Richard Yu, Lei Jun and Chen Mingyong are the leaders of Chinese smartphone companies Huawei, Xiaomi and OPPO.
According to an IDC report, in the first half of 2019, these three companies ranked second (with 18% market share), fourth (9%), and fifth (8%) among TOP5 mobile phone manufacturers worldwide.
Just as Taiwan companies seized the opportunity of the PC industry in the 1990s, within three years these three smart phone companies have rapidly risen and grown to become Apple and Samsung's biggest competitors globally.
And they all happened to be born in 1969.
The traditional Chinese idiom for describing age is "fifty, knowing destiny", and they have grasped the lifeblood of the smart phone industry.
In this in-depth story by Tencent News, we can finally get a though look at the most important people behind Chinese smartphone market’s rapid rise to dominancy.
On April 10, 2019, OPPO released the Reno mobile phone in Shanghai, switching from the previously popular R series to the new Reno series.
OPPO officially defines "Reno to open the next decade of mobile phones." Few people know that it was the 50th birthday of founder and CEO Chen Mingyong.
Four months later, on August 9, in Shanghai, Huawei officially announced the Google Android operating system alternative, the Hongmeng operating system which is also called Harmony OS, and it was also Huawei Terminal CEO Richard Yu's 50th birthday. Photos of Richard Yu's birthday cake spread on social networking sites.
Four months later, on December 16, it was the 50th birthday of Xiaomi's founder, Lei Jun. Nine years after Xiaomi's "Beijing Drift", Lei Jun built a headquarters building in Beijing, which was a birthday gift.
American best-selling author Gladwell once described in "The Tipping Point" that after the end of World War II in 1945, a large number of soldiers returned to the country, which brought the US birth rate to a peak.
The group of people who later changed personal computers and the Internet were mostly born during the baby boom. Jobs and Bill Gates, who started the era of consumer computing, and Tim Berners Lee, the father of the World Wide Web, were born in 1955. They compete with each other, influence each other, and achieve each other.
For Chen Mingyong, Lei Jun, and Richard Yu, 2019 has more uncertainty than 2016, when the three public companies rose simultaneously.
In 2016, OPPO broke out with extraordinary vitality and became the annual domestic sales champion; Lei Jun rushed forward, continuously adjusted the rhythm, and finally launched a full-screen MIX phone that later led the industry; Huawei was ambitious, and simultaneously deployed two domestic and foreign markets, impact High-end market.
However, in 2019, Huawei's overseas market was suppressed by the United States and turned to the domestic market. Although it won more than 40% of the share, its future is more uncertain.
Will it become a company in China? OPPO and Xiaomi need to face Huawei's high-end price reduction shock wave.
According to IDC data, the market share of OPPO in the third quarter of 2019 dropped from 20.5% in the same period last year to 16.6%, and Xiaomi suffered even worse in the same period, from 13% to 9.8%.
With the same age, the battlefield is set. Looking back, who can win in the future? From a global perspective, can this group of representative Chinese manufacturing companies leave anything in the world's business history? There seems to be a chance, and everything is unknown.
This is an opportunity to see the minds, visions and understanding of modern business of mobile phone giants; it is a long confrontation involving the founder's growth experience, personality, beliefs, cultural genes and values.
Character
Chen Mingyong could not find a proper way to express publicly. Compared with Lei Jun and Richard Yu, his low profile makes him look mysterious.
One day in December 2018, Richard Yu called Chen Mingyong. Chen Mingyong didn't receive anything. He pulled back and quickly hung up.
He called a mutual friend in the mobile phone industry to understand the situation. A friend told him that it was almost the end of the year.
It is estimated that Richard's performance this year is good, and China has the largest share. I would like to invite everyone to have a meal and talk. Chen Mingyong didn't return the phone or go to the banquet.
In 2012, Chen Mingyong brought OPPO to smart phones. Richard Yu has just returned from Europe to take over Huawei's terminal business; Lei Jun started as a software and first saw the opportunity for change brought about by the mobile Internet. Hardware manufacturing required supplementary lessons.
In the face of the latest business, there are many topics to talk to each other. "At that time, we often convened everyone to eat together and gave back face." Said Lao Yao, the secretary general of the China Mobile Alliance, and their photos in the same frame are still hanging on the company wall.
Stars and hoops, Zhou Hongyi, who has gathered together, have left the mobile phone circle; Huiding Technology Zhang Fan, which provides fingerprint chips, has made the company worth 100 billion yuan in market value. There are obstacles to their reunion.
Since OPPO rushed to No. 1 in mobile phone sales in China in 2016. On the surface, calmly, Huawei secretly started to study OPPO at the pixel level, rolled out offline stores, and proposed the Qianxian plan. Retail stores are staged daily for slaughter.
Online, Huawei Glory has engraved the Internet model pioneered by Xiaomi. Lu Weibing, who recently joined Xiaomi, was impressed by this. "In the growth process of Huawei, any one is a process of copying and then surpassing."
In April 2017, Huawei's P10 "Flash Gate" incident occurred, and waves of public opinion attacks followed. Huawei suspected that "friends" were behind the scenes.
On December 3, 2017, Lei Jun and Richard Yu met at a dinner organized by Ding Lei on the eve of the Wuzhen Internet Conference. The two clinks to each other, cheer for wine, and temporarily extinguish the war.
And some things are extreme, leaving Chen Mingyong speechless. In 2018, OPPO people found that in Europe, the R17 model in OPPO's hot sales was first registered by Huawei. OPPO also snapped up Huawei's trademark.
"This is definitely not the way to do harm to others." Chen Mingyong said, "The essence of business must return to its duty, it must be considered from the perspective of users, not driven by competition-dig a pit for others. "
At the end of December 2018, in a tea house in Shenzhen, Chen Mingyong had an exchange with media. At that time, at the end of the year, OPPO's upward momentum was no longer there, "the product rhythm went wrong," Chen Mingyong said. The OPPO public relations team encourages Chen Mingyong as CEO to come out to face the media and express his ideas.
