Reinventing the Millennium

Fang Zhuo was in Shanghai waiting for the release and market performance of Mars4 and Selfy2, and as time entered June, quite a few consumers and industry insiders were waiting with him this time.

Last year, both Apple and Yike moved their press conferences forward to varying degrees, but this year, Apple held them on June 7, Yike held them on June 20, and Samsung also joined in, setting the date at the earliest on June 2.

Within a month, three of the most eye-catching brands in the smartphone market released new phones, which is undoubtedly exciting.

The June press conference between Yike and Apple was already meant to be a competition. Now that Samsung has joined the competition, who is innovative, who is conservative, and who is surprising has become a highlight.

Among them, there is also news that came out because Apple released tablet products using A4 chips at the beginning of the year - Yike and Samsung also have similar technical reserves, which may impact Qualcomm's high-end market.

In mid-May, Yike America President Yu Hong attended a forum in Silicon Valley, which partially confirmed the news. Yike will indeed have products using its own design chips, but the cooperative relationship with Qualcomm remains solid.

According to the comprehensive judgment of the industry, Apple will have its own chips, Yike will have its own chips, and Samsung will probably also have its own chips.

However, contrary to the expectations of the industry and Fang Zhuo, the Trump 2 presented by Samsung at the Silicon Valley conference on June 2 not only did not use the chip design that had been initially verified by Apple’s iPad, but instead emphasized Qualcomm’s trump card throughout the process. chip.

Samsung is one of the top three mobile phone manufacturers in the world, and its brand power has always been strong. Qualcomm has become more widely known for its high-end chip positioning due to the development of smartphones in the past two years, thanks to the strong rise of Yike and the follow-up adoption of other manufacturers.

Nokia is declining, TI is declining, and Samsung, which has always owned chip design, has also strengthened its cooperation with Qualcomm, which almost makes it synonymous with good and strong.

Yike's two mobile phones this year, Mars4 is the Zhurong 001, and Selfy2 is still Qualcomm's flagship, which made the company slightly embarrassed after facing the media offensive after Samsung's press conference.

Samsung is already letting the media push it to create a positioning of "Qualcomm is the real flagship". Although Yike has not officially announced the product, is it better to say Zhurong or Qualcomm?

The two mobile phones have two chips.

And, this also brings about the discussion of price positioning.

Qualcomm is worth that price. It is a flagship processor. If you use your own chip from Yike, what price is it worth to you?

Almost as Fang Zhuo was listening to the company's relevant discussions, a related competitive situation emerged. Qualcomm canceled some chip orders in Ice Core, citing health concerns for the company's product supply chain.

Ice Core and Qualcomm have cooperated since 2007. The latter can be said to be an important factor in promoting the advanced manufacturing process of Ice Core. Many international customers later placed orders with confidence precisely because Qualcomm's product performance was good.

Of course, the price given by the ice core is also key.

For the same manufacturing process, the wafer price of ice core is the lowest.

For the same price, the ice core wafer process is the highest.

Because there is a shortage of international advanced manufacturing processes at the beginning of each round, the orders Bingxin gets in this way still have a lower price limit, which ensures that everyone is still at a very comfortable level.

For example, Bingxin’s previous quotation for 65nm wafers was US$4,400 per piece, Taiwan’s price was US$5,000, and UMC’s price was US$4,500. When other manufacturers’ processes had almost caught up, Taiwan’s price dropped to 4,500, UMC dropped to 4,000, and Bingxin Just quote 3900.

It is by relying on such price advantages and product verification by major customers that ice cores gradually fill up production capacity, form a healthy and positive cycle, and increasingly gain a place.

Oh yes, this is also related to Fang Zhuo's small spending to fill the budget.

This time the relationship between Yike and Qualcomm has changed...

Fang Zhuo still felt very sorry for this. The Iron Triangle had lost a corner.

However, the iteration of Mars and Zhu Rong must continue firmly. This is the main premise that cannot be changed, and other actions must be under this.

Therefore, Fang Zhuo just called Qualcomm and asked about the relevant situation without saying much.

Whether this is a big deal or not, there is still the Selfy series that they still cooperate with. But whether it is a small matter, Qualcomm and Bingxin not only place orders and make money, but also have technical cooperation and verification.

Fang Zhuo had phone calls with Qiu Ciyun for two consecutive days about this incident to discuss the possible subsequent impacts.

The current speculation is that this part of Qualcomm's orders has been transferred to Samsung. What kind of cooperation will happen next year will probably depend on the sales of new models this year.

"Even if all Qualcomm's orders are transferred away, the growth of the smartphone market will be able to make up for the production capacity. Mr. Qiu, you can rest assured on this."

"Yike's Selfy has been performing well, and its positioning can be blurred in the future. Qualcomm will not abandon this product line of ours all at once."

"In the final analysis, we still have it in our own hands. As long as our hands are more successful, whether Selfy also uses Zhurong chips or continues to cooperate with Qualcomm, this relationship will be more controlled by us."

Fang Zhuo not only comforted Qiu Ciyun, but also clarified his judgment on this unexpected situation.

If Zhurong Chip succeeds, Qualcomm should be the one struggling, not Yike.

Will Yike be completely promoted as a competitor, or will it still maintain a cooperative relationship but obviously strengthen this rival?

Fang Zhuo believes that the future answer to this multiple-choice question is likely to be to cut off the OEM cooperation with Ice Core, but Yike will continue to sell chips if it is willing to purchase them.

In this case, there will be more measurement factors involved. In addition to the OEM cost, the manufacturing process of the ice core itself is also a key.

Again, the more successful you are, the greater your options will be.

If the ice core manufacturing process can be stabilized, if competitors make mistakes, customers will still have to place orders based on technical strength.

This kind of technological rollover seems to have happened to Samsung.

