Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3012: Price War

2014 was definitely a brilliant year in the history of the domestic IT industry.

Chinese gaming companies listed in the US have delisted and returned to China to invest in the A-share market; the O2O business of mobile Internet is in full swing in China; the taxi war has allowed netizens to truly enjoy the dividends of the Internet; the spread of WeChat red envelopes and mobile payments has allowed Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, which are at the forefront of the era, to begin to enter a cashless society.

BAT has set sail to overseas.

Alibaba has invested in and acquired three e-commerce companies in the United States. After defeating Amazon in the domestic market, it intends to enter the US market to compete with Amazon. Penguin adopts an investment model, spending money widely in the European and American markets, investing in a large number of social and gaming companies, hoping to replicate their core "social + gaming" architecture in overseas markets. Baidu has invested heavily in Uber, but this is not a big deal. Baidu is not an American company and does not have to follow the rules of Silicon Valley. It has attacked Google fiercely and poached a large number of elite engineers from Google.

The domestic market is even more prosperous and bloody.

The twelve golden medals of radio and television are pressing the Internet boxes step by step, but manufacturers and users have their own countermeasures. It is a saying that “although the policy is ruthless, there is true love in the world”.

Previously, TV boxes were all produced by non-Internet technology companies, which were easily restricted by relevant agencies. Now it is different. Internet manufacturers have joined the game one after another. The Internet is best at playing OTT. You have Zhang Liang's plan, and I have a ladder to climb over the wall. Faced with the high-sounding top-level design of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, the industry has interpreted the Qin and Han wars in a very vivid way, quietly bypassing the supervision and continuing to develop business.

Coupled with the rapid development of the Internet and smart hardware, Internet boxes have ushered in a round of explosive growth. Software and hardware manufacturers have joined in one after another, and the industry sentiment is optimistic...

Of course, the most dazzling industry is the mobile phone industry!

For this purpose, Zhou Shaoning made a special trip to the United States to meet with Boss Zhou.

"This Lei Jun is going too far!"

Zhou Shaoning is coming with great momentum.

Zhou Buqi was just about to go to the airport to pick up his two beauties, one was Huo Hua, the beautiful girl hired for him by the office, and the other was Wang Langli, his second wife whom he had snatched away personally. Unexpectedly, Zhou Shaoning came running over in a hurry.

"Tell me what's going on quickly." Zhou Buqi was a little anxious. "I have a friend coming here from China. Her father has leukemia. I want to take him to Stanford Medical School for treatment."

Zhou Shaoning spoke faster, "Xiaomi has launched a new series of mobile phones, the Redmi phone, did you know that?"

"I heard about it." Zhou Buqi nodded, "I heard the price is very low?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "It's about the price! I was communicating with him and asked what the price range of the Redmi phone was. There was no need for both parties to be too confrontational. He told me it was 999 yuan."

Zhou Buqi said "hmm", "Then what?"

Zhou Shaoning said angrily: "Redmi has been launched now. The Pro version of Redmi is 999 yuan, and the regular version is only 799 yuan!"

"No wonder when I read the domestic news, it's all about Redmi!"

Zhou Buqi secretly admired him.

This is what Boss Lei does.

Zhou Shaoning was very dissatisfied, "He didn't tell the truth!"

Zhou Buqi didn't think so. "It is indeed 999 yuan, but the enhanced version is only 999 yuan. It's no use for you to come to me for this kind of thing. Well... 799 is a good thing. With such a price, domestic copycat phones will completely lose the market."

"Ugh!"

Zhou Shaoning sighed.

Zhou Buqi was amused.

  I wonder why all of them are so stingy?

It's just that you were fooled. There is no such thing as gentleness, courtesy, frugality and modesty in business competition.

  Especially the increasingly inward-looking mobile phone industry has entered a period of either you or me dying. You deserve to be cheated. Meizu was fooled by Lei Jun, and has to fight Xiaomi every day. How come you, the president of Estar, are the same as the boss of Meizu, a small factory?

Of course, Zhou Buqi's ability to have such a mentality is also related to the fact that Boss Lei did not infringe on his interests.

Boss Lei is working for the development of Xiaomi, which is something Zhou Buqi is happy to see.

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "It's just a 799 Redmi. How can it be invincible? What about domestic peers? Do they just let Xiaomi do this unscrupulously?"

"It's a price war!" Zhou Shaoning was a little exhausted. This kind of life-and-death price war and the super internal competition that harms others and does not benefit oneself are really unbearable for ordinary people. "Many mobile phone manufacturers have taken action. Huawei was the first to take action. Its Honor brand launched the 998X Play for 3 yuan. Lenovo is even more aggressive and launched a gold fighter S8. The price is hard to compete with Xiaomi. The regular version is priced at 788 yuan and the enhanced version is priced at 988 yuan. ZTE, Meizu, and OnePlus have also taken action and will have surprising new mobile phones. OPPO and vivo have also followed and entered the era of thousand-yuan phones."