Chen Mingyong wore a black casual suit with short hair, a typical Sichuanese figure, neither fat nor thin. According to the appointed time, he arrived alone at 10 am.
Maybe it was too long to be isolated from media reporters. At the beginning, Chen Mingyong was uncomfortable and even hesitant. He has a habit similar to Lei Jun. Feng Xin, the founder of Baofeng Yingyin, who worked in Jinshan, remembers that Lei Jun has a small habit of tearing paper in Jinshan—find a piece of paper, tear it and tear it until it is the smallest—he should keep holding things in his hand to handle.
At the beginning of the communication, Chen Mingyong almost took away the author's tea cup twice, and then he kept playing cards in his hands.
However, after getting acquainted, he got up freely and seemed quite easy-going. He forgot to bring a business card, and he offered to ask the interviewer to add WeChat.
He also talked about various anecdotes about him in the industry, such as never engaging with vivo Shen Wei, never participating in product launches after 2014, and so on. As our interview gradually deepened, he had to answer questions.
He did not conceal the details of the process of dealing with Richard Yu and asked about the checks and balances on Qualcomm chips and MediaTek chips, and the reason for giving up the celebrity endorsement model.
However, spreading the words spoken in a small area, Chen Mingyong seemed hesitant. In some semi-public places, he spoke straight.
In late September 2012, Lei Jun attended a mobile phone party. The site also went to Gionee President Lu Weibing and OPPO CEO Chen Mingyong and others.
Chen Mingyong directly expressed his concerns about blindly relying on low prices for market share. At the end of the year, is it possible for each shareholder to share a few market shares? "And this is the impression that Xiaomi gave the outside world at the time.
Around 2013, China Mobile Guangdong Branch, which accounted for one-sixth of the country's total, called the first and second handset manufacturers together to discuss the development goals of smart phones, the direction of customized technologies, and the screen size and price, such as 999 yuan and 1299 yuan.
Mobile phones, screen sizes are not the same, etc.-Operators customize mobile phones. This is a typical model in the 2G era, although it seems incredible now.
OPPO, vivo, Gionee and other company leaders have gone. Chen Mingyong's turn to speak. He said that China Mobile's responsibility is to do a good job of network coverage, traffic, and earn money.
As for what screen to choose on a mobile phone, we know consumers well and leave it to us. What are you doing? The boss of other mobile phone manufacturers in the same industry secretly gave Chen Mingyong a thumbs up, "Dare to say."
You may realize that you are speaking too frankly. After an interview in 2012, Chen Mingyong proposed to the public relations team and try not to arrange an interview. "What are you talking about? I talk about corporate culture, and it seems that others don't want to listen."
Later, I didn't even go to the press conference. "It doesn't matter if I go or not."
When the Xiaomi model was the hottest, Lei Jun became a net red among the Internet celebrities, calling for wind and rain on Weibo every day; Lei Jun has worked in Jinshan for many years. Jinshan is known as the Huangpu Military Academy in the Internet industry.
Compared with Chen Mingyong, Lei Jun has already become famous in the business world. At least in the Internet circle, many people join in.
Richard Yu started Weibo and tried to learn. Chen Mingyong wrote for a while and found that it affected more of the company's employees and subordinates-not suitable, stopped.
When Chen Mingyong was practicing "closed meditation" in the field of public discourse, Richard Yu adhering to Huawei's consistent "not only the world's top 500" and the rise of independent research and development technology. "Behind the scenes will be beaten" shouted for nearly a century, Huawei firmly occupied the center of the "rejuvenation of technology" field.
On a flight from Beijing to Wuhan on April 23, 2018, Wei Lai, the special assistant to the chairman of the Xiaomi Group, squeezed in the middle of the economy class, lowered his head, and used a mobile phone to delete a speech over and over. It is said that Lei Jun, who loves to fly in economy class, was also on the same flight.
In the afternoon of the second day, at the first press conference of returning to his alma mater, Lei Jun was excited and announced that he would push the price-performance strategy to the extreme: "The overall net interest rate after tax of the overall hardware business (including mobile phones and IOT and consumer products) does not exceed 5%, if it exceeds, we will return more than 5% to Xiaomi users in a reasonable way. "The background of Lei Jun's commercial value is" people's livelihood ".
OPPO emphasizes aesthetics and proposes beautiful technology. "Beauty will become a motive force in society, making a person aware of their connection to the environment, to culture, and to the earth." Chen Mingyong wrote in a circle of friends and forwarded a headline pointing to China People ’s aesthetic differences are more serious than the gap between rich and poor.
Society has not responded more to this claim. "True, good, and beautiful" is the last, and beauty is still in the enlightenment stage.
From 2012 to 2017, OPPO launched the "beauty" of celebrities, enabled celebrity endorsement advertising, and organized a large-scale party with Zhejiang Satellite TV, which cut in from young consumers and attracted many fans. This approach has been criticized by older people as "star advertising, low distribution and high prices."
During a group visit, a reporter asked Chen Mingyong's followers and vice president Wu Qiang. The main payer of OPPO was young people. "What to do when young people grow up?" Wu Qiang paused. "There are always new ones. Young people come out. "
After the cultivated users grow up, they leave and become users of other brands. This business is impossible. OPPO wants to change.
Similarly, marching toward the high end and competing with Apple and Samsung are also the common tasks to be accomplished by the generation of entrepreneurs born in 1969, Lei Jun and Richard Yu.
Background
Mark the hometowns of the godfathers of these mobile phones on the map to get a guide to rural China. All three places are beautiful and economically backward.
Chen Mingyong was born in Damba Mountain, Nanmuping Village, Weijia Town, Wanyuan City, Sichuan Province. Now Dazhou to Wanyuan City, the most economical train-19.5 yuan. It takes two or three hours by car.
From Wanyuan City to Weijia Town, it takes three and a half hours to take the CMB, and then transfer to a private pull car, climb the bridge and cross the valley, it will take more than ten minutes. It can be seen along the way that a narrow road is built along the river, and some open space is squeezed forward at the foot of the mountain.
