The Industrial Giant Reborn

"Mobile phone?" Lei Shengli didn't reply immediately.

"Big Brother has also been on the market for a few years. This is actually the result of the popularization of signal infrastructure. It actually appeared as early as 10 years ago. Although many companies have made new improvements in the past few years, it remains unchanged. After all, there have been no major changes. In the past ten years, the performance of electronic chip technology has increased dozens of times. In theory, it should have been time for quantitative changes to lead to qualitative changes." Chen Zhiwen said: "With the current technology Reserves should be able to make smaller wireless communication equipment. According to my information, many companies are beginning to prepare to develop in this direction. In the computer market, because we were not large in scale, we were unable to compete with Giants like IBM are fighting for funds and talents. Now this new product market will not be smaller than computers, and we cannot miss it."

By the 1990s, the mobile phone market in developed Western countries was no less than that of computers. Although mobile phones in the 1990s were really just communication devices, they were still very practical. In China, or in Southeast Asia and South America, which had average economies, At the beginning of the 21st century, there is also a huge demand for local products. This market is so big that beauty cannot be given up.

"This level of difficulty is probably far more difficult than that of a computer." Lei Shengli thought for a moment and said. The most difficult thing about electronic products is miniaturization. When Midea made home game consoles, they were essentially miniaturizing arcade machines, and it cost a lot of money. More than 100 million US dollars, if it were not for the early profits gained from arcade machines, it would not be able to afford it.

"The mobile phone industry is a huge market, and it involves a lot of complex latest communications, chips, and software technologies. No company can independently develop it, not even IBM. So we developed this mobile phone product this time. "You don't need to think too much about self-research on technology. The main thing is design. When it comes to technology, just buy patents in the early stage. We pay for them. Patents that are not particularly useful can generally be purchased," Chen Zhiwen said.

Unlike many ordinary products in the past, the mobile phone industry involves too many patents. No matter what kind of company in the future, as long as it makes mobile phones, it will inevitably need to purchase a large number of patent licenses from the outside world. Even Apple needs to purchase patents and hardware from Samsung. Huawei is unique in having to pay the "Qualcomm tax" to Qualcomm, but it is actually forced by sanctions. Otherwise, it would not be possible to develop everything by itself.

Any company needs to be clear about its positioning and its own strengths. Since Midea is now making mobile phones, the most important thing is to build a brand, open up the market, open up all channels, and make itself a terminal product for hundreds of millions of customers around the world. This This is the first step. If it succeeds, then we will consider choosing some directions to invest in technology research and development based on the actual situation. Otherwise, if we do all our own research and development first and then launch the product, there will be no chance at all. Hong Kong is talking nonsense, and Mainland Chinese is not good at least for the past ten years.

"Okay, I will first set up a team to collect some relevant technologies." Lei Shengli said that it has not started yet and he doesn't know anything.

"Well, just follow the normal operation. But there are two more things on my side." Chen Zhiwen added: "First, no matter what kind of mobile phone we make in the future, our game must be embedded in it. For example, the simplest games such as Snake and Magic Cube are still playable. Although people will not buy our mobile phones just because of these two small games, it will at least be an advantage."

No matter how you say it, games are Midea's unique advantage and the foundation of Midea. Whether it is an arcade, a handheld console, a home game console, a computer, or a future mobile phone or even a smartphone, games can exist on them. The function is to adapt to the needs of people. Different, the advantages brought by the copyright law can allow Midea to continue to enjoy it for a long time. Even if it is about to expire, just update it and re-apply for the copyright patent. It will not be the case. Others launched Midea in 2010 in 1975. The original game version, right?

However, the effect will only get worse later on. When the chip performance becomes higher and higher, the advantages brought by simple creativity will become less and less, especially with the emergence of online games and 3D games later. However, in the short term, it will still be I can get another wave of bonuses.

"There is no problem. The mobile phone we make will definitely have games, but I don't know if it will take up too much memory and affect the space." Lei Shengli said.

