Chapter 369 Open a new vest and build a thief ship
Originally, Wen Liang wanted to tentatively set the regulations for selling external chips to only sell low-end chips, and make temporary changes to solve this problem.
After all, the most important sales business of Bolang Terminal is mobile phones.
Even though things like mobile phone SoC are very high-end, they are often manufactured using the most advanced nanometer technology. However, the cost of making a single chip is not high.
Take the A6 chip on Apple's iPhone 5 as an example. Its ex-factory price is only US$17.5.
Far inferior to the ex-factory price of 34 US dollars for the 4G LTE baseband.
In fact, even the ex-factory price of the 3G baseband on the iPhone 4S is US$24, so Qualcomm could only buy the baseband and get the chip free before.
All in all, it is not very profitable to just sell chips, because the total price is there, and the current external quotation of RMB 200 to 300 is beyond the limit.
The key is that there are other players on the market. For example, Qualcomm’s SoC, which currently sells the highest price to just over 100 yuan, also comes with some comprehensive preferential quotation solutions for basebands and other chips.
Therefore, even if ZTE made tactful gestures several times, Wen Liang did not really want to develop this business.
If it weren't for the purpose of promoting a new instruction set ecosystem independently developed, Li Ze would not have proposed this idea.
Now considering that the main provider of low-end chips is actually MediaTek rather than Qualcomm, and considering various matters, Wen Liang proposed a new idea.
"Since I feel that the chip market can make money, can be done, and will inevitably become competitors with existing market players, I think we should plan systematically."
With that said, Wen Liang gave his own opinion: "The final selling price of a single chip is not high, so I was not interested in this business before, because the total volume is there, and the domestic market only has two or three billion smart devices a year.
Even if all the market share belongs to us, the annual revenue will only be 30 to 50 billion."
"But Aze's starting point is not a problem. The construction of the overall new ecosystem cannot only rely on the Xinghai series, but also needs the participation of other domestic mobile phone brands. Furthermore, our application Internet ecosystem has dominated the domestic mobile market applications to a certain extent.
From the current perspective, the prosperity and development pattern is still several years away from reaching its peak, and there will be time to cover the entire population."
"So, I think we can't just sell low-end chips."
Li Ze thought about it carefully and agreed: "High-end chips are generally used in flagship machines of various brands. Some application software, including updates and iterations of system versions, generally give priority to high-end coverage before decentralizing adaptation."
In other words, current ecological adaptation must start from the high end.
The needs of low-end series will not be given priority.
This is consistent with the low-end series audience's tolerance for the product.
Li Ze further stated: "It's okay to start selling to the outside world from the low end. Once we start, we should systematically establish a product line without going through the detour of marketization first."
"Establishing a new product line?"
Wen Liang shook his head: "No, we should make a new vest. The wave master has attracted enough hatred during the performance stage, so we need to spread out to cooperate. This will also make it easier for the Xinghai series to always maintain the highest-end leading position."
"Understood, I will make arrangements to distribute the business to a new cooperative company." Li Ze said clearly, "How should we discuss it with Mr. Lei in detail?"
Wen Liang smiled and took a sip of tea: "It's simple, don't worry about this."
At this point, the preliminary plan for external sales of the chip has been officially finalized.
Li Ze will arrange a new vest, one that is related to Bolang but not directly related. Anyway, all ongoing chip design and development tasks are carried out in pairs and multiple groups.
It is not a big problem to hand over the failed products of that generation of internal horse racing to the vest company.
In fact, Samsung has a similar behavior. Its high-end screens are for its own use, while the lower-end ones are covered by Apple, and then they are supplied to other mobile phone manufacturers.
For example, even if it’s an OLED screen, the best one from Samsung will always be the one on Samsung’s flagship model.
As for Wen Liang's desire to create a vest, he wanted to disperse the pressure on Bolang and open up to a certain extent foreign cooperation.
Simply selling chips may not necessarily promote the ecosystem.
After all, Qualcomm and MediaTek do not need to consider the ecology. Almost all smartphone applications on the market are now based on the ARM instruction set system.
If they not only sell chips, but also join the cooperation queue and become a community of interests to a certain extent, mobile phone manufacturers will have more motivation.
profitable.
It is also conducive to the country’s independent technology system.
Taking care of both public and private matters~
Anyway, when it can actually be sold to the outside world in the future, it means that the chip self-development system has been established. At that time, it will not matter whether it is kept secret or not.
Even the instruction set, instruction set architecture, and microarchitecture are not worried about being widely used by other manufacturers.
Later, almost all chip design manufacturers used the ARM instruction set solution. Isn’t Apple the best, and is it a disgrace to all other manufacturers?