The road is sometimes at the foot of the mountain, sometimes at the mountainside, and beside it is a river stream more than 20 meters deep. Corn, sweet potatoes and other crops are planted on oblique slopes, and houses are interspersed on the mountainside.
"When in high school, Chen Mingyong often took a ride from this road to Wanyuan Middle School," said Feng Yueshen in October, who is an uncle of Chen Mingyong.
The rural area of Huoqiu, Anhui, where Richard Yu was born, borders Henan and is still a poor county. On the day of his 50th birthday, he tweeted: "The poor rural areas of Anhui were in a very difficult life. (Parents) still insisted on giving me the opportunity to go to school so that I could get out of the countryside." "The second half of life starts a new journey." Lei Jun's hometown, Xiantao, was not wealthy at the time in Hubei.
In 1987, Richard Yu, Lei Jun and Chen Mingyong entered the college entrance examination room at the same time. Lei Jun became a computer student at Wuhan University with a high score. Huo Qiu No. 2 Middle School read by Richard Yu. Before his college entrance examination, no one had obtained a college degree.
He was admitted to the Department of Automatic Control of Northwestern Polytechnical University with the first place in the school's fresh science and engineering department.
Chen Mingyong obtained the major of Electronic Physics and Technology of Zhejiang University with excellent results.
"This is entirely the result of Chen Mingyong's character and choice." Feng Yueshen said. In the poor rural areas, there is a better way to study and earn money to support the family earlier.
After graduating from junior high school, they take the middle school entrance examination and become teachers after passing the normal education. Normal students are exempt from tuition and have monthly allowances. As the eldest son in the family, this choice can ease the burden on siblings.
However, Chen Mingyong, who received the teacher's admission notice in 1984, was ridiculed when contending with others for watering the ground, "What's so great about a normal student!" With a lot of effort, I went to Wanyuan City Education Committee to change my school status and returned to high school to study.
That year, Huawei and Lenovo just started, and personal computers just entered China. According to Ling Zhijun's "China's New Revolution", in the second year, the founders of Lenovo Company, a total of 20 people, moved a large number of microcomputers from the gate into the yard, with more than 2,000 boxes.
Magnificent, people pull shoulders. Through the glass window, someone saw Liu Chuanzhi under the scorching sun. This character of Zhongguancun in the future was sweaty and his clothes were soaked.
At that time, the so-called assembly and debugging in the factory was not related to "technical development". Large-scale computer assembly lines will not be established until the mid-1990s, and even "product design" began years later.
Throughout the 1980s, people held a screwdriver and assembled a large number of diverse parts. From the first process to the last process, it was done by one person alone. The situation is like the machine manufacturer behind a business counter today.
Huawei's earliest program-controlled switches, referring to foreign products, changed from end to end. Only the case was a self-developed product.
In the future, entrepreneurs who upgraded these backward production lines to the most advanced level in the world were still drawing nutrition from the passionate society and universities of the 1980s.
"Silicon Valley Fire" is an American bestseller published in 1984. It comprehensively introduces the history of the development of computers, especially personal computers, introduces knowledge of microcomputer hardware and software from various perspectives, and discusses personal and development trend of computers. This book captured college student Lei Jun and determined the general direction of life's efforts.
Chen Mingyong watched a French novel "The King of Green" in Zhejiang University Library. The hero has more than 200 branches around the world.
One detail was that he walked to the branch door and said his name. The security still didn't know who was in front of him. "I like this lifestyle." Chen Mingyong said.
In Ling Zhijun's writings, the 1980s was defined as a short, fragile, but characteristic and exciting time in the history of contemporary China.
After graduating in 1991, Lei Jun chose to go to Beijing to work in an institute of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry. Richard Yu stayed at school. Chen Mingyong was suspended for one year due to physical reasons.
After graduating in 1992, he was assigned to a state-owned factory in Chengdu. Less than a month later, he dropped the bunk and went to Dongguan in the south to join Duan Yongping's company.
That year, Shenzhen became a hot land. Richard Yu bid farewell to the campus, went south to Shenzhen, and joined Huawei. Lei Jun accepted Jinshan's founder Qiu Bojun at the beginning of the year and became the No. 6 employee of Jinshan.
By coincidence, all three young people have chosen private companies without iron rice bowls, and a destiny has already taken place.
Inherited
Duan Yongping was later known as the Chinese version of Buffett. He founded the BBK Group with great success. At the time of his fame, he split BBK One into three and turned it into the later OPPO, vivo, and BBK Education Company, and then mainly invested .
Chen Mingyong, who has always followed Duan Yongping, is bound to be influenced by the former.
"In the early stage, it was more his influence on me. The most important thing was his duty and values, which belonged to the cultural level." Chen Mingyong said that different Taos do not work together, and the same Tao is very important. "I often sing some contradictions and say something different."
Starting from the internship period, Chen Mingyong, who has done a good job, became the director of Duan Yongping's office. Coming out of Xiaobawang, he founded BBK following Duan Yongping. He is one of the founders.
An old OPPO veteran said that to BBK Audio-Visual (formerly known as OPPO), he was first sent by Duan Yongping to assist in management, and became a leader several years later.
In business management, Chen Mingyong is a fierce role. An old employee remembers that he reprimanded an errant supervisor for an hour where the company was coming and going.
What subordinate Liu Jun respects is his judgment on the future situation. "Chen Mingyong is rarely affected by so-called hotspots and big coffees.
He has his own channels for receiving information and making judgments." Under Chen Mingyong's advocacy, company executives often use lunch to talk easily, and some young employees can participate. There are also reading clubs among executives, recommending books to each other.
OPPO made DVDs and MP3s in the early days. In a trendy and counterfeit product, it adhered to the real materials, combined with thin and beautiful appearance, and achieved success.
