ZTE terminal layout: from smartphones to the Red Devils "meta-universe" ecology

Photo: Xinhua

Source: 21tech

Author: Luo Yiqi

Editor: Li Qingyu

In the domestic smartphone industry has moved towards a mature period of development, and it is difficult to see the process of high-speed growth space, the terminal manufacturers have opened up intensive exploration and accumulation of where the next generation of forms will go, and the "meta-universe" is undoubtedly one of the directions.

In the media communication held recently, Ni Fei, senior vice president of ZTE and president of ZTE Terminal Division, analyzed to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that although the definition of "meta-universe" is not clear at present, the demand for multiple key technical points such as optics, heat dissipation, performance and imaging algorithms is also the strength of mobile phone manufacturers. Therefore, the technology accumulated in the company's history will be in line with this future direction.

According to reports, ZTE has opened the layout of the "meta-universe" capability in the third quarter of 2021, of which the main carrier is its Red Devil brand. According to the plan, the future Red Devil platform is no longer just a smart phone supplier, and it will also lay out diversified hardware terminal products for the game industry.

Returning to the current business performance, Ni Fei recalled that in 2021, the consumer business part of ZTE's three major businesses shipped more than 100 million units during the year, including smartphones, home terminals and mobile Internet. Among them, the shipment of self-developed chips in terminal products has accounted for more than 50%, and it is believed that in the future, more and more products will be equipped with ZTE's self-developed chips.

"Consumer business shipments will grow by 60% in 2021, with domestic growth of more than 150% year-on-year and overseas growth of more than 50%. Overall health. He continued that the current COVID-19 epidemic is still repeated, and the tight supply chain situation has not yet completely eased, but he still hopes that the domestic market revenue of ZTE's consumer business will grow by more than 200% annually and overseas revenue by more than 50% in 2022." This is a more challenging goal, which means that there will be a 3-fold growth in China and 1.5 times overseas, but only such high-speed development can narrow the gap with the head manufacturers as soon as possible. In the future, only when we can improve in terms of smart phones and cooperate with the mobile Internet terminal can we create a good '1 (mobile phone) + 2 (personal data and family data) + N (peripheral ecological products)' all-scenario intelligent lifestyle experience. ”

2022 is cautiously optimistic

The domestic mobile phone market has entered the stage of stock development for many years.

According to the statistics of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the overall shipment of domestic mobile phones in 2021 will total 351 million units, an increase of 13.9% year-on-year, of which 5G mobile phones account for 75.9% of the proportion. Looking back, domestic shipments in 2017 were still 491 million units, but due to the retreat of the 4G replacement wave, it has begun to end the previous two consecutive years of growth. In the situation of being in a bottleneck period for many years, the entire industry is constantly seeking crowd segmentation and capacity sinking.

Ni Fei analyzed to reporters that nowadays, the personalized needs of users are becoming increasingly prominent, and the multi-brand operation actions made by major brands are aimed at providing users with different choices, thereby covering as many user groups as possible. The consumer electronics market has entered a full-scenario service state.

This is the reason why ZTE Terminal currently has three major brands, among which ZTE's flagship series is positioned as a business crowd, Nubia is aimed at young people, and Red Devils are mainly in the field of e-sports games. Through the sharing of technology and resources between each other, coupled with the strong supply chain platform and intellectual property platform support of ZTE Group, we seek our own differentiated development routes.

However, he admitted that the industry still needs to continue to work differentiated play. "Because the entire industry is playing a clear card, but your actions can not be copied by others because of the company's own advantages and endowments, so what each manufacturer has to do is to give full play to its own advantages, to do the basic skills in place, including product quality, experience, channel layout, accurate dissemination, word-of-mouth maintenance, the following to the time, I believe there will be a return."

In addition, the situation facing the industry today is relatively complex. Ni Fei analyzed that driven by the demand for 5G replacement, the domestic mobile phone market has recovered, but it has not reached the best state between 2015 and 2016. "Overall I think it's cautious optimism." He analyzed that because at the same time the industry is still facing uncertainty in the supply chain. "The tight supply chain situation may be partially alleviated in the first two or three quarters of 2022, but there will still be some shortages overall, which will also bring uncertainties to the industry."

The reason for the cautious optimism is the huge market that can be undertaken behind consumer electronics. "At least in the short term, there is still a large amount of smartphones that can continue to develop, although the growth in the past two years has been relatively slow, but the reason is that practitioners have not yet made enough differentiation to impress the user experience, but this will definitely appear, which requires people who are arching day by day, and it is possible to break through this inflection point one day." Ni Fei said that although the current experience of AR/VR cannot replace smartphones, it will one day bring better performance. "The entire consumer electronics industry is serving every corner of users' daily lives, and the use prospects here are I think are endless."