Let’s not talk about later, but now, the X86 instruction set system is used by both Intel and AMD. Intel is not still far ahead. AMD’s YES is only YES to a certain extent, and it cannot beat Intel head-on.
And it was only a bit yes when Intel squeezed toothpaste and its wafer fab process was stuck at 14nm.
What's more, Bolang has a multi-group horse racing model. Only the best are used, and the second best are delegated. The natural gap is already there.
…………
noon.
Wen Liang, Wang Wanyu, Li Rang and Su Jian went to the cafeteria for lunch.
At the dinner table, Wen Liang chatted a few words with Wang Wanyu about official matters.
After the meal, Xiao Lirang, who had been proud of his mother in the morning, followed Su Jian.
Wang Wanyu was so angry that she looked at Xiao Lirang's back and cursed: "Little white-eyed wolf~"
Seeing Wen Liang on the side, Wang Wanyu became even more angry and said with a dissatisfied look: "You are not a good person, how can you encourage me to give in!"
"Hahaha." Wen Liang laughed, "Auntie, Xiao Rang has left."
"That should be scolded. I don't know which way the door opens."
"Yeah?"
"yes!"
"Didn't you say that the little ones are disgusting and should be taken away by whoever wants them?"
"My own child!"
"That's why people think dogs are abandoned."
"It's not like that. Look at how happy she and Su Jian are~"
"Is it possible that you are too busy?"
"impossible!"
"Why are you jealous?"
"You don't understand. You will know when you have children."
"I haven't seen you usually..."
Wen Liang decisively swallowed the second half of his words and pretended to look at the scenery.
Wang Wanyu didn't say any more.
How could she admit that she was very "irritable" when teaching Li Rang homework and "disliked" Li Rang's occasional noises.
No matter what, Rang Rang is my mother’s good daughter and I can’t bear to leave her~
Although Li Rang ranked ninth in her class in the final exam, it doesn't mean that Li Rang's carelessness has been corrected, nor does it mean that her homework can completely relieve people's worries.
Occasionally, my eyes will burst into tears, haha~
…………
…………
In the afternoon, Wen Liang, Li Ze, Chen Jiaxin, Li Xia and several other secretaries and assistants met Lei Jun and his party who came from the capital downstairs of IFC.
When it comes to business etiquette, you can’t go wrong.
"Mr. Lei has come a long way, and there is nothing to miss but a welcome from afar."
"Mr. Wen is too polite."
"..."
After the inevitable pleasantries, Wen Liang led a group of people into the office building area, all the way to the 65th floor.
Lei Jun was accompanied by Lin Bing and several other familiar faces.
As usual, a friendly and harmonious exchange was held in the conference room according to the procedure.
The teams from both sides exchanged views again.
After Lei Jun took the initiative to visit Wen Liang in Beijing last week, Xiaogaoliang sent a team to Yangcheng to discuss needs with Bolang Terminal.
At that time, Li Ze personally came to receive him.
Afterwards, it was transferred to the relevant teams of Bolang Terminal to handle various needs.
In accordance with Xiaosorghum's plan for red rice, as well as the demand for a certain degree of brand power, Bolang Terminal will refer to the well-established domestic supply chain system to finalize a suitable solution.
Because the supply chain system is not perfect, and Xiaogaoliang is not willing to use Bolang Terminal to provide a full set of solutions, there are still many areas for discussion.
Lei Jun said he hopes to solve Redmi supply chain problems through Bolang terminals, but it is impossible for him to actually supply all parts through Bolang terminals.
Then it’s not Redmi, it’s Bolang Terminal-Redmi.
Small sorghum is basically just a name.
The day Bolang Terminal becomes unhappy, Redmi will be gone.
The best solution that Xiaosorghum wants to achieve is a Qualcomm-like solution, which is to provide a large number of chip supporting solutions like Qualcomm, and then other components are solved through other suppliers.
Same as the Mi series.
It just so happens that Bolang Terminal can only provide cooperative solutions for most parts, and the two parties hit it off immediately.
So the consultation process is not very long.
We basically reached a consensus on cooperation last Friday. We had another round of talks yesterday Monday and basically finalized the terms, so Lei Jun said he would come over and sign the cooperation memorandum in person.
This is what the question should mean.
After all... Xiaosorghum is still a "small company", with annual revenue in 2012 just exceeding 1 billion US dollars, totaling more than 6 billion yuan.
That is more than double the registration of Bolang terminal.
The revenue of Bolang Terminal for half a month last year was four or five times that of his family for the whole year...
In fact, regarding the strong rise of Bolang Terminal, Lei Jun is the one who feels the most sad.
He teamed up with a group of people to work on the software for a year, and after another year of work, he finally launched a mobile phone. This is the third year in 2012, and the revenue has finally exceeded 1 billion US dollars. He is about to lead the trend of domestic mobile phones. , Bolang Terminal popped up.
