ZTE layout meta-universe Terminal department launched VR hardware technology development

Mobile phone manufacturers are accelerating their entry into the metaverse.

On January 20, Ni Fei, senior vice president of ZTE and president of ZTE Terminal Division, said in an interview with reporters including First Financial Economics that there is currently a special team in the interior to explore VR equipment and meta-universes. "Metacosm will be an important direction for ZTE Terminal's future strategy, and since last year, (its brand) Red Devils has begun to lay out meta-universe related technologies and products."

In the view of ZTE Terminal, games have become the leading force in the metaverse.

"Since last year, Red Devils have begun to lay out metaverse-related technologies and products, and in the third quarter of 2021, we set up a professional product technology team internally to achieve product planning and hardware investment in meta-universe hardware technology." In addition to hardware, the technology of the new media image part will also become an important aspect of the extension and migration of metaverse-related technologies, such as the algorithm of the engine, motion capture, picture recognition, etc., we are trying. Yu Hang, senior vice president of Nubia Technology Co., Ltd., told reporters that in the future, Red Devils will continue to build more game terminal products, and will also carry out in-depth content co-construction with third parties in peripheral development and content.

Yu Hang told reporters that from the overall scale of the entire mobile game market, the demand and situation of professional game mobile phone equipment are far from meeting the needs of users, many users with higher demand for mobile game experience are still using ordinary mobile phones, and game phones have higher requirements in heat dissipation, game optimization and adjustment, screen refresh, key assistance, game assistance, etc., which is also an opportunity for ZTE.

However, from the perspective of the current participating players of game phones, in addition to the Red Devils, there have been asus ROG, Xiaomi Black Shark, Lenovo Savior, Realme True Self GT, iQOO, Xiaomi Redmi and other brands have joined. The world's leading manufacturers have already started the layout of the meta-universe.

According to the data provided by Wisdom Bud, among the current head mobile phone manufacturers, Apple has more than 18,000 authorized invention patents in the field of meta-universe technology patent reserves, and the main directions are concentrated in the fields of displays, head-mounted, image sensors, and augmented reality. Samsung is close behind, with more than 13,000 authorized invention patents, focusing on wireless communication systems, Internet of Things, intelligent services, neural networks and other fields.

In terms of domestic manufacturers, Huawei has authorized more than 3,800 invention patents in the field of meta-universe, covering artificial intelligence, communication methods, neural networks, image processing and other fields, and Xiaomi and its affiliates have authorized more than 500 invention patents.

It is reported that Apple's VR/AR headset will be launched from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023, followed by the release of AR smart glasses between 2023 and 2025, and the iPhone 14 released in the second half of this year will be equipped with Wi-Fi6E technology directly connected to the headset, through wireless high-speed transmission of data to achieve a "meta-universe" experience.

Ni Fei said that the entrance to the future metaverse may be XR equipment, AR equipment, and VR equipment. The key technical points of AR equipment and VR equipment are optics, heat dissipation, performance and imaging algorithms, which are themselves the strengths of mobile phone manufacturers, especially for game mobile phone manufacturers. In ZTE's strategic planning, Red Devils mainly attack the field of e-sports segmentation, and ZTE Mobile Phone and Nubia are the three major brands of ZTE in the field of consumer electronics, and will each make efforts in the field of segmentation in the future. "ZTE mobile phones focus on the business crowd, Nubia focuses on young people."

In 2021, ZTE terminal business shipped more than 100 million units in the whole year, of which 50% were self-developed chips, and the overall shipment volume increased by 60% year-on-year, of which the domestic market increased by 150% year-on-year, and the international market increased by 50%. Ni Fei said that in 2022, ZTE mobile phone domestic target revenue growth of 200%, overseas growth of 50%.

To achieve the above target revenue, it means that ZTE will have three times the growth in China, and for the current market market, growth is a huge challenge for any mobile phone manufacturer.

According to the research institute GfK data, 2020 is the fourth consecutive year of continuous decline in global smartphone retail sales, with global smartphone sales of 1.267 billion units, down 7.9% year-on-year. At present, the mobile phone market is still running at the bottom of the L-shape.

For the trend of the mobile phone market in 2022, Ni Fei believes that although there has been some recovery in the mobile phone market driven by 5G, it has not reached the water level from 2015 to 2016. "At present, the tight supply chain situation has not eased in the first three quarters of this year, and there may be some relief, but overall some components are still out of stock, coupled with the uncertainty caused by the epidemic, we remain cautiously optimistic."

On the same day, ZTE announced that Wu Jing has become a new spokesperson for ZTE mobile phones, which will promote the brand to the mass market. Ni Fei told reporters that ZTE launched the scale construction of offline channels in 2021, and built 7,000 self-operated stores and cooperative stores at the end of last year, and the market target this year is at least 20,000 or more.