Rebirth 99 to become a car giant

Although the financial crisis broke out at the end of 2008, it caused drastic changes in many local economies.

However, with China's strong economic recovery, after entering 2010, many places no longer feel the impact of the financial crisis.

Even the development of various industries has created new historical records.

During the May Day period, various car companies quickly released sales figures for April as usual.

Needless to say, there must be a lot of flowers, hello, me, hello everyone.

The performance of Xingchen Motors and Jaguar Land Rover is naturally no exception, with sales setting new records.

However, what interests Cao Yang more is not their sales changes, but that the monthly sales of Honor mobile phones have successfully exceeded the 1 million unit mark, reaching 1.03 million units.

This achievement is definitely worth remembering!

For this reason, both the official WeChat account of Nanshan Group and the official WeChat account of Honor Mobile have focused on publicizing this matter.

"Mr. Cao, although our sales this month are only a fraction of Nokia's, our sales have reached 30% of Nokia's."

"Every supplier is now full of confidence in the next step of production capacity expansion, and will even prepare parts and components with a larger production capacity than the plan we released."

"This is a very good momentum, which means that everyone is full of confidence in the development of smartphones."

Xia Qingqing is in a very good mood now.

The monthly turnover of Honor mobile phones has reached more than 4 billion yuan. This data is not bad no matter where it is placed.

Even according to sales ranking, Honor mobile phones can already enter the top 5 in China.

The key is that the current sales every week are more than last week, which is equivalent to the sales of Honor mobile phones rising in a straight line.

You know, HONOR 3G is a high-end smartphone starting at 3,999 yuan, not a brick phone priced at 399 yuan.

Being able to achieve this sales volume is already very good.

"The momentum is very good, but everyone must also realize that more competitors will start to fail."

"In the past, people thought that mobile phone giants such as Nokia and Motorola were still sticking to traditional mobile phones, so there were always some doubts about the development of smartphones."

"Now these doubts are slowly disappearing, and the competition we need to face will also intensify."

"Apple's first flagship store in China is also officially opened today in Teem City, right?"

This result was predicted by Cao Yang at the beginning of the year, so he didn't think it was a special surprise.

Instead, he felt it necessary to pay attention to competitors in the industry.

To avoid overturning in the gutter and being overtaken.

Among all the mobile phone giants, Cao Yang has never worried about the development of so-called giants such as Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, LG and Lenovo.

On the contrary, he attaches great importance to the Apple mobile phone, which has only officially entered the Chinese market this year.

As the general manager of Honor Mobile, Xia Qingqing can naturally feel Cao Yang's attention.

"Before coming to the company this morning, I made a special trip to Tianhe City and walked around Apple's flagship store."

"Although their iPhone 3GS is already very good compared to Nokia's products."

"But compared with our HONOR 3G, there is no advantage at all."

"So the opening of their flagship store did not attract much attention. I definitely didn't see the scene of people queuing up to buy mobile phones."

"I even feel that it was a bit deserted when it first opened, and people's recognition of it was not particularly high."

"After all, it is uglier than our mobile phone, and its performance is even worse, but the price is the same."

"In this case, except for fans who have bought Apple MP3 players and computers before, other consumers may not be very interested."

Although Xia Qingqing's family conditions are very good, she still works very hard at work.

And she is very good at figuring out Cao Yang's thoughts and thoughts. Knowing that Cao Yang is paying attention to the situation of Apple mobile phones, she directly went to the scene to check out the situation.

Sure enough, after hearing what Xia Qingqing said, Cao Yang looked quite satisfied.

After all, Xia Qingqing's serious attitude is already very good.

In fact, it turned out that he was overthinking.

In the original time and space, he had personally witnessed the crazy scenes at the Apple mobile phone flagship store.

Even before the new product was launched, people lined up outside the flagship store with tents overnight.

There are also cases where people line up to buy mobile phones and the scalpers immediately increase the price to buy them.

But things are different now!

HONOR 3G, which was inspired by the iPhone 4, was released a year ahead of schedule and immediately attracted the attention of countless consumers.

This has reduced Apple's halo a lot.

"Their products of this generation are not very competitive, but we should not underestimate Apple."

"This is an independent and unique company that is always able to come up with new products unexpectedly."

"Their developer conference in June this year will definitely release a new generation of Apple phones, and they will even release other products like ours."

"By then, the gap between us will likely be significantly shortened."