After founding Xiaomi, Lei Jun felt the same when he shared with Lenovo. "Why do we have a low-quality product in the global concept of China for more than 30 years since reform and opening up? Chinese people like to take shortcuts and cut corners. If the foundation is evergreen, we must turn the real materials into faith. "
After working in the industry for more than ten years, in 2005, Chen Mingyong felt that Chinese enterprises had no substantial progress.
In 2006, when the DVD market was expected to shrink, Chen Mingyong wandered for several hours in an electronics market in Shenzhen and could not find his favorite mobile phone.
"I don't know if I went to the real Huaqiangbei. That was more than 10 years ago, I went there once." Chen Mingyong said.
Before launching the first feature phone in 2008, Chen Mingyong found Liu Jun and asked him to study for two years. Liu Jun is the type of employee that Chen Mingyong likes-graduated from university (2001) and joined OPPO.
Young people love to study and study, and have a strong interest in emerging things. Liu Jun assumed the task of building a mobile phone team, recruiting many experienced people from the industry to learn from each other.
In May 2007, when the first mobile phone was pressed with the power button, the system was successfully debugged. With the startup screen and sound, "like the first cry of a child."
Liu Jun held the group photo excitedly. However, "the excitement lasted only one second," Liu Jun said. At that time, almost all feature phones used the MediaTek system solution.
The startup was the same ringtone, and the interface, wallpapers and games were all MediaTek. Many brands don't care, but "What is the significance of the existence of OPPO?" Increasing R & D investment and achieving differentiation have become a practical need.
At the time, Lei Jun at Jinshan Software was outstanding for his talents, and his position rose rapidly. At the same time, he also accumulated frustrations for understanding the future. Station founder Chen Rui once worked as a technical assistant for Lei Jun.
The details are much finer than those of front-line employees, and he tirelessly tells him how to do the work-teaching employees to wear dark pants must wear dark socks.
At that time, Richard Yu experienced the joy of the successful development of the first program-controlled switch. He was not outstanding in Huawei's first independently developed project team, and the technical genius Li Yinan was the focus of everyone.
Years later, in an interview with his hometown, Huoqiu County TV Station, Richard Yu once sold his home-grown switch. None of them has entered the mobile phone field.
The success of OPPO's first feature phone is a realistic derivation of precise business judgment. Chen Mingyong asked other people in the mobile phone industry that international brands occupy more than 2,000 yuan, and the core battlefield of domestic brands is seven or eight hundred yuan.
Why not make the product close to Sony and raise the price to about 1,500 yuan? "This is our advantage ?!"
His question was refuted. The other party said that this is our strategy, and domestic brands must avoid them.
Two reasons. First, you can't technically do as well as an international brand. Secondly, you must choose the same components as it, once the stock is out of stock, the supplier must first guarantee the supply to the major manufacturers.
This sounds very reasonable. Chen Mingyong and Liu Jun insisted on their own judgments. The first mobile phone was sold for 1299 yuan, and the response was very good. The new models continued to rise in price all the way.
OPPO became the absolute king of 1,000 yuan to 2000 yuan, driving domestic mobile phone prices.
Early success cut into the function machine decision, "Whether it is my decision, Chen Mingyong making a decision, or any other executive, based on our culture, it must be that choice." This makes Liu Jun remember deeply.
Consistent concepts and actions, OPPO has the embryonic concept that later became the top five mobile phone companies in the world.
Follow the Trend
At the age of 40, on December 16, 2009, on a snowy night, Lei Jun, Li Wanqiang, Li Xueling and other old Jinshan Ministry and friends summarized a life experience. Lei Jun wanted to turn Jinshan into Microsoft in China.
He worked diligently and personally for 15 years. Kingsoft products have always been in the cracks of Microsoft Office software for survival.
According to People Magazine's report in "Lei Jun Leopard Change", Lei Jun has since emphasized that he must follow the trend and not move against the trend.
It was later discovered that this potential was the mobile Internet. Lei Jun specially set up an angel investment fund called "Shunwei".
There are many new opportunities in the mobile Internet. Lei Jun slowly summarized some experiences: for example, the seven-character formula of "Internet thinking": focus, extreme, word of mouth, fast. These were later used in Xiaomi.
In 2011, Lei Jun drank Xiaomi porridge in Zhongguancun with 13 people, including Lin Bin, Li Wanqiang and Huang Jiangji, to start Xiaomi's entrepreneurial journey.
Once, Lei Jun wanted to invest in Meizu Huang Zhang as a mobile phone. There is an executive below Meizu. The software and hardware capabilities are very strong, but there is no penny. It is easy for Lei Jun to be stolen by others.
Huang ’s answer shocked Lei Jun. "He was taken away by myself Competent. "This made Lei Jun unbearable. "Silicon Valley Fire" inspired Lei Jun, and the stock + partnership venture system was brought into the new company.
Opportunities are coming fast in the age of the smartphone, enclosing those who are willing to follow. Lei Jun and his entrepreneurial partners are busy flying. Lei Jun said, "On the packaging, on the product, for example, how to put the font, size, and size of things.
I have seen these details, including each picture sent by Xiaomi Weibo. I set it." He also visited suppliers, ran into the factory, developed the conference, and preached the new Internet mobile phone gameplay, removing the advantage of e-commerce that the intermediate channel operators earn the difference.
Richard Yu has been in charge of Huawei terminals since 2011. Earlier, in Europe, he had spent a few years in charge of expatriates. On the one hand, he felt a strong culture and art in Europe and "improved his vision and insight."
Regarding the topic of Huawei's openness or technical black hole, Richard Yu never expressed his views. He likes to talk about Huawei's methodology, "it's the best way to get it," and "there is only the first in the dictionary, no second."
Richard Yu's people are the permanent generals who bravely rushed to the front and won. Huawei's mobile phone set a strategy of stopping white-brand foundry machines, impacting high-end, self-developed chips and self-built channels.
Huawei's internal rotation and rotation is a system. Richard Yu has been in charge of Huawei terminals since 2011. He sometimes has rotation voices, but he has persisted. "This is no one before and no one comes after Huawei."
