Author: Cheng Mo
Source: Zhenghe Island
（ID：zhenghedao）
"The world is changing dramatically, and China is the most important change."
For China, which shares the wave of the Fourth Industrial Revolution with other countries and is a decisive participant, this quote by the famous economist Peter Nolan becomes a concise and important overview.
The first three industrial revolutions have taught us that in this change, whoever occupies the commanding heights of high technology driven by new technologies can lead the development of the world economy and the future of human social change.
Since the curtain began, China has been struggling to catch up.
If you want to understand China's competitiveness in this century PK, as one of the "protagonists" in the manufacturing industry, the smartphone industry is undoubtedly a mirror.
From accumulating technology for foreign companies, to the barbaric growth of cottage machines, to the domestic mobile phones with their own brands, step by step to the center of the stage, this long road, a walk is nearly 30 years.
At the same time of successful breakthrough, new tests are also unexpected: global mobile phones have entered the stock market, the operability limit of the full screen has been basically capped, the new form of mobile phones needs to evolve urgently, and Apple is a monopoly in the domestic high-end market...
Under the huge industrial mission, the folding screen, which is widely regarded as "one of the important forms of smart phones in the future", has become a new fighter for domestic mobile phone brands to conquer high-end.
High-end war has begun, can China take back a city? The strategic significance of this is self-evident.
A new outlet for the next decade
Every watershed in the mobile phone industry is an inevitable trend in the corresponding technological development, and the same is true for folding screen mobile phones.
In 2018, with the advent of the first folding screen mobile phone, the state of "a thousand machines and one side" of smart phones for more than a decade was broken, and domestic and foreign mobile phone manufacturers, including Huawei, Xiaomi, Samsung, etc., have launched layouts.
After achieving the leap from "0 to 1", folding screen mobile phones have developed rapidly. In 2021, after more than two years of market cultivation and technology iteration, the global folding screen mobile phone shipments reached 9 million, an increase of 309% over 2020, and consumers' mentality towards this new thing has gradually changed from "early adopter" to "common use".
Canalys predicts that this number is expected to exceed 30 million by 2024. Strategy Analytics, an American strategic analytics company, believes that folding screen mobile phones will become the fastest growing area in the high-end mobile market in the next 10 years.
There is no shortcut to this industrial competition, and it is the best choice to enter the game boldly.
As a technology enterprise that has been deeply involved in the field of communications for 27 years, Vivo has also officially entered the "showdown" and thrown out a pair of king fried.
On April 11, Vivo officially released its first folding screen mobile phone - Vivo X Fold, code-named "Butterfly". So far, the domestic head mobile phone manufacturers have all joined the folding screen camp.
It seems to be the latest to enter the game, but vivo is not in a hurry, and even entered the market in a low profile as early as 4 years ago.
Huang Tao, vice president of vivo products, revealed that vivo began to pre-develop folding screens in 2018 and set up a special team. In the past 4 years, in order to bring users a nearly "perfect" folding screen, vivo chose to compete with itself, die product experience, and after deliberating dozens of versions of the program, there was the birth of X Fold.
Take the hinge, the key component of the folding screen mobile phone, as an example, because of its complex process and extremely difficult, the pain points of the screen creases cannot be effectively solved for a long time. In this regard, Vivo invested a design and development team that far exceeded the number of prototypes by three times, and finally launched an aerospace-grade floating wing hinge.
With the blessing of this technology, the creases of the X Fold are almost invisible and can withstand 300,000 bends, far exceeding the industry's existing 200,000 bend limit standards. This means that according to the frequency of users opening the phone 75-100 times a day, the service life of the X Fold is more than 8 years.
Coupled with self-developed technologies such as pocket giant screen, dual main screen and dual screen fingerprint, the X Fold, which has been conceived for four years, can be described as the peak of its debut, bringing real surprises to the market and directly promoting the folding screen mobile phone into the 2.0 era.
In addition, X Fold is also the result of vivo's compliance with user needs.
With the continuous increase of user acceptance, the development of 5G technology and the popularity of mobile office, folding screen mobile phones with their own sense of technology and trendy attributes will play an important role in many scenarios, especially business scenarios. However, no matter how the product track changes, enjoying the best experience in terms of mobile phone performance, imagery, design, etc., is the constant demand of users.
Because of this, the timing of Vivo's launch of the folding screen mobile phone can be said to be just right. After 4 years of deep cultivation, "dare to be the first in the world, after the middle of the competition", is not only vivo's strategic choice under the industrial outlet, but also out of the sense of responsibility to meet the needs of users and promote the development of the industry.