"The brand strength of Apple mobile phones has always been relatively high. If the gap between the two parties is narrowed, then they will be our biggest competitor by then."

Cao Yang gave his opinion very definitely.

He will not be arrogant and think that because of his arrival, Apple's mobile phone business will completely collapse or be suppressed into a mess.

That's simply not realistic.

Not to mention other places, in the US market alone, Honor mobile phones cannot surpass others.

Coupled with other markets such as Europe, it is still full of uncertainty about who will eventually be the leader in the mobile phone industry between Honor mobile phones and Apple mobile phones.

If Apple has never been able to come up with products that surpass Honor phones, then trying to surpass nature is just nonsense.

But once there is a huge breakthrough in the replacement of products in a certain year, the situation faced by both parties is likely to be reversed immediately.

With the speed at which smartphones are replaced every year, this kind of crisis may happen to Honor phones at any time.

Cao Yang hopes that Xia Qingqing can have a sense of crisis in this regard.

"The situation at Apple has indeed changed a lot since Steve Jobs took over."

"Whether it's their computer or their MP3, it's the same."

Xia Qingqing knew that Cao Yang attached great importance to Apple, so she also had a detailed understanding of Apple's development.

After Steve Jobs returned to Apple, everything changed.

First of all, the advent of iMac G3 gave Apple a "new life". Its colorful and translucent design broke people's traditional understanding of computers and gave birth to a series of Apple products starting with i.

If the iMac G3 saved Apple, then the iPod can be said to have completely changed people's perception of portable music devices at the time.

This music player brings people endless happiness in terms of appearance, ease of operation, and sound quality.

Even years later, Apple Music continues to be a part of iPhone, iPad and other products.

Then there is the Macbook Air.

If you ask who is the founder of thin and light computers, the answer may be the first generation MacBook Air to a certain extent.

At that time, this Apple notebook also used a customized Intel processor, which was amazing in terms of performance and user experience.

What made Xia Qingqing even more aware of how powerful Apple was was the iPad officially released in January this year, which was officially sold in the United States last month.

It is said that sales reached 300,000 units on the first day, which is really exaggerated and scary.

Thinking of this, Xia Qingqing couldn't help but said: "Mr. Cao, Apple's iPad should soon enter the Chinese market. By then, it is estimated that the traffic of their flagship stores will increase rapidly."

"I think HONOR PAD can also consider preparing as early as possible and further increasing its production capacity?"

In order to better understand her opponents, Xia Qingqing bought and experienced several of Apple's flagship products through various means.

Especially during this period, she was also deeply impressed by iPad.

Although the design indicators of the HONOR PAD, which is about to enter small batch production, are better than those of the iPad, after all, it is difficult to intuitively feel the advantages of its own products without having experienced them in real form.

But based on iPad's performance in the United States, Xia Qingqing feels that HONOR PAD's production capacity preparation seems a bit conservative.

Cao Yang naturally had no objection to this.

"You can have a good communication with BYD's OEM factories and various parts manufacturers based on iPad sales to see how much production capacity can be increased."

"The goals we set before may be achieved ahead of schedule in the future."

“Everyone’s acceptance of smartphones and related products is also increasing rapidly.”

“Especially the expanded use of WIFI has further expanded the advantages of these products.”

"Maybe this year they will bring you a big surprise."

Just as Cao Yang and Xia Qingqing were talking about the sales and plans of Honor mobile phones, his mobile phone also rang.

Cao Yang has two mobile phones, one is basically placed with Mi Ying, and she answers most of the calls.

Only those who think it is necessary to answer Cao Yang will be handed over to Cao Yang.

The other one that Cao Yang carried with him is something that few people know about.

Anyone who knows this mobile phone number is either closely related to Cao Yang or has a unique social status.

"Mr. Cao, congratulations!"

The one who called Cao Yang was Wang Fu. He was naturally qualified to know Cao Yang's personal phone number.

At the beginning of the year, Cao Yang made a special trip to BYD to discuss possible expansion with Wang Fu.

All subsequent progress is in full swing.

"Congratulations, Mr. Wang, BYD's sales this month have reached 50,000 units, reaching a new height."

F3 is now BYD's flagship product, and its sales volume is very exaggerated.

In addition, the sales of products such as F6 and S6 are also very good, and BYD is now very prosperous.