Huawei executive Yang Xiao (pseudonym) told "Perception", "First, Richard has proven his ability through Huawei's internal systems (lead Huawei Wireless to be the world's first The European business is the first in the company); second, he has relatively good experience. "
In Yang Xiao's view, this experience is not ordinary people's smoothness, nor is it the strategy of traditional Chinese Confucian merchants. "He used a more extreme approach."
When Richard Yu was in charge of Western Europe, he was called by the market boss Hu Houkun to the headquarters. Have a meeting. Hu spoke first, and then let the regions speak.
In the face of fierce external competition, Richard Yu often spoke amazingly, regardless of his opponent's feelings.
In 2016, Huawei held a launch conference of its mobile phone product P9 in London. This phone was released half an month after the R9 of OPPO, and the price is in the range of 2499 to 3999 yuan, which is a direct competitor. In a small conference room, Richard Yu talked with the media.
When it came to competitors, "they (OPPO, vivo) have never seen the world, at best they can only be regarded as a Dongguan brand, it is impossible to become a world brand."
Transmutation
OPPO was in crisis in 2012 and almost closed down. Caused by two to three months, the smooth sales of feature phones that had previously been sold out were suppressed by channel vendors and stores.
According to the pace of suppliers placing orders and stocking half a year or three months in advance, many parts have changed from 2G to 3G, and a large number of upstream orders need to be cut. This is the most severe test of duty values in history.
Mr. Chen, the secretary general of the China Mobile Alliance, is a friend of Chen Mingyong and is also familiar with upstream suppliers.
At that time, OPPO found the supplier and said that the goods were no longer needed. You should handle it yourself and pay the money as usual. At that time, many second- and third-tier brands did not pick up or give money, only OPPO gave more than 700 million yuan.
This is just a difficulty on one side. On the other side, the unsellable goods are accelerating depreciation every day. OPPO gave dealers a back seat and took back feature machine inventory. These are hard to sell anymore.
They are all electronic waste. Seeing these practices, the old lady told her company employees that OPPO is worthy of attention in the future.
Chen Mingyong mentioned OPPO's profit distribution and dividends. "Earn two dollars, pay two cents, and one eight, and put one dollar on your account. In addition, invest 8 cents carefully."
Product breakthrough transformation saw hope at the 2012 conference-the emergence of ultra-thin Finder phones. After Chen Mingyong's OPPO Find 903, the first smartphone, was made, "it was too hard, I wanted to prove myself, 16.6 mm was too thick."
This 30-million-yuan product invited Leonardo to advertise, Poor sales. Vice President Liu Jun reflected that he chose the product with the most difficult technology and the most differentiated characteristics, but it was not the consumer's favorite.
At this time, a kind of speech first spread in the brand department: the research and development department had neither courage nor ability.
A middle-level cadre in research and development took this sentence back, and instantly fry the pot in the research and development team, feeling humiliated.
In the eyes of Jiang Anyi, another vice president of human resources management, OPPO was in the process of transforming a typical manufacturing company into a knowledge company.
In the era of feature phones, the employees of manufacturing companies execute the boss' instructions, which means which one to fight. In the era of smart phones, employees need to think across fields, collaborate across departments, and bring their own energy.
With the help of a consulting company, OPPO has conducted a series of interviews, evaluations, exercises, games and watching videos from executives.
The largest one, more than 170 directors have been in the Pullman Hotel for four or five consecutive days. The first is loosening the soil, rigid management style before the change.
The second is to implant the concept of autonomy and give play to the initiative of each employee.
Some new rules have also been made more stringent, with relatives of senior executives not allowed to work for the company.
In this process, "Chen Mingyong has taken the initiative, has the biggest changes, and is truly empowered. Everyone communicates fairly." Jiang Anyi said.
Chen Mingyong's previous products, production, sales and branding may all be involved. Since then, the members of the decision-making committee have divided the procurement, research and development, marketing, and channels into their own fields. "My site is my master."
It was officially determined. CEO Chen Mingyong was in charge of overall work. He worked hard to get rid of his previous habit, changed from a southern boss to an entrepreneur, and learned to think reflexively.
Finder became the thinnest mobile phone in the world at that time, and it was in the process of forming this kind of organizational atmosphere.
Liu Jun was in charge of product development at the time. In the early days of making mobile phones, he appreciated King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, changed his English name to King, and formed a core team.
At that time, there was internal strength to make the thickness of the mobile phone 9.3 mm, and Liu Jun had to make 7.1 mm. He removed the then director of structure and replaced him as a consultant.
Switching to the second structural director, from a well-known company at the time, still can't do it. Continue to the third term Li Mingyang.
In order to attach importance to Liu Jun, as the vice president and head of the structure department. Time is running out. Companies such as motorcycles and Fujitsu have already achieved about 7.1 millimeters.
At the time of the attack, the six ministers of development found Liu Jun, and there were several hardware experts around him.
They had some ideas in various aspects such as PCB, plate, heat dissipation and power supply. See if they could do something to make the phone thin.
Liu Jun asked him to go with Li Mingyang and set up a project team. This is the prototype of the Finder project team.
The process was much faster this time, and a new prototype was soon available. Seeing that he was getting closer to the ideal product in his mind, Liu Jun told six people, including Li Mingyang, Zhang Jialiang, and Liu Fengshuo, to pay attention to confidentiality, and "polished and polished more, it is more like a product."
It was almost the Spring Festival of 2012. On the third day after Liu Jun finished speaking, Li Mingyang and others took the prototype in their pockets and attended the company's annual meeting.
Toasting Chen Mingyong, with the power of wine, "We are all a wave of people who want to make products. What brand department said We have neither courage nor ability? "Then, crying and taking out the prototype, you see, Tony (Chen Mingyong), this is what we do. "
Chen Mingyong asked, is this a model? He boots and the screen starts. He immediately called the brand manager Liu Lie, "This product is good, we must do it." Then he called the product team to evaluate. The site of the annual meeting turned into an office site, and a rough business decision was made immediately.