Second, behind the "high-end": an industrial chain defense war
If you look back at the long-term axis, you can find that the advent of the X Fold is the inevitable result of vivo's insight into user needs and continuous efforts in the high-end market.
As the core product of the most vivo style, the X series is the key layout for vivo to break through from the fierce mobile phone market.
Go back ten years. In 2012, vivo X1 became famous with the selling points of "the world's thinnest" and "the world's first Hi-Fi sound effect", behind which is the user's demand for mobile phone appearance and high-quality music;
Subsequently, X3 and X5 created another peak in the thinness and sound quality of the fuselage, and vivo successfully went to sea;
In 2014, insight into the user's demand for image experience, vivo released X shot, opening the road to professional imaging;
Since then, from X 20, X 30, X 50 to X 70, as well as the corresponding first front-facing soft-light dual camera, ZEISS optical lens and other leading innovative technologies, Vivo has gradually opened up the gap with other brands in terms of extreme imaging...
It can be seen that it is precisely since its birth that it has inherited the gene of vivo 'user-oriented, creating great products for users', and the X series has continuously optimized the product series matrix with a differentiation strategy, relying on quality and word of mouth in the high-end market.
It is also this low profile and focus that has made today's vivo.
Market feedback is the most telling. Huang Tao, vice president of vivo products, revealed that in the past ten years, the X series has gained the recognition and love of more than 100 million cumulative users.
The report from Counterpoint is more specific. According to the report, as of Q3 2021, Vivo's share of the high-end mobile phone market of more than 4,000 yuan has reached the top three in the industry. Counterpoint commented that these data show the significant progress vivo has made in the field of high-end mobile phones in the past year.
Coupled with the X Fold, which is expected to become a qualitative change in the field of folding screen mobile phones, the vivo after the "butterfly change" is also more promising in the high-end market.
But more importantly, the domestic mobile phone brands represented by vivo collectively break through the high-end, far more than out of economic interests.
Only when domestic brands enter the high-end market and win more voice can they drive the common progress of China's mobile phone industry chain.
An example is that from 2018 to 2019, with the increase in demand for fingerprint technology under the screen by domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as vivo, as a chip supplier of this technology, Huiting Technology's Q4 revenue in 2018 increased by 64.19% year-on-year, and the non-net profit increased by 235.16% year-on-year. With the accelerated popularization of screen fingerprint technology, Huiding Technology has thus become the first Chinese local chip manufacturer with a market value of more than 100 billion yuan in A-shares.
Let's look at the folding screen phone. Because the product involves materials, panels, modules, flexible circuits and other links, there are also a number of enterprises in the industrial chain that are growing rapidly.
Taking flexible OLED panels as an example, in 2021, under the boom of folding screen mobile phones, not only BOE, but also domestic screen manufacturers such as Huaxing Optoelectronics, Shentianma, and Visionox are accelerating their investment in the construction of flexible OLED panel production lines.
GfK predicts that by 2025, domestic folding screen mobile phone OLED panel sales are expected to jump from 2.02 billion in 2021 to 14.85 billion, when Jingdong is likely to surpass Samsung and become the largest supplier.
This boost also occurs in industrial links such as hinges. Among the current A-share listed companies, there are 4 participating in the layout, such as Dongmu Shares and Yian Technology.
After more than three years of development, folding screen mobile phones have promoted the upgrading of upstream and midstream technology with technology and market forces, while feeding back the downstream market, and a large number of Chinese companies in the supply chain have also benefited.
This is where the strategic value of folding screen mobile phones lies. Under the situation of Apple's long-term "domination" of the high-end market, as the largest increment of this year's consumer electronics track, folding screen mobile phones achieve curve overtaking for domestic brands, bringing more and better choices to consumers, providing rare opportunities of the times and first-mover advantages.
Although all parties still have different views on this, as Professor Jin Yinan of the National Defense University said when looking forward to China's development, we have never been so close to the goal of national rejuvenation as we are today, nor have we ever faced so many risks and challenges as we are today, and the only option is to become stronger.
Sail against the current, and if you don't advance, you will retreat. In this industrial chain defense war that is related to the country's innovation, the domestic mobile phone brands as pioneers have a long way to go.
Third, the undertone of "butterfly change"
"2022 will be the most challenging year for the smartphone industry." At the beginning of this year, Shen Wei, founder, president and CEO of Vivo, said so.