You know, the original BYD's long-term car sales hovered around 20,000 to 300,000, and it did not start to explode until the second half of 2020.

Then in 2023, it will quickly hit 3 million vehicles.

This increase is unprecedented in the automotive industry.

"My sales growth is just following the growth of the entire industry. It's nothing."

"On the contrary, your Honor mobile phone, the sales volume in April exceeded 1 million units, which makes people look forward to its performance in the future."

Obviously, what Wang Fu wanted to discuss with Cao Yang today was related to the mobile phone business.

Otherwise, the topic would not have changed to mobile phones so quickly.

"It's already amazing. If this trend continues, BYD is expected to become the domestic sales champion."

Anyway, regardless of whether it actually works or not, there is nothing to lose by saying a few words.

So Cao Yang's good words naturally followed one after another.

"I really want to, but Chery Automobile, Geely Automobile and Great Wall Motors are all developing very fast, and GM has announced the launch plans of several new cars at once."

"I have no confidence that I can get first place in a short period of time."

"By the way, Mr. Cao, we previously planned that our mobile phone production capacity would reach 2 million per month next year and 4 million per month the year after that."

"But with the current performance of Honor mobile phones, I think it will reach the point of monthly sales of 2 million in a few months."

"Especially in the second half of the year, HONOR 3G and new generation mobile phones will be sold at the same time. It is possible that monthly sales will exceed 3 million by the end of the year."

"In this way, it is possible to achieve monthly sales of 4 million in the first half of next year."

"So I was wondering if we could consider arranging production lines in advance to increase our production capacity?"

Wang Fu would previously debate whether to expand production because funds were tight and the sales situation of Honor mobile phones was not yet clear.

But when he made the decision to cooperate with the expansion of production, Honor Mobile took the initiative to provide financial support.

Coupled with the excellent performance of Honor mobile phones in the past two months, Wang Fu is now full of confidence.

Of course, the reason why I specifically mentioned this topic to Cao Yang was, on the one hand, to express my attitude, and on the other hand, I also hoped that Cao Yang could always give orders to BYD for production.

Wang Fu now understands that Honor mobile phones will definitely have a place in the world mobile phone market in the future.

Not to mention selling hundreds of millions of units a year like Nokia, there is no problem selling tens of millions of units a year.

As a high-end mobile phone, orders for tens of millions of units per year are definitely a big order.

What's more, Honor mobile phones not only have mobile phones, but also HONOR PAD.

Even Wang Fu thinks it’s hard to say whether Honor mobile phones will produce laptops in the future.

With such a high-quality customer, he definitely doesn't want to give up.

"Just now, I was discussing with Mr. Xia about increasing the production capacity of HONOR PAD. We haven't even talked about mobile phones yet. I didn't expect that Mr. Wang would call me right now."

"It seems that we all thought of it together."

When Cao Yang said this, a smile immediately appeared on Wang Fu's face.

Obviously, Cao Yang agreed to expand production.

When BYD's production capacity is not fully filled, there is a high probability that Honor mobile phones will not look for other foundries.

On this point, Wang Fu is quite confident.

That means that BYD's mobile phone OEM business should still see a wave of high growth in the next two to three years.

“The product performance of Honor mobile phones is so good that after using it, I won’t want to use anything else.”

"Mr. Cao, have you considered launching a few more products and arranging them in different categories such as entry-level, mid-level and high-end? This way you can quickly expand sales and meet the needs of consumers at different levels?"

BYD's mobile phone OEM business now has a mutually beneficial relationship with Honor mobile phones.

Wang Fu naturally hopes that Honor mobile phones can sell more products.

According to ordinary people's thinking, the easiest way to sell more is to produce more products.

It would definitely be better for several brothers to fight together than to fight alone, right?

This method is already proven in the automotive industry.

However, Cao Yang's idea was obviously not like this.

"Honor mobile phones indeed require different products to meet different consumer needs."

"Although our current HONOR 3G has been on the market for almost a year, it is still very competitive compared with other products on the market."

"In this case, after our new generation of mobile phones is launched, we can appropriately lower the price of HONOR 3G and form a complementary state with the new products."

"When our third-generation mobile phones are launched next year, the products of the previous two generations can continue to be sold."

"Slowly, our Honor mobile phones will be able to form a product layout ranging from 2,500 yuan to 10,000 yuan to meet various consumer needs."

