."

"what does that mean?"

"This means that, with other hardware and software conditions remaining unchanged, using our power chip will reduce power consumption by about 4% when using the phone under heavy load. It may not seem like much, but the phone will feel noticeably less prone to overheating."

"Under moderate load conditions, battery life can be improved by about 10%. Under standby or very light load conditions, battery life can be improved by more than 20%."

"We named this power chip 'Xirang', which means 'endless life and inexhaustible supply'."

"Currently, production capacity has not yet increased, and Xirang is only being supplied to HarmonyOS Technology for its own use. After expanding production capacity next year, priority will be given to supplying mobile phone manufacturers in the HarmonyOS camp..."

"Mr. Lei should really need this power chip, as it can help Xiaomi phones avoid overheating. Moreover, the cost increase is not significant."

The camera suddenly turned towards Lei Jun, zooming in on his face for a close-up shot.

Lei Jun grinned and waved at the camera.

He is very interested in this chip and is willing to purchase it in large quantities over a long period of time, as long as the yield rate is not too low.

In other words, all phone manufacturers using the Snapdragon S4 Pro chip are happy to equip their phones with HarmonyOS's Xirang power chip. This is because Qualcomm's Snapdragon chip generates excessive heat!

Qualcomm's China president was sitting below, a broad smile on his face. He welcomed the advent of the HarmonyOS power chip, as it could complement Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips.

Chen Guiliang held up the HarmonyOS Yaoguang chip: "The Xirang chip I just mentioned can solve some power consumption and heat dissipation issues. But for ordinary users, the first thing they do when they get a phone is look at the screen..."

"HarmonyOS Yaoguang utilizes the latest advancements from a Japanese display company, making it the world's first mobile phone to achieve a 1080P resolution screen. You can see the actual device's performance..."

Chen Guiliang's product launches are always packed with practical information, rarely offering empty platitudes or motivational platitudes.

He was introducing the various advantages, as always, providing nothing but practical information.

After listening for several tens of minutes, the guests, audience, and reporters felt that HarmonyOS Yaoguang had surpassed the iPhone 5 released by Apple last month in every aspect.

This is, of course, Chen Guiliang's "selective" telling of the truth.

Chen Guiliang made no mention of the shortcomings of the iPhone 5.

For example, the iPhone 5 became lighter and thinner, and there are many reasons for this, one of which is that Apple's motherboard became smaller. Apple designed its own motherboard.

HarmonyOS phones are lagging behind in this area, and a research and development team has been assembled to design a smaller motherboard. It's hard to say exactly when mass production will begin.

"Currently, HarmonyOS's R&D expenses account for 18% of its total revenue. Industry insiders should know how astonishing this figure is. In the next year or two, HarmonyOS will release many technologies... These technology patents will be prioritized for supply to manufacturers within the HarmonyOS camp!"

"By the way, HarmonyOS phones and tablets will all be equipped with the new version of ByteDance Maps this year. Our maps are very useful..."

Upon hearing this, industry insiders all laughed.

Although the iPhone 5 has not yet been released in mainland China, some people have already come across grey market versions.

The iPhone 5 completely parted ways with Google, no longer using Google Maps. However, their own Apple Maps currently has numerous problems, making it almost unusable.

In other words, it will be difficult for users who purchase the iPhone 5 at this stage to use all map-related apps.

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(ByteDance's market capitalization is currently less than $200 billion. Even with Baidu's soaring stock price, its market capitalization in 2012 was only slightly over $300 billion.)
(End of this chapter)