Rise
From 2014 to 2016, smartphones were in an outbreak period, and Richard Yu, Lei Jun and Chen Mingyong all had great gains.
Huawei's Mate 7 series, large screen, fingerprint recognition and long battery life, plus the self-developed "China Core" Kirin chip blessing, finally stood on the high-end market for the first time.
At the beginning, the interior was not optimistic, and the amount of stock was not large. When it was issued by the domestic administrative department, from the perspective of security, the public servants had better not use foreign brands.
Huawei Mate 7 became difficult to find, and some people were willing to increase the price. Richard Yu proudly told the media, "People who sold me a car many years ago came to buy it, and I haven't seen my old classmates for years."
Xiaomi is in the heyday of the Internet mobile phone model and has become a learning object for almost all walks of life.
In August 2014, CITIC Publishing took the opportunity to launch the "Participation: Internal Handbook for Xiaomi Word of Mouth Marketing", which soon became a bestseller.
This book is prefaced by Lei Jun and the author is Li Wanqiang. Later, Li Wanqiang left Xiaomi to study in the United States.
The OPPO led by Chen Mingyong is also enthusiastic. In 2015, Chen Mingyong led OPPO after the early discomfort of smartphones, and adjusted it in a rising period. Because of many years of "stocking" R&D personnel Zhang Jialiang without KPI assessment, Chen Mingyong has acquired a unique weapon-fast charging technology.
The low-voltage and high-current flash charging technology developed by Zhang Jialiang has taken a completely different technical path from mainstream high-voltage and low-current fast charging such as Qualcomm and MTK, but the effect is better.
In 2014, this technology was used in Find 7, and the response is getting better and better.
When 3G to 4G, Chen Mingyong took the initiative, not as passive as 2G to 3G. At the China Mobile Summit in Guangzhou at the end of 2013, China Mobile ordered 80 million 4G mobile phones, which were divided into many price segments.
At that time, some manufacturers used 3-mode chips. The price of 3-mode mobile phones was 1,299 yuan in the first half and 999 yuan in the second half. The 3 modes include TD-SCDMA + TD-LTE + GSM, which can only be used for China Mobile network.
After going abroad, there is no TD-SCDMA, only GSM 2G signals remain. At that time, Qualcomm's 5-mode chip could support mobile, China Unicom and telecommunications, and the price was slightly more expensive.
From the perspective of users, Chen Mingyong believes that it is not necessary to pay attention to the 4-core and 8-core chip gimmicks, but to make a 4G mobile phone, it is necessary to make a true 5-mode. He chose Qualcomm chips.
Since March 2014, OPPO 4G mobile phones have been on the market. In April, there was a shortage of supply. By the May Day holiday, Qualcomm's chip mobile phones were sold out of stock.
OPPO 4G mobile phones borrowed the power of China Mobile's call subsidy. As of September of that year, China Mobile announced the first OPPO in 4G mobile phone market share, surpassing all competitors.
On the channels, a set of marketing system summed up by Jet Lee has also gradually improved. He built the basic structure of the self-built channel and set up SE (Sales Executive Manager). The position above SE is ASM (regional sales manager).
There are 3 supervisors (TL) under SE. There are several brand advisors under supervision. Together, they form a dense sales network in the market.
These people travel through various mobile phone stores in the streets and streets every day, from advertising space to mobile phone prices, bargaining, clappering, paying, and organizing various promotional activities.
In a company's general meeting in a certain year, Chen Mingyong named Li Jie for his achievements on the channel. The offline channel model gives OPPO the confidence to fight against the Xiaomi model. After all, offline channels are still the main sales, and online sales are less than 30%.
In 2016, the R9 series entered the field that OPPO is good at, as it was when it entered the functional machine market that year. It is the result of combining precise business insight with product technology upgrades.
Around the end of 2015, Chen Mingyong found that Apple and Samsung accounted for more than 30% of the total market for mobile phones over 3,000 yuan.
Domestic brands are concentrated below 2,000 yuan, of which more than 800 yuan and less than 2,000 yuan, close to 20%, the 800 yuan range is the most crowded, with a 40% share.
In the price range of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, domestic brands occupy less than 4% of the market. Starting from R7, OPPO concentrated its efforts on this interval, reaching R9 and R9s.
However, the long-term crisis has not disappeared. Looking back at the 2015 node for 10 years, compared with the previous 10 years, China's manufacturing industry still has no substantial progress.
Compared with Apple and Samsung, although the market gap has narrowed, there are still many problems. "You can only make a partial change after you have done well." Chen Mingyong said. He no longer mentions "in the world," he still has to innovate.
In the context of the Dongguan processing industry, a Dongguan technology industry official told "Perception" that he summarized the essence of his work in the past five years and found that companies that have developed well in the high-tech industry have made a clear path: first through integration, speed up Funds flowed back, quickly scaled up, and after understanding the market demand, pointed out the direction for core technology research and development, nurtured research and development, and finally completed one or two core technology breakthroughs, so as to grasp the bargaining power and pricing power.
Chen Mingyong analyzed that Japan, South Korea, and Germany all developed with the use of demographic dividends at the earliest.
However, this road can only be taken for three or five decades. After the rich countries and incomes in the following countries, rents and labor costs have risen value? First, high-end technology upgrades and innovations (such as fast charging technology, leading the industry, Apple officially joined fast charging in 2019); second, occupying high-end brands. "With 1,000 companies like this, China has more hope."
Different Paths
PR manager Jiang Ziyun saw Chen Mingyong get angry in 2018 because she saw a Find X warm-up poster in her office.
The poster said, "Not all flagships have 256G memory." On that day, the process was to take some annual public relations photos for Chen Mingyong. "When I put on makeup, I suddenly became angry," Jiang Ziyun said.
She heard Chen Mingyong snapped, "This Who did the poster, we obviously have 128G in Find X. What does the poster say, what does it mean? Can we still sell 128G Find X? "
A group of photos taken that day were all cold faces.
