"
From the perspective of yield, Royole's products seem to be able to withstand the test, but since there have been experts on the ground to verify, why no white knight is willing to help, the problems in this are more and more.
Author 丨 Pastoral
Edit 丨 nuts
Cover source 丨 network
"
Human joys and sorrows are not the same, and so are companies.
When vivo released its first folding screen mobile phone X Fold with great fanfare, on the other hand, the founder of the world's first foldable flexible screen mobile phone, Royole Technology, has not been able to get out of the darkest moment.
From April 13 to April 14, Liu Shuwei, director of the China Enterprise Research Center of the Central University of Finance and Economics and also the executive director of Royole Technology, posted on his personal social media for two consecutive days, calling on the outside world to lend a helping hand to Royole, and suggested that governments at all levels actively help Royole Technology solve the shortage of funds.
In the article, Liu Shuwei counted the advantages and disadvantages of Royole itself, as well as the outstanding achievements in product application, and finally threw out the conclusion, "Save Royole and maintain the mainland's international leading level in the field of flexible technology.".
As a technology unicorn once valued at up to 50 billion yuan, Royole Technology can be described as a high and low, and since this year, there has been unfavorable news such as salary arrears for half a year and full vacations.
1
Once known as "Shenzhen's Three Great Deceptions"
Because it has long enjoyed the government's preferential treatment for high-tech enterprises, but it has been unable to hand over market-oriented eye-catching products, the outside world has been questioning Royole continuously.
What's more, Jurass and BGI And Guangqi Science are juxtaposed together as the "Shenzhen Three Great Deceptions", ironically saying that these three companies are all hyping up concepts, but there is no innovation.
Such a public opinion environment has many disadvantages for the growing Royole, but two years ago, Liu Zihong, the founder of Royole Technology, did not think so, and he said in an interview with the media: "I am quite calm. It's really normal to have some different voices in the process of innovation, don't expect everyone to sing the praises, I think that's a very dangerous thing. ”
However, it is worth noting that royole at that time could not be the same day as now, that year's Royole, just won 300 million US dollars in F round financing in May, and released the second folding screen mobile phone in September, everything seems to be developing in a good direction.
But some regrets, the F round of financing has become the last appearance of Royole in the capital market, as of now, Royole has not had new funds for 23 months, and the financial difficulties have been well known.
As for the mobile phone business, after Samsung, Huawei and other brands have launched folding screen mobile phones, Royole's soft mobile phones have no first-mover advantage, but the shortcomings in software and hardware are more obviously exposed under the contrast.
Of course, Roupai is not without the opportunity to reverse the decline in corporate operations, in 2020, Royole tried to list in the United States, but failed to make the trip, turned back to China to sprint to the science and technology innovation board, and finally withdrew the application for listing documents.
As for the failure of the sprint of the science and technology innovation board, Royole founder Liu Zihong explained internally that he was affected by the "ant incident", and the reason given by Royole independent director Liu Shuwei was that royole technology had "three types of shareholders at the direct level" in terms of shareholder structure.
The negative impact of the IPO was quickly spread to the operating level, lack of money became the biggest problem of Royole, in the prospectus, Royole has actually disclosed its poor financial situation in recent years, from 2017 to the first half of 2020, Royole's losses were 359 million yuan, 802 million yuan, 1.073 billion yuan and 961 million yuan, respectively.
In the past two years there is no external capital injection, royole has been on the edge of the cliff, according to the interface news, the current Royole "supplier arrears are still not paid, large-scale arrears of employee wages; the production line is almost stopped, can not support follow-up orders, and even the basic production materials are not sufficient." ”
2
Where does the crisis come from
From the star company with a valuation of tens of billions to the bottom now, royole technology is a fraudulent company, or there is a problem with the development direction, and the outside world has a different view.
Liu Shuwei believes that "the three founders of Royole Technology have graduated from Tsinghua University, and they have mastered the world's leading flexible technology, but they lack experience in how to open up the market, create sufficient operating cash flow, and ensure the company's continuous operation." This is also a common problem in most high-tech enterprises on the mainland. ”
However, if the current predicament of Royole is all attributed to the "human" level, it does not seem objective.
From the beginning, Royole Technology, which mastered the flexible screen technology, tried to walk on two legs, on the one hand, it launched a folding screen mobile phone for the C-end, on the other hand, it was an upstream supplier to undertake B-end orders.
