Zhi DongXi (public number: zhidxcom)
Author | Xu Shan
Edit | Yunpeng
April 2 is the 216th day that domestic VR hardware manufacturer Pico joined ByteDance, and it is also the seventh month of Pico founder Zhou Hongwei's "retirement".
▲ Pico founder Zhou Hongwei
Since the dust settled on Pico's 9 billion yuan acquisition, Zhou Hongwei has begun to fade out of people's sight and whereabouts are unknown. This iconic event, which plunged the entire domestic technology circle into the VR boom, is rarely talked about now. But in contrast, Pico, which has been silent for a while, has begun to be active in major e-commerce platforms.
You can see the topic of Pico on the hot search list on Weibo, see the video of major stars playing Pico VR all-in-one machine on Douyin, and even see dozens of UP masters posting videos about Pico Neo 3 on B station... As you can see, Pico is becoming more active and out of the loop after ByteDance takes over.
▲B station multi-UP main evaluation Pico Neo 3
At the same time, according to the technology media AR circle, ByteDance originally planned to sell Pico to 1 million units in 2022, but due to byteDance's previous investment in a large number of publicity resources, the target was also increased from 1 million to 1.8 million. Previously, there was news in the industry that Pico's shipments in 2021 would be 500,000 units.
Judging from this nearly fourfold shipment target, the recent sales volume of Pico should be very impressive, and ByteDance has high expectations for Pico. After being bought by ByteDance for nearly 9 billion yuan, what has changed in Pico? Where does ByteDance's VR layout advance? When we tried to contact Pico to understand the situation, they all refused to "keep a low profile".
Therefore, in order to find the answer to the question, we decided to change our thinking and find out from some recent changes in Pico that ByteDance prepared three "sharp knives" for Pico, thus cutting the door of domestic consumer-grade VR headsets.
First, this spring, have you been dragged to play Pico?
According to the quarterly report of the global AR/VR headset released by the well-known market research agency International Data Corporation (IDC) on March 30, the global AR/VR headset shipments in 2021 reached 11.23 million units, of which vr headset shipments reached 10.95 million units, ranking third in the global VR headset brand.
"Play VR, choose Pico" During the Spring Festival, this slogan appeared on many e-commerce platforms, and for a time Pico publicity was overwhelming, and e-sports players, game anchors, official commentators and entertainment stars seemed to have their own Pico VR headset overnight.
▲ Pico broke into the game circle
It can be seen that after Pico joined ByteDance, the amount of attention surged during the Double Eleven, Double Twelve and Spring Festival. Compared with the previous state of almost zero search and zero spread, Pico has increased its attention by nearly 4 times.
▲ From August 1, 2021 to March 23, 2022, Pico's search index changed
In fact, behind all this publicity is inseparable from ByteDance's channel resources. ByteDance generously shared its platform with its own family. On Douyin, many people participated in the topic discussion of Pico, and Pico's user experience plan series received 745.3W of views.
Not only that, Pico video software also connects with Douyin video resources. Open the Pico video software, you can enter the Vibrato interface with one click and use the VR device to brush the Vibrato. This is the first time that a head player has joined the VR content ecology in the domestic short video track.
▲B station UP mainly uses Pico to watch vibrato
At the same time, Pico set up its first offline VR brand experience store in Beijing on January 30, 2022.
In the Pico offline experience store, we see that not only young people choose to buy Pico products, but also some elderly people are also very interested in it.
▲Pico's only offline experience store
"I played a few games and thought it was good, so I bought them and went home to play them." A grandmother successfully took away a Pico Neo 3 after experiencing a Pico VR headset for a while. For this VR set, which cost nearly 3,000, the grandmother said: "I think the price is OK, not a big problem." ”
Online and offline marketing promotion, Pico's sales began to rise.
According to the war report data released earlier by Pico, Pico's omni-channel Spring Festival sales volume increased by 32 times compared with last year, and the turnover also increased by 29 times compared with last year's Spring Festival, and won the double champion of omni-channel VR category sales and sales.
This is not a momentary heat, and today, Pico is also at the top of the VR sales list of e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall. Come to think of it, ByteDance's adjustment of Pico's shipments in 2022 is also because Pico is gaining momentum.
As the drainage strategy works and more people know about Pico, what is the consumer response?
When I passed by Pico's offline experience hall, I interviewed a number of people who had just experienced the Pico Neo 3, and they had different views on the VR device.
"I think it's okay to play games, but it's not necessary to just watch movies." A user who has just experienced the Pico Neo 3 said that he has never been exposed to VR-related content before, and this time he experienced the VR game part of the game and found it interesting. "The game content is still too small, and I may consider buying it later."
In fact, there are not a few people who have such ideas. In the process of interviews, and even in the comment area of Station B, we learned that many players feel that compared with some foreign VR devices, the development of Pico in the game ecology and community ecology is still in a relatively early stage.
▲ Discussion on Pico in the comment area of station B
Even more, a small number of people believe that instead of spending a lot of time on marketing, Pico should focus more on polishing its own hardware products, catching up with foreign products as soon as possible, and providing users with a better VR experience. "As long as your user experience comes up, consumers are certainly willing to support domestic production." A user holding an Oculus Quest 2 and Pico Neo 3 said in the comments section.
Overall, after joining ByteDance, Pico did get more people's attention, but this is also a new battle, whether Pico Neo 3 can withstand the test of users, whether Pico's next-generation products can solve the user's reflection problems and grow rapidly, which are all problems to be solved for the development of Pico.