Chen Mingyong returned to the office angrily and closed the door alone for a long time. At that time, OPPO's official Weibo had announced that sentence, and many media had followed up. He called the product planning department and asked if he could stop shipping 128G mobile phones (which have been prepared for production).
Many executives went to Chen Mingyong's office to explain after they knew the matter.
Now that we are killing red-eye in the mobile phone market, we take the characteristics of flagship phones as a common preaching, highlight the main selling points, and almost become the mainstream approach.
Chen Mingyong's anger seemed out of place. His idea is very simple. OPPO cannot play such a small cleverness and cannot condone taking advantage of users. It was also explained that this is a good use of technical speech. Chen Mingyong asked, "The question is whether you can do it?"
Li Jie, sent to Indonesia, saw logistics and distribution opportunities outside of the mobile phone channel. Chen Mingyong and Li Jie established a J & T company to build an efficient distribution network through local special transportation.
If the future development is successful, it is Indonesia. SF. At first, Liu Lie, who was a brand, had to go out alone, and Chen Mingyong took the money to support it.
Even those employees who left the company to make tea, he was willing to buy, "after all, he has been educated for a few years." He is closer to the ideal of the "Green King" owner when he was young.
Like Chen Mingyong, Lei Jun was also influenced by Wang Yangming's psychology, advocating for conscience and the unity of knowledge and action.
However, Chen Mingyong is even more deceitful, and follows Wang Yangming, traces back to Taoism, Confucian classics, and involves Zen classics.
This is roughly the spiritual map of Chen Mingyong's management. He is conscious of shaping a relaxed, self-disciplined atmosphere and attaches importance to product and innovation corporate culture.
The Tao Te Ching states that there are one life, two life, two life three, and three life. Thanks to the understanding of this sentence, the OPPO under Chen Mingyong has continuously differentiated new companies: Liu Zuohu's OnePlus mobile phone, which focuses on high-end online, has made a breakthrough in India; Li Bingzhong's realme, which focuses on online price-performance. Homologous. In this respect, he is more like Duan Yongping than vivo Shen Wei.
In contrast, Huawei served by Richard Yu is much harsher. Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei born in 1944, also studied Japanese management in his early days. After the company grew, he introduced IBM consulting to reform the modern enterprise system.
On the whole, Ren Zhengfei continued to announce the advent of winter, driving "more than 100,000 people to attack a city wall for decades, tearing a hole", "striving a hole, making a hole."
Collectivism with militarization, coupled with technological wolfness, has made Huawei invincible in almost all areas it has entered.
Xiaomi was founded 8 years ago and is still a young company. Lei Jun's management style has not yet taken shape. For quality, he will introduce Tongrentang to the outside world; for efficiency, Costco and Wal-Mart will be introduced; when it comes to word of mouth, Haidilao will be mentioned; he said that these are examples of Xiaomi learning.
In the business, the original eco-chain enterprise under the leadership of Xiaomi Liu De, he later transferred to the group organization department like Li Wanqiang.
In the mobile phone business, Lei Jun recruited former Gionee president Lu Weibing, and former comrades-in-arms gradually faded out. However, some people may think that this is because the people who participated in the entrepreneurship can no longer keep up with the times. "This is an industry that requires continuous learning," said Old Man.
Xiaomi accidentally harvested the local executive Manu in India and achieved the first place in the Indian market, surpassing Samsung.
At that time, in order to get the mobile phones subsidized by the operators, they unexpectedly found overseas destinations for domestic mobile phone manufacturers. Xiaomi then entered markets such as Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam; Europe entered Spain and Italy.
In these countries, OPPO, together with realme, OnePlus, and Xiaomi, Samsung, vivo, etc., are fighting against each other. Whether Xiaomi will perform the same path in the domestic market overseas is one of Lei Jun's focus.
Decisive Battle
Image competition has always been the main battlefield of smartphones.
"The launch of the Huawei P20 mobile phone (March 2018) 40-megapixel main camera is a turning point."
In the OPPO office lounge area, the imaging team Wang Yuan (pseudonym) analyzed that on the one hand, Huawei continued to adhere to the multi-camera route, A large sensor was customized for the main camera.
This not only makes buyers feel the benefits of the number of cameras, but also improves the shooting quality.
Previously, OPPO has led the industry with its ingenious team, which has pioneered ultra-thin cameras in ultra-thin mobile phones, RGGB four-pixel unification, and flip camera phones.
Since then, Huawei has surpassed OPPO in the image part on the road to high-end. In the image route, OPPO has proposed a 5x optical zoom, but it has not been approved by Chen Mingyong.
In 2016 and 2017, Liu Jun worked with six institutions including Sunyu to jointly develop a 5x zoom. However, Chen Mingyong is an aesthetic control.
He has paid attention to the appearance from the beginning of DVD and MP3, and even carefully cut a seam on the product.
OPPO's interior design school has the upper hand, and these people can't tolerate the phone camera protruding. Chen Mingyong also sees that the periscope 5x optical solution is still immature, and the high cost is a big challenge.
OPPO sensors have not evolved according to 1 / 2.3, 1/2, and 1 / 1.7, and Huawei ordered customization from Sony in early 2017, which was the later Huawei P20 large sensor. "We have not kept up with the trend of large sensors.
After OPPO customized the IMX519 to Sony (half a year earlier than the same model from Huawei), it was too thick to allow use. Sony took the risk and spent time and human resources to cooperate. These There is no way to make up for the damage. "Wang Yuan said. Since then, the 5x zoom solution was temporarily put on hold after the Pakistani exhibition in February 2017.
Huawei's mobile phone is not thin and light, sacrificing thickness change function, in line with science and technology masculinity. Those who got the image in China won the world. During this time, OPPO lost the top spot in the domestic market and gave way to Huawei.
Inspired by the 5x optical zoom, Huawei directly went to Sunyu and proposed to do 10x optical zoom to avoid the OPPO 5x protocol.
At the beginning of 2018, after Wang Yuan and the team learned, internally, the company agreed to restart the zoom project. Shunyu signed an exclusive agreement with Huawei, and OPPO found a replacement for Samsung Electric.