But the result of this is not satisfactory, in the mobile phone market, although Royole was the first to make a mass production of folding screen mobile phones, but in other aspects of the competition is far inferior to other mobile phone manufacturers, so after the birth of similar products in the market, Royole's flex mobile phones soon lost their advantages.
In addition, the quality control problems of the flex mobile phone itself are also more prominent, and on many complaint platforms, consumer complaints can be seen that the soft pai mobile phone has black spots and bad spots on the screen.
In the B-end business, Royole has not won the favor of many large manufacturers, and there are currently traceable large transactions, only the 3 billion yuan order of Shenzhen Zhongzhi Wei'an, and the 600 million yuan order of Huaqiang North Enterprise.
However, the cooperation of the former has not entered the substantive promotion stage, and the order of 3 billion yuan is executed in 3 years, and the order of the latter, although it is already in the process of promotion, has not been delivered, and the funds will not all be in place in the short term.
Flexible screen imagination space of the largest mobile phone market, Royole is not able to share a little sweetness in the enterprise end, the domestic Huami OV four major mobile phone manufacturers, have not chosen to cooperate with Royole, but they have each launched a folding screen mobile phone, I have to say more ironic.
It is worth mentioning that Royole not only did not cooperate with mobile phone manufacturers, but even once had a war of words with them.
In 2019, Xiaomi co-founder Lin Bin sent a video of Xiaomi's folding screen engineering machine on the network, saying that it was xiaomi's first folding screen and the world's first double-folding mobile phone.
This made Royole executives very unhappy, Royole vice president Fan Junchao bombarded Xiaomi, saying that Xiaomi's double folding mobile phone was a concept flexible screen and concept machine that had not yet been mass-produced by others, and said that Xiaomi's claim to "overcome the flexible folding screen technology" was blatantly fake. Liu Zihong wrote in the circle of friends: "People do not offend me, I do not offend, if people offend me, although they will be punished from afar." ”
3
Or not to save
Royole still wants to save, or is it worth saving, this score is two points of view.
From the perspective of the market, enterprises are profitable institutions, they must respect the laws of business and market laws, survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest, consumers and customers have made judgments and choices for Royole.
If you want to save Rouyu, then you have to save LeTV, Ofo, and Evergrande at the same time.
From the perspective of the industry, the existence of Royole is not really a promotion effect on scientific and technological innovation and industry development, in fact, Liu Shuwei has been expounding the view, Royole has from 0 to 1 research and development results, can open up the mainland flexible technology application market.
However, whether Royole's existing technology is really in line with the future development direction and whether it is in a leading position in the industry requires the judgment of more professionals.
Liu Shuwei revealed in the article, "In the fourth quarter of 2021, the Shenzhen Municipal Government hired a number of professional institutions to conduct on-site assessment of Royole Technology's fully flexible screen projection production line, which lasted nearly 1 month, and the yield of the assessment and projection reached 81.6%. ”
From the perspective of yield, Royole's products seem to be able to withstand the test, but since there have been experts on the ground to verify, why no white knight is willing to help, the problems in this are more and more.
Judging from past experience, when this kind of technology industry enterprise encounters difficulties, the most ideal receiver is still local state-owned assets and production and investment institutions, out of the consideration of building a local industrial cluster, the enterprises in distress are shot and bet that they can soar.
A more representative case is Hefei's 7 billion yuan investment in NIO that year, helping NIO survive the crisis, Hefei also obtained rich investment returns from it, and successfully expanded the local new energy automobile industry.
However, such a perfect script is not often staged, such as the previous bet on Hammer Technology in Chengdu Chenghua District, which ultimately failed to achieve the desired result.
In addition, there is a road to be acquired by competitors, but this road is not very likely for Royole, the outside world has listed Huawei, Samsung and BOE as Royole's "imaginary enemies", but from the perspective of industrial layout, it seems that these companies do not need to take over the mess of Royole.
Royole's most ideal solution at present, or to seek the support of old friend Shenzhen state-owned assets, before the Shenzhen state-owned assets system of Shenzhen Venture Capital, Shenzhen Huigang Investment, Laterite Information Venture Capital have participated in the first few rounds of royole investment.
More importantly, after the local state-owned assets come out to bail out, other investment institutions may have the confidence to follow up, thus helping Royole out of the difficulties.
From this point of view, the appeal of Royole Independent Director Liu Shuwei may have already thought of a fixed-point transmission object.