Second, make up for the hardware shortcomings, byte into the three chip companies
Globally, especially overseas, ByteDance and Meta are Internet giants with many business intersections, such as overseas TikTok, which has threatened FaceBook's social empire. And Meta, which owns Oculus VR, is now the absolute boss of the global VR market, AndteDance entered the game through Pico, do you also want to break your wrist with Meta in this piece?
But can Pico really fight this new battle?
Since Pico joined ByteDance, ByteDance has opened the road of "making up for it" like a parent who is worried about their children's learning.
For example, one of the key components of VR equipment is the chip.
According to the incomplete statistics of Zhidong, ByteDance invested in a total of 3 chip companies in 2021 - Shenzhen Optical Semiconductor Technology Company, RISC-V Company Resynthetic, and Shanghai YunmaixinLian's Core Company. These companies are all companies with certain technical strength in different fields.
Shenzhen Optical Semiconductor Technology Co., Ltd. is a provider of optical waveguide systems, founded in January 2020, the main business involves optical waveguides, optical engines, optical modules, micro-nano semiconductor materials and processes and other high-end advanced technology development and manufacturing.
▲Shenzhen optical semiconductor technology research and development of optical waveguide lens
It can be said that the mainstream optical engine scheme used in current VR equipment and even AR equipment is inseparable from optical waveguide. ByteDance invested in a new optical engine solution manufacturer two months after acquiring Pico, which shows the importance it attaches to Pico.
Not only does it maintain a close cooperative relationship with domestic enterprises, ButteDance has also established new contacts with Qualcomm, the only provider of XR chips at present.
During MWC2022, Tong announced a partnership with ByteDance to collaborate on hardware devices, software platforms and developer development. This cooperation is mainly aimed at the development of XR technology to create a better XR ecological relationship.
Liang Rubo, CEO of ByteDance, mentioned at the 2022 Mobile World Congress that in the next step, Pico will increase investment in hardware such as chips, optics, and sensors, and strengthen software research and development in areas such as sensor interaction.
The sales champion of XR chips Qualcomm, the sales champion of domestic VR hardware, Pico, plus the endorsement of Douyin, the largest short video media platform in China, triple increase, it is difficult not to look forward to the future development trend of Pico.
Third, the deployment of troops, Douyin executives will reorganize the Pico content ecology
At present, the consumer VR market has been criticized not only for the lack of equipment hardware, but also for the lack of content ecology. It's hard to imagine that most VR devices will only launch two or three new VR games a week.
As far as the PC side and mobile phone side are concerned, the domestic VR game ecology is like a baby, still in the stage of teeth and teeth. Moreover, many VR game manufacturers believe that the VR hardware ecology is immature and are unwilling to spend too much money to participate in it.
In addition to game content, video content is also in a state of relative scarcity. VR viewing does not bring users a better viewing experience, and many movies do not look convenient on TV or even mobile phones.
For these problems, ByteDance first chose to transfer people to the post. According to "Late Post", Ren Lifeng, head of Watermelon Video, Song Binghua, head of Douyin Variety Show, and Wu Zuomin, director of Douyin Entertainment, were all transferred to the VR team.
Who are these three great generals?
Ren Lifeng served as the product leader of Douyin, officially took over watermelon video in early 2020, and served as the president of watermelon video, and also served as the legal representative of douyin on February 25, 2022.
▲ Watermelon Video President Ren Lifeng
Song Binghua served as the project leader of Youku Variety Show "Acting School", and later transferred to the head of Douyin Variety Show. Judging from the resumes of these three people, these executives are all powerful cadres under Douyin. After ByteDance transfers them to Pico, it will have a major adjustment to Pico's content ecology.
Not only that, ButteDance's strong strength background is also becoming a new springboard for Pico, and during the Winter Olympics, Pico has also become the only VR client for the central video of the Winter Olympics. (I watch the Winter Olympics in VR: athletes flying above my head)
In addition, ByteDance has also invested in 3 VR game companies in the past year.
In November 2011, ByteDance shares the VR game "Tomahawk Legend" developer Dreamway Information Co., Ltd., holding 15% of the shares. Mengtu Information was established in 2016, and its main business is the customized development of somatosensory, AR, and VR content.
In January 2022, Hangzhou Li Weike Technology Co., Ltd. announced the completion of a multi-million yuan angel round of financing, which was exclusively invested by ByteDance, and the shareholding ratio of ByteDance reached 20% after the financing was completed.
Overall, whether it is investing in a number of hardware companies in hardware or transferring executives in the content ecology, we can see that ByteDance has made a lot of efforts for the better development of Pico.
Nowadays, the Internet dividend period has passed, and the growth curve of Internet companies is gradually slowing down, or even stagnating. How to find the door to the next generation of Internet, ByteDance through Pico began to slowly layout on the 3D Internet.
Conclusion: Pico may become a new chapter in ByteDance's "hardware dream"
After joining ByteDance, Pico has gained a lot of new help in software, hardware and traffic support, and sales are also rising. However, although traffic exposure is one of the effective means to increase the shipment of hardware equipment, it is also easy for users to have excessive expectations, which may "pull out seedlings and promote growth".
Before Meta acquired nut mobile phones to enter the smartphone hardware market, and now it has taken Pico into the VR market, but from the follow-up, it is obvious that ByteDance has invested more in the VR field and is more determined.
ByteDance has always wanted to build its own intelligent hardware, and wants to use software and hardware to "walk on two legs". Previously, ByteDance had acquired Hammer Technology and planned to develop its own smart phones, but then the plan died, and most of the personnel of Hammer Technology participated in the research and development of smart learning machines. The arrival of Pico may become a new chapter in ByteDance's "hardware dream".