Zhou Buqi felt it was very exciting. "Great, really great! Looking around the world, which country's market can be so competitive? It can be said that it is a vibrant business market with a hundred flowers blooming and seven major powers in the Warring States Period! Jumping out and looking at it, what a wonderful business war this is? Wonderful, wonderful!"

Zhou Shaoning said unhappily: "We are insiders, how can we jump out?"

Zhou Buqi asked curiously: "Why is the price so low all of a sudden?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "It's caused by the times."

"Hmm?" "The domestic 4G licenses have been issued, but it will take time to lay out 4G base stations. This means that 3G phones still have a chance to survive, but it is the end of the era. At the end of this 3G era, all suppliers and accessories around 3G phones will plummet in price."

"No wonder!"

Zhou Buqi once again felt the tremendous impact of the times on corporate choices.

It’s almost the era of 4G mobile phones!

This means that 3G mobile phones need to be sold quickly, including a series of spare parts related to 3G mobile phones from suppliers, which need to be sold at a big discount. Otherwise, when 4G base stations are rolled out, 3G mobile phones will completely lose the market.

Under this general situation, smartphones have finally entered the era of thousand-yuan and hundred-yuan phones.

You can buy a mobile phone from a big brand like Xiaomi, Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, OnePlus, Vivo for just a few hundred dollars. How can copycat phones survive?

It must be that good money drives out bad money, which just gave Yan Guangming and Chen Guohuan the opportunity to integrate the domestic copycat mobile phone industry.

For Zhou Buqi, there was no loss.

Zhou Shaoning was different. He said helplessly, "What should we do now? Lei Jun is too rude."

Zhou Buqi laughed and said, "Xiaomi was the first to jump out and offered a price of 799. Lei Jun is asking for trouble. He has now become a living target for the entire industry. Isn't this good?"

"What about Estar?"

"Ok?"

"You've already said that Xiaomi has become a sitting duck, so what choice will Estar make?" Zhou Shaoning came to the United States specifically for this matter. "If it was a target, I would shoot too!"

Zhou Buqi said without hesitation: "Shoot! Of course we have to shoot! Astar and Xiaomi are two different companies, and Lei Jun teased you without any mercy, how can you let him off easily? Shoot! Fire! Astar must be the mainstay of the anti-Xiaomi Group!"

"That's what you said!"

Zhou Shaoning seemed to have regained his spirits. He was just worried that if Astar and Xiaomi started a fight, both of them would suffer losses. The one who would suffer the most would naturally be Zhou Buqi, the common major investor behind the two companies.

Zhou Buqi was not so stingy. "That's right. Good companies are all created by fighting in the market. You can't create a great company by forming cliques and factions. Didn't we say it a few years ago? Lei Jun likes to be in the limelight, so let him be the target. You just need to focus on the target and shoot."

Zhou Shaoning snorted, "I'm just afraid that if I use too much force, I'll accidentally kill Xiaomi."

Zhou Buqi laughed loudly, "Come on, you're trying to kill Xiaomi. Lei Jun has played you around. So, Motorola is also going to launch a new thousand-yuan phone? A hundred-yuan phone?"

Zhou Shaoning said in a deep voice: "I feel relieved with your words. In the middle of this month, Astar will hold a new product launch conference. At that time, Astar will launch a mobile phone priced at 777 yuan! Isn't it just low-price competition? Who is afraid of who?!"

"What about the cost?"

“It’s basically balanced.”

"That's fine." Zhou Buqi was a little worried about him. "Business competition is business competition, don't act on impulse. Once you get emotional, it's easy to make decisions that go astray. Maybe this is another trick of Lei Jun. After deceiving you, he quietly waits for you to make a mistake in your emotional outburst."

Zhou Shaoning seemed very calm, "No, Xiaomi is just a small company... To be honest, I have never targeted Xiaomi before. Now that you said so, I won't be polite. The current price of this new phone is 777 yuan. When the school group purchase starts in September, the price for college students will be 9 yuan. By then, let's see what Xiaomi can do to fight me!"

"That's good! That's good!"

Zhou Buqi laughed haha.

I don't think Zhou Shaoning would be a match for Lei Jun at all.

He even had some mental preparation.

In the domestic low-end mobile phone market, Astar led by Zhou Shaoning may not be able to play. There are two powerful opponents, one is Lei Jun of Xiaomi, and the other is Yu Dazui of Huawei. Both of them have mastered marketing to perfection.

The quality of marketing can have a decisive impact on mid- and low-end phones.

Because low-end phones are of average quality, phones from all major manufacturers are similar, they are basically made from the same mold with different brand shells. The reason why sales vary greatly is mainly because of who has better marketing skills.

Needless to say, Zhou Shaoning would definitely not be a match for those two great gods.

As for high-end phones, Asda has a much stronger advantage than Xiaomi and Huawei. The most important point is that Asda acquired Motorola, with Motorola's intellectual property and brand, Motorola's employees in the United States, tax returns and decades of brand halo, Asda's high-end phones can be sold around the world without restrictions.

Zhou Buqi said: "Aishida will be listed next year, and you have to produce a good financial report. Regardless of what will happen in the future, in the next year, you must show your strength to convince the whole world!"