"So, we need to develop a system specifically for mobile phones, which can have some of the most basic functions, such as calculators, displaying phone numbers, recording phone numbers, alarm clocks, calendars, entertainment functions, etc. This is what we need to do. , the difficulty is not even lower than developing a mobile phone." Chen Zhiwen stated some basic requirements for a functional machine in his mind, but they can only be some basic requirements that do not require high computing requirements. Forget about complicated ones, such as When taking photos, playing music, etc., if the hardware cannot keep up with the software, it will only have the opposite effect.

"Let me write it down." Lei Shengli immediately took out a pen and paper. Before, he just wanted to build a small mobile phone, but when Chen Zhiwen said this, his eyes immediately brightened.

"Well, just write these down. The second requirement is the most important." Chen Zhiwen said: "The current mobile phone can only make calls. So if we can send digital information like emails on our mobile phones, what do you think? How about it?"

"Send an email?" Lei Shengli paused and asked, "This requires too high a performance, and does the base station have this capability?"

"It's not about complex emails, it's just a sentence with the simplest number of words, such as happy birthday, good night, etc. It's not impossible to have more words, it just consumes more memory." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "As for infrastructure, technology It shouldn’t be a problem in terms of aspect, as long as many people have this need and can benefit from it, they will naturally do it.”

"If this kind of message can be sent, the demand will probably be much greater than that of a phone call." Lei Shengli nodded and said, the phone usually needs to be answered only when there is something to do. Although there are also people who want to chat, the cost seems to be a bit too high. , and many times, direct chatting is easy to get stuck, but if you send such messages to each other, there will be enough buffer time, especially for couples in love, or when things are not urgent, notify the other party.

"Well, I think so too. You immediately arrange for people to register patents in various countries around the world. Let's call it text message. It's called message in English. We want to get the patent." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said.

"With such a patent, I'm afraid we will be lenient in collecting patent fees in the future." Lei Shengli said with a smile.

"It's not that easy. We have imposed too much pressure on this kind of technology that is in high demand, and various countries will definitely interfere at the government level, so it still needs to be appropriate. Just give us a few dollars when a mobile phone is manufactured." We can just charge a little more from communication providers. Anyway, they can also rely on text messages to make more money." Chen Zhiwen said: "Actually, I am more inclined to use this patent to conduct patent exchanges with various future industry giants. Change it, this is the most meaningful thing.”

"Yes, in short, the benefits must be very great." Lei Shengli nodded and said.

"Well, let's prepare the team first and prepare for research and development. I'll be waiting for your good news." Chen Zhiwen said again. In this way, researching a new product from scratch will definitely not take a short time. It can be done in 1990 It was very good when it was launched on the market before. At this time, it is also when the future feature phone giants begin to rise, and Midea is on the same production line as them.

"Okay." Lei Shengli said.

When laptops were developed and ready to be launched on the market, and mobile phones were also being intensively developed, Chen Zhiwen had no significant role in predicting the future. In other words, this period was a blank period. After the 1990s, maybe It still has great uses, but we also need to see how big a storm our butterfly effect has caused. If history changes too much, for example, if the founders of Yahoo and Google no longer start their own businesses or disappear, then The future is completely different.

Of course, even then, with the size of Chen Zhiwen's current company, it can be regarded as one of the top consortiums in the world. The only disadvantage is that there is no big country behind him to rely on, which makes him have to be cautious, otherwise, he will be in trouble early. Let’s go straight to chip production and computer operating systems.

In the years after the 1980s, investment in real estate basically only required continuous investment. Whether it was Hong Kong or the mainland, in Hong Kong, Land acquired several buildings in Central. Basically, Some British capital has been sold off in order to leave Hong Kong. In addition, Land has also participated in several Hong Kong government auctions and obtained some high-quality land, ready to build office buildings on it. Wharf is developing its own land with peace of mind. For example, it once As a piece of land of about 100,000 square feet for China-Pakistan Terminal, after coordinating the relocation of the headquarters, the most famous Times Square in later generations was built in this area. Hutchison Whampoa is focusing on conquering ports around the world, with the intention of gaining sufficient quantities to form a scale advantage.