This is true. In less than 3 months, with the official release of the vivo X Fold, the folding screen mobile phone market ushered in a new round of outbreak.
Although the challenges from all sides are great, as one of the top mobile phone brands in China, vivo has its own confidence.
1. From the overall market situation, vivo covers more than 400 million users around the world, and in 2021, it ranks first in the Chinese market with a market share of 21.5%.
The huge user scale and vivo's long-term advantages in the integration of software and hardware, multi-terminal collaborative reach and other advantages, equipped with vivo a series of "top-matching" folding screen mobile phones will arouse the attention and market performance, which is full of imagination.
2. The second confidence that is not afraid of the challenge of the folding screen mobile phone market comes from vivo's strong technical barriers.
The outside world often uses "low-key", "duty", "ordinary mind" to describe vivo. In fact, "low-key", "duty", and "ordinary mind" do not mean that there is a lack of exploration spirit, nor does it mean that there is a lack of vigor, courage and boldness to move towards higher and farther goals.
From the world's first screen fingerprint recognition, the first lifting camera, micro-gimbal stabilization, self-developed chip V1, to the world's first 3D ultrasonic dual-screen fingerprint used by X Fold, vivo has enhanced the product strength and differentiation advantages of its models with many core technologies and products leading the development of the industry, and the high-end development road has been smoother.
3. The "3+4" strategic layout of the organizational structure is the ultimate guarantee for vivo's scientific and technological innovation and track focus.
"3" represents vivo's "iron triangle" system, that is, product planning, technical planning, and technical pre-research.
Among them, product planning is responsible for thinking clearly about what vivo wants, and technical planning is responsible for insight into user needs and how to meet them. Through these two plans, vivo can predict the consumer demand scenarios, corresponding solutions, and technology lists that need to be developed in the next 36 months, and the technical pre-research team will achieve the landing.
The "4" represents the four long tracks that vivo focuses on: design, imagery, system, and performance. Each track not only has the continuous attention and high requirements of consumers, but also contains the space that vivo can continue to iterate and have potential.
Under the firm track theory, vivo takes the initiative to reduce noise, work hard for a long time, and continuously achieve product innovation, and the four long tracks have achieved remarkable results.
"The world seems to be complicated and complicated, but vivo will always insist on using its duty to simplify complexity and return everything to the origin of things." At the 2022 Vivo New Year's Annual Meeting, Shen Wei summarized Vivo's business "mental method" in this way.
As analyzed earlier, Vivo's bottom line is also "simplifying complexity". Adhering to the concept of user orientation, design drive and pursuit of the ultimate is the underlying logic of vivo becoming one of the benchmarks of high-end manufacturing in China. This strong confidence also allows X Fold to have the support of "butterfly change" and the confidence to calmly accept the test of the market.
IV. Conclusion: Deep ploughing, and then all things are born
This is an era of great changes, a series of classic innovation cases all tell us that the ability to change the status quo of the industry usually does not come from the industry itself, but more from the efforts of the enterprise itself.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution was not a lone voyage. McKinsey pointed out in "The White Skin of Manufacturing Technology Innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution" that in recent years, a small number of companies have successfully crossed the exploration stage, and their innovative experience is worthy of promotion.
In the context of "Made in China" towards "China's Intelligent Manufacturing", many Chinese manufacturing enterprises, including vivo, adhere to the product base, technology leadership, closely follow the national conditions to lay out the industrial chain, in order to accelerate the transformation of industrial structure, in order to achieve breakthroughs in important areas, has been silently cultivating internal strength.
What is the meaning of "winning"? The famous scholar James Cass once described it this way: Limited "games" are aimed at winning, and infinite "games" are designed to bring more people into it and jointly promote the continuation of "games".
In other words, enterprises should maintain rational development, give up the pursuit of short-term interests, and take root in their fields and bury their heads in the field with the courage of "not looking up for ten years".
No matter how the business world changes, those who have a unique trick must be those who wait and watch the ups and downs, see more and do less, and focus on one or two opportunities to improve.
Just like the matter of mobile phone manufacturing, vivo's long-term doctrine, altruism, win-win and other concepts are the driving force for this company to adhere to long-term deep cultivation, continuously transform scientific research results into technical strength, and ultimately promote the progress of the entire industrial chain. This kind of down-to-earth attitude of doing business is worthy of our appreciation and reference.