When the discussion about ice cores had just subsided, Apple's iPhone 4 arrived as promised.

On June 7, 2010, Steve Jobs announced the launch of the fourth-generation Apple mobile phone in Silicon Valley.

In fact, the appearance of iPhone 4 has been leaked a lot before, and neither the participants nor the media were too surprised by its appearance.

iPhone 4 abandoned the rounded curved back cover design and rounded bezels that had been seen in the original iPhone, and replaced it with a more square and three-dimensional flat back cover and right-angled bezel design. In addition, it also uses a glass back cover instead of engineering plastic.

The success of Yike mobile phones has always been summarized by the industry, and the high-end feel brought by the glass body is usually interpreted as the first impression of consumers.

In addition to appearance, Jobs focused on the iPhone 4's Retina display, also known as the retina screen, which can surpass the highest 300 pixels per inch that the human retina can resolve, reaching an astonishing 326.

Compared with the previous generation iPhone 3GS, this number has increased by more than 4 times, resulting in an extremely clear display effect.

Jobs made this highlight the focus of this year's mobile phone introduction, and he also talked about enterprise integration and system ecology.

Fang Zhuo heard the name of his company at this link - "Enterprise integration, Microsoft is good in this area, Yike is also very successful. We have made a lot of attempts this time and gained a lot of results."

Hearing what Jobs said, he resisted the urge to use Twitter to praise him.

This press conference really clearly showed Apple's efforts in the software ecosystem. When Jobs introduced the iPhone's A4 chip, he did not explain it in detail. He just briefly mentioned that the A4 chip on the iPhone is clocked at 800Mhz, which is faster than the iPad. The 1G of the same chip is lower, but the 512MB of memory is twice that of the tablet.

What made Jobs spend more time introducing is the improved power supply of this generation of mobile phones.

Fang Zhuo watched this press conference together at the company. Others had no idea about the power supply, but he guessed that the improvement in power supply of iPhone 4 was probably due to the A4 chip reducing the size of the motherboard, thereby freeing up more space for the battery.

There is not much else worth noting about the other content of this competitive product launch.

In terms of price, iPhone 4 remains the same as the previous generation. The price after signing a two-year contract with an operator is still US$199 for 16G and US$299 for 32G. This price is also the same as Yike predicted.

The latest generation of Mars4 still maintains this pricing.

At the end of the press conference on the 7th, Apple’s Retina screen aroused heated public opinion.

This year, Jobs announced the fastest release of an Apple mobile phone in history, with pre-sales starting on the 10th and official launch on the 15th. This allows consumers to experience the power of the Retina screen before the release of the Yike mobile phone.

Jobs had confidence in retina screens.

In the entire industry, Apple's Retina display is definitely far ahead.

Sure enough, on the 15th, when the first batch of users in the five countries where iPhone 4 was launched were received, they immediately experienced the difference.

The previous generation iPhone 3GS was not leading in terms of screen, and was even a little behind. It even got complaints about "pixel screen".

This year, iPhone4 has definitely made a turnaround.

For a touch-screen smartphone, what's more important than the screen?

As soon as the iPhone 4 was released, the popularity of Samsung's Trump 2 dropped immediately, which was also reflected in the sales curve. The Retina display is indeed extremely stunning, which Samsung has to admit.

Can Yike compete with Apple?

The industry is pessimistic about this, and Samsung does not believe that Yike can do better. If even Samsung cannot compete with Apple on the screen in this world, then other manufacturers will be even less able!

On June 20, for the first time since the launch of Yike's mobile phone products, leader Fang Zhuo was absent from the press conference, and co-founder Yu Hong held a new phone press conference in Silicon Valley.

She stood on the stage, knowing that everyone in the company and outside the industry were watching her, and she suddenly felt a completely different kind of pressure than in the past.

In such an occasion, you have to face strong competitors, accept the scrutiny of professional media, and withstand the test of consumers.

Mr. Fang has stood strong on such a stage in the past!

How did he do it?

Oh yes, be strong and scold your opponent.

Yu Hong couldn't criticize her style, but she was very lucky that everyone did a good job this year.

Because of the pressure from Apple's Retina screen, Yu Hong adjusted the original order of this conference and directly introduced the biggest change of this mobile phone.

At the moment when Yu Hong took out her mobile phone, there was a sound of surprise at the press conference.

Just as Apple changed its appearance design, which made some people feel that the iPhone is a bit close to the design style of Mars, the new generation of Mars 4 was unveiled, and everyone suddenly felt that it was also close to the button design of the iPhone.

In the past, Mars did not have physical buttons on the entire screen, but this time it has added physical buttons at the bottom for the first time.

“This is Yike’s fourth-generation flagship mobile phone Mars, as you can see.”

Yu Hong held the phone, pressed the physical buttons on the screen with her thumb, and said with a smile: "We introduced it to the recognition of user fingerprints. This is a solution that we have been brewing for a long time and once locked our boss Fang in the office. design."

"Today, it came."

Mars 4 cannot compete with Apple on the screen, but it has introduced a new feature this year, a fingerprint recognition that is enough for users to use the smartphone for 3 years and still feel fresh.

There was a flash of white light taking photos at the press conference. If Yike had not temporarily brought out this function due to pressure from competitors, it would most likely have been mature enough before it was introduced to the market.

The only question is whether consumers will pay for it.

Samsung, which is also paying attention to competing product launches, doesn't know whether consumers like this thing, but it suddenly has a bad feeling.

Apple has Retina, Yike has Fingerprint, we have... we have Qualcomm?

broken!

If you plan to snipe the press conference in advance, you may be sniping yourself into the last one!

I took my baby shopping during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, and I was even more tired than usual. Tomorrow is coding day, and I felt like I left my homework until the last day of summer vacation.