The time soon came to the beginning of 1990.

"Sheng Chen, all our investments in Japan have been cashed out. After deducting various taxes, the total net profit is US$43.5 billion. However, it will take about half a year for such a large amount of funds to flow out of Japan." Zhou Jiayang of Hutchison Whampoa Group said with a smile.

"This is really a huge amount of money." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said: "There are probably not many companies or even governments in the world that can spend so much money."

In the 1990s, there were still many companies with a market value of more than 40 to 50 billion U.S. dollars. Midea's annual net profit now exceeds 2 billion U.S. dollars. If it chooses to go public, the market value can also reach this value. However, market value belongs to market value, and liquidity is another factor. It’s the same thing. Before the rise of Internet giants and technology giants, it was almost impossible for traditional industries to have such cash flow. Even if an automobile giant or oil giant had such funds, it would still need to deal with a lot of hard expenditures. After all, oil Automobiles are extremely heavy industries, and any project may require tens or tens of billions of dollars.

It is estimated that this is the first time in human history that we can have so much cash without any special expenses. Not to mention that Midea and Red Bull themselves can earn high profits every year. Real estate and infrastructure giants like Hutchison Land , although the profits may not be as exaggerated as Midea's Red Bull, its own assets are too strong, and they are all very high-quality assets.

"It doesn't matter if such funds slowly come out of Japan in a year or two. Even if they come out, I'm afraid there won't be any good large-scale investment projects." Dong Youwei also said with a smile. Although some large-scale projects often cost more than one billion US dollars, they can all be leveraged. With a principal of tens of billions of US dollars, it is amazing how much capital can be leveraged.

"That's not necessarily true." Chen Zhiwen smiled and said, "Have you heard some news about Pudong in Shanghai?"

"Pudong? I've heard that the mainland central government intends to focus on developing Pudong. Does this seem to be true?" Dong Youwei asked. From their position, the power of connections is very powerful. Some major news, in They will also receive the news in advance before it is made public. After all, it is just a normal economic policy. It will definitely deal with many people before it is introduced. Even if it is kept secret, it is impossible to keep it absolutely confidential. Even the person who introduced the policy may deliberately release it. Some news, let’s test the market’s feedback or the response of some large companies. Pudong is about to be developed. In fact, the top management of the mainland and Hong Kong have received a lot of news about this.

"Yes, it's true. I don't need to say more about how big Pudong is. National development requires funds. If we have more funds, we also need places to invest. It just kills two birds with one stone." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile.

"It is indeed a good place for investment, but even if Pudong is developed, it cannot accommodate so much capital." Zhou Jiayang asked again.

"Of course, development must be done step by step." Chen Zhiwen said: "I can't put all my funds in Shanghai. At the end of last year, I went to Yanjing City in the mainland and discussed with the relevant central departments. Watsons' RT-Mart and Parknshop can enter all cities across the country without restrictions, and the same goes for KFC, so I plan to directly purchase all properties in various cities across the country, starting from the second tier, and slowly penetrate downwards to let our supermarkets , opened all over the country.

In addition, such a large supermarket investment plan also requires a large number of logistics centers, transportation facilities, etc., which will also require a huge amount of funds, which can also give our funds somewhere to go. There are also highway projects, which can also be discussed. "

"In this case, we have found an investment direction for our huge sum of money. However, Chen Sheng, if we invest all this huge sum of money in the mainland, will it be too big?" Zhou Jiayang asked: "Diversified Wouldn’t it be better to change it?”

"No, there will be no shortage of investment in Europe and the United States." Chen Zhiwen said with a smile. US$40 billion is a lot now, but in less than ten years, the science and technology museum stocks will explode. The stocks he bought in the United States will be worth It will only be higher. What he had to consider at that time was how to safely transfer the funds. At this time, transferring funds to Europe and the United States would be a greater risk. (End of chapter)