According to Ni Fei, in 2021, ZTE Terminal has started large-scale construction of offline channels, and nearly 7,000 self-operated stores and cooperative stores have been built offline by the end of the year, and products have been put on the cabinet. It is expected that the relevant actions will accelerate in 2022, and the original long-term strategic goal is to have at least 20,000 cooperative stores and related partners. At the same time, the brand strategy was also strengthened, and on January 20, ZTE mobile phone officially announced that actor Wu Jing was the spokesperson. "In the coming years, we will continue to increase investment in both brands and channels."

He told the 21st Century Business Herald that ZTE had already opened a global layout in the late 1990s, and overseas channels were a natural strength. "In 2021, the overall scale of consumer business in overseas markets is larger than that in China, and it will grow rapidly in China. From 2022 to the future, we will still focus on several major regions for the international market: Latin America, the Asia-Pacific CIS region, Southeast Asia, and the future will continue to exert efforts in the Middle East, Europe and other regions. We hope to achieve a situation in which the domestic and international markets go hand in hand. ”

Layout metaverse

Regarding what the next generation of smart phones will look like, it is the direction that the terminal manufacturers are thinking about and deploying. As the metaverse opens up new development space, VR equipment with games as the main driver is one of the more agreed footholds in the industry.

In the current mobile phone industry, game performance is the main competitive track of many manufacturers, and there are also typical game mobile phone brands represented by Red Devils and Black Sharks. This means that in the era of development towards the metaverse, mobile phone manufacturers will still be an important player.

Ni Fei analyzed to the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that because the definition of "meta-universe" is not very clear until now, at least it is a direction, and everyone will have better development prospects. One of the entrances may include XR equipment. "The key technical points include optics, heat dissipation, performance and imaging algorithms, which are themselves the strengths of mobile phone manufacturers, and even more for game mobile phone manufacturers." VR devices have higher performance requirements because of a wider viewing angle and higher resolution, which shows that the technical reserves and directions we have accumulated over the years of creating gaming phones are actually in line with the entire direction of future development. As for the future competitive situation, I think it depends on everyone's product capabilities. ”

According to reports, ZTE terminal will use red devils as the main carrier of the attack meta-universe, and the coverage of its terminal products will continue to expand.

Yu Hangxiang, senior vice president of Nubia, analyzed to reporters that domestic game phones started in 2018, and were "unveiled" by ZTE's Red Devils and Xiaomi's Black Sharks to create this new category. "We are very pleased to see that more and more mobile phone head manufacturers have begun to pay attention to the game mobile phone segment. In the long run, there will be more and more players in game phones, but game phones will also be more subdivided and more extensive. For example, the Red Devils will do more professionally, and there will be some pan-game mobile phone categories. ”

Behind this is closely related to the accelerated development of the e-sports industry to specialization and the increasing attention of the game industry. At the same time, games have become the leading force in the metaverse. Therefore, in the third quarter of 2021, Red Devils has set up a special product technology team internally to carry out product planning and hardware investment in meta-universe technology, while matching software development work, and also has virtual IP products.

"Although we feel that VR technology will take some time to cultivate the market, it is extremely critical for the Red Devils, so we will resolutely invest in it." He told reporters so.

Not only that, Yu Hang pointed out that in addition to hardware, the new media image part of the technology will also become an important aspect of the extension and migration of metaverse-related technologies, such as engine algorithms, motion capture, picture recognition, etc. The Red Devils have accumulated and tried in these aspects, hoping that this technology is not implemented in professional hardware equipment, but through mobile phones plus a simple product can achieve complex computing.

"In the future, we will focus more on the construction and development of the entire game ecosystem." He further analyzed that in the past few decades of the development of the game industry, the domestic market has not appeared in the global head of the terminal game and console game ecological manufacturers, but in today's mobile game era, China has been in a leading position in terms of content and hardware, so the birth of the game mobile phone category in The soil of China is inevitable.

In the next 5-10 years, with the further improvement of China's game industry, it is believed that China's own leading brand of game hardware equipment will be born, and Red Devils are also working in this direction.

"We want to create more game terminal products, such as e-sports monitors, e-sports routers, gaming mice and keyboards, professional VR equipment, etc., to create a meta-universe that belongs to the Red Devils." Yu Hang pointed out that it will also cooperate with industry partners to carry out third-party in-depth content co-construction.

Editor: Lu Taoran