Xinghai 1, which further disrupted the smartphone industry, was launched with lightning speed.
Where can I go to argue with you?
To be honest, in my previous life, Wen Liang saw discussions about small sorghum on the Internet, and he somewhat agreed that it would be difficult to develop small sorghum if it did not follow the path of trade, industry and technology.
After all, if you want to get the core chip, the core software really requires investment and is really difficult.
But when Wen Liang returned to 2011, pulled Bolang up, and then pulled out the Bolang terminal, he discovered that this thing is really not as difficult as laymen think.
First of all, neither the core chip nor the core software is innovation!!
For example, the system is really just following the route that the West has taken successfully. At most, it is a little innovative based on the existing system, avoiding patents and intellectual property rights.
On the other hand, the core chip of Xinghai 1 uses the ARM solution.
This thing can be done with the same amount of money as a horse.
Even if Bolang didn't have the idea of self-research, it wouldn't be able to spend such a high investment in R&D.
Buy the core IP from ARM and the supporting IP from other companies. If you can't find a competent IC design company in China, go find one overseas, design it and hand it over to TSMC, Samsung and other foundries for OEM production. You don't have to worry about the whole process.
Even if you can afford the price, the performance will be better than the chip on Xinghai 1.
In name, this is something designed independently by Bolang. The worst case scenario is that the IC design company will be acquired and reorganized into its own laboratory team... Anyway, it's not like no one has done this before.
If Boss Lei brags in public that his own name can be worth US$1 billion when he started his business, then if he wants to go into R&D-oriented technology, industry and trade, he only needs to use his own name to raise US$1 billion.
, there is still a lot of money left, and there is no need to engage in hunger marketing.
Of course...of course, it needs to be admitted that Bolang has application vertical advantages.
And it’s a high-quality application.
Bolang can do vertical optimization around its own application Internet ecosystem. For example, Xinghai 1 uses "Journey of Glory" as a link to directly define a next-generation entertainment center for smartphones.
This can greatly avoid the potential risks of initial investment regardless of cost.
…………
After the process was completed, Wen Liang and Li Ze invited Lei Jun and Lin Bing into the general manager's office.
After drinking tea, Wen Liang put forward his idea straight to the point: "Mr. Lei, does your company have any opinions on the SoC on our Xinghai 1?"
"Of course." Lei Jun did not deny it, "We have done some tests and it is a very good chip."
Looking at Wen Liang, Lei Jun simply said: "I heard that ZTE intends to introduce this chip from your company?"
Wen Liang chuckled and shook his head: "It must be a misinformation."
"That's just a slightly processed chip. We have no intention of selling it externally and we really can't sell it."
Lei Jun just listened and didn't interrupt in a hurry.
Sure enough, Wen Liang quickly said: "However, we have a cooperative team that intends to carry out a modification based on this, targeting the low-end market. It has already done more in-depth, and is now in contact with Huali Micro about the tape-out foundry.
"
"I wonder if Mr. Lei is interested in developing some cooperation in this area."
Lei Jun was a little surprised, and exchanged glances with Lin Bing out of the corner of his eye.
"Please also ask Mr. Wen to elaborate on how we can cooperate."
Wen Liang simply explained: "It is difficult for this team alone to support some subsequent R&D cost investments. We have no intention of absorbing all the investment. It is regarded as a matchmaker."
The meaning is very clear.
Of course Lei Jun was moved.
He also knew that Bolang obviously had considerations in terms of risk diversification.
After all, Bolang itself does not need this product line, and if SoC is added, Bolang's terminal cooperation supply chain system will be more complete, even more complete than Qualcomm's plan.
If Xiaosorghum joins the investment and becomes a shareholder, then with Redmi’s plan, the initial shipment problem can also be solved.
This has advantages and disadvantages for both parties.
Lei Jun's thoughts suddenly changed. He couldn't find any reason to refuse such an olive branch. It would also be very beneficial to their company's brand building. He thought that if it weren't for the initial shipment problems, Bolang would not be able to release it so easily.
And this way of investing in the supply chain in order to avoid supply chain risks is not uncommon internationally.
Just as Apple invests in ARM and TSMC invests in ASML.
So, Lei Jun quickly made a decision: "Thank you, Mr. Wen, for giving us priority. It's a pleasure to cooperate."
Wen Liang stretched out his hand: "It's a pleasure to cooperate."
So far, the first domestic mobile phone brand has boarded the ship thrown by Wen Liang -
PS: Let me explain a little thing. The reason why I haven’t been able to update well these days is because my right hand has been healed. I have been suffering from severe tenosynovitis. Two days ago, the tenosynovitis in my right hand spread from the thumb to the five fingers of my right hand. It was so painful that I couldn’t sleep. I went to the hospital.