These later became the battle between the Huawei P30 series telescope and OPPO Reno 10x zoom version in early 2019.
On November 5, 2019, Xiaomi released the Xiaomi CC 9 Pro. Its DXOMARK camera scored 121 points, tied with Huawei Mate 30 pro for the world's first. Lei Jun realizes the importance of images. At the same time, it is worthwhile to express Huawei's position.
Xiaomi and Huawei love and kill each other. It is also a Chinese company that wins glory for the country. Younger Xiaomi also needs everyone's support. "A single flower is not spring, all flowers bloom in the spring garden."
According to the strategy set by Richard Yu, Huawei's mobile phone has made a breakthrough from OEM to mid-to-high end, and in the process, it has continuously integrated new technologies developed by itself and others.
Ren Zhengfei called for "a cup of coffee to attract the energy of the universe," Huawei technical personnel spilled out and brought back various understandings of new technologies.
Tribulation
In 2019, Richard Yu, Lei Jun and Chen Mingyong have strategically converged. They no longer dispute online and offline. Xiaomi has been exploring offline for a few years. Huawei's offline stores have opened a new form.
In Wanyuan City, the number of stores opened exceeded OPPO stores, and computers and other peripherals were tied up. To be high-end, Xiaomi Mi MIX in 2016 led a wave of full-screen trends to help Xiaomi stop the downward trend; they also value 5G.
Like Apple, Samsung, and Huawei, OPPO also plans to make up for chip shortcomings. This will test corporate execution.
According to Lao's analysis, Huawei's system, operating model, corporate culture, and resource accumulation are in line with the trend of mobile phones. In the early stages, terminals ran with chips, and later chips driven the terminals.
Xiaomi developed its own upstream chip at the same time as the DJI drone. DJI found algorithmic talents from Lianxin, and the chip has made achievements. Xiaomi also dug design talents from Lianxin, but the effect is not satisfactory.
OPPO employees have increased sharply in recent years. Can chips such as Zhang Jialiang continue to breed innovative talents in the fields of chips, artificial intelligence and IoT? This is the challenge facing Chen Mingyong.
In January 2019, after a long period of research and thinking, Chen Mingyong promoted the addition of "critical thinking and dare to challenge" into this sub-value. It is not enough to just isolate external pressures and temptations and maintain a normal mentality.
Xiaomi, in charge of Lei Jun, has continued to add research and development. Xiaomi invested 5.8 billion yuan in research and development in 2018, an increase of 81% over 2017. From 2016 to 2018, Xiaomi's three-year research and development expenditure reached 11.1 billion yuan.
Huawei has also come up with a 5 billion investment fund, and the consciousness of building an ecosystem through capital seems to have already existed.
This is at least a stance improvement. "In the past, the old president did not trust others and did not invest in others," said Yang Xiao, a former Huawei executive who had a lot of contact with Ren Zhengfei.
Lei Jun once said: "I believe that in the next ten years, Xiaomi will drive the entire Japanese industry like Sony in the 70s and 80s, and Samsung in the 1990s and 21st century will drive the industry in China." It may be the common dream of this generation of entrepreneurs in 1969.
This generation of entrepreneurs is very old and has a lot of wings. Thousands of employees have obeyed orders.
The material level and income have also broken through the constraints. There seems to be more reasons for indulgence. The evil and desire in human nature come to the door.
Some entrepreneurs are indulgent or looking for true love, some mobile phone entrepreneurs push the hobby of music speakers and carpenters to the extreme, and others spend a lot of money at the gambling table for excitement.
At this time, the discipline and restraint of the entrepreneur are particularly important.
When Tencent News communicated with Chen Mingyong, the topic was introduced naturally when Gionee mobile phone was lost because the founder Liu Lirong Saipanhao gambled and lost money in Hong Kong. The Gionee brand was in danger.
Liu Lirong came out of Jinzheng to set up Jinli. The founders of Jinzheng, like Duan Yongping and Chen Mingyong, all came from Xiaobawang Company. In terms of business operations and play, Gionee has similarities with OPPO, but their fate is divided.
Chen Mingyong believes that "the existence of an enterprise must have a sense of mission, and there must be something that allows people to come from the heart and lead a group of people in the long run.
Not just to make money, or to be the first, I think this is The reasons for deciding whether a good business can go further. "
At Ren Zhengfei of Huawei, he reminded himself and his employees to keep their original intention with a sense of crisis not far from winter.
Chen Mingyong sought from Wang Yangming's countermeasures, "My generation works hard, only decreases day by day, and does not increase day by day. If you decrease one point of desire, you will save one point of reason, and be brisk, simple, and able to restrain yourself."
On weekdays, Chen Mingyong will spend half a day energetic to deal with important affairs and decision-making. Other times, he will drink tea, read books, and interact with others.
Occasionally, he gave up golf he once liked. "It is better to run two laps downstairs." When Chen Mingyong was young, he had the habit of watching Jin Yong's martial arts novels. Now he has become an online fantasy novel. Biography has some fun.
He maintains the habit of returning to his hometown every year on the Ching Ming Festival, walking on the muddy mountain road (without cars), sitting at his grandmother's house, and talking with relatives and friends.
More than thirty years ago, when the sky was raining heavily, junior high school student Chen Mingyong and another slightly larger companion in the same village waded across the river and the water level rose across the bridge.
Chen Mingyong saw the teenager swallowed by the flood. Never come back again.
Previously, there were fiber-optic bridges, wooden bridges, and Shiping bridges, all of which were destroyed by torrents. Whenever there was heavy rain, it became a dangerous area.
As a result, he built the Xingchang Bridge in his hometown-10 meters high and 30 meters long, to make the two sides of the Straits changeable. Once completed, such tragedies will be gone forever.
Today the younger generation crosses the river. If there is a chance to meet a new business world with heritage, self-sufficiency, self-confidence, freedom from fear and creativity, it is the generation of Chinese manufacturing entrepreneurs born in 1969. You chase after me, forming each other's hard work.