Obviously, Cao Yang adopted the solution of later generations of Apple mobile phones.

Although this solution is not a mainstream approach now, it has been proven to be successful.

Even judging from the various products of Honor mobile phones, this solution may be more successful than Apple mobile phones.

In this case, why rush to launch a bunch of new mobile phones without knowing which one your key products will be.

Or maybe there are more products, but not more money.

That doesn't make much sense either.

"Mr. Cao, this is indeed a way, but will it be a bit slow?"

"With today's mobile phones, as long as the design is determined, the work from mold opening to component assembly can be completed in three months."

“If we take action now, we can have multiple products sold at the same time by the end of the year and seize the market to the greatest extent possible.”

Wang Fu also wanted to persuade Cao Yang, but in the end he did not get the ideal answer.

Fortunately, Cao Yang has somewhat revealed his future strategy. In a few years, there is no need to worry about only one product being sold.

I just don’t know what the final sales volume will be if generations of grandparents and grandchildren sell together.

It would not be beautiful if there was competition among our own people.

"Thank you Mr. Wang for your suggestion. When the time comes, I will ask Mr. Xia to review it inside the Honor phone."

He also had good intentions, so Cao Yang didn't want to argue with him.

For Honor mobile phones, in addition to developing second-generation products, the most critical thing is to build a system of their own as soon as possible.

Although this system may not necessarily be so closed at the beginning, some development can be carried out based on the Android system.

But we must avoid the shortcomings of the Android system to the greatest extent possible.

Otherwise, the phone will start to lag after a year of use, while the Apple phone next door is still performing well after a few years.

Then it will be even more difficult for Honor phones to surpass Apple phones.

Maybe when the flagship store in Tianhe City launches new products next year, scalpers will start taking action.

…

It is not only BYD that is paying attention to the sales of Honor mobile phones in April. Nokia, the always proud giant, has also noticed this situation.

Even Zhao Colin, the general manager of Nokia China, couldn't sit still when he saw that the sales volume of Honor mobile phones in April exceeded 1 million units.

"Chai Hang, Apple in the United States sold almost 5 million iPhone 3GS units in the first four months. Honor mobile phones in China also sold more than two million HONOR 3G units in the first four months."

"These smartphones are not cheap, and are even more expensive than 90% of our products."

"But their sales can reach this level. I think it needs to attract everyone's attention."

"We also have smartphones at Nokia, and the Symbian system was even the most used system in smartphones in the world last year."

“There is no reason why the sales of high-end mobile phones cannot be compared to those of Apple and Honor phones.”

"This is something that is unacceptable."

Zhao Colin has lived a comfortable life in China for many years. Since last year, his life has not been so comfortable.

This year the changes are even faster.

Sales of many Nokia mobile phones have declined year-on-year.

Some newly launched products seem to have limited competitiveness.

Especially after Zhongguancun Online and other websites compared Nokia's smartphones with other smartphones, fewer and fewer consumers are willing to spend high prices to buy Nokia's high-end products.

This situation is actually very fatal.

After all, high-end products have relatively high profit margins, and they are what companies hope to sell more of.

"Compared with Apple phones and Honor phones, our products are too ugly."

"Although the practicality is very good, for many young consumers, good looks come first. After this requirement is met, other things will be considered."

The boss asked about it all, and Chai Hang also asked the question without any politeness.

After all, if you talk to Europeans and Americans, if you hide it, they may not really understand.

It would be better to be more straightforward, say one thing and two things, and spread the matter out.

Although Zhao Colin sounds like a Chinese name, he is actually European.

But after arriving in China, I deliberately gave myself a Chinese name.

Even when participating in some activities, I would say a few Chinese greetings such as "Hello everyone, I am Colin Zhao of Nokia".

Even though it is just a few simple sentences in Chinese, many Chinese people are very fond of this.

In fact, it is very likely that someone specifically reminded me of these tricks, and even suggested some ways to deal with them.

It may not have anything special to do with whether someone likes Chinese or whether they like this place.

"nice?"

"Shouldn't it be smarter?"

Colin Zhao couldn't help but retort.

"More intelligence is naturally needed, but if it doesn't have the premise of good looks, it will definitely not sell well."

After Chai Hang said this, Zhao Colin no longer struggled.

However, if he wants the new mobile phone to be designed to look better, that is simply not something he can control.

As the general manager of China District, I can only passively watch the company's decline.