Ni Fei, Senior Vice President of ZTE and President of ZTE Terminal Division
For users who have been exposed to early smart phones, ZTE is certainly not an unfamiliar name, after all, "China Cool Union" was once the four hegemons of the operator era, and the first "Zhong" was ZTE.
At the recent shareholders' meeting, ZTE said that after more than three years of recovery and development, all aspects of the company's operations have been adjusted to a relatively healthy state, which has created favorable conditions for the company to challenge the first goal of the "2-3 years to enter the global top 500".
A few days ago, Titanium Media App had the opportunity to interview Ni Fei, senior vice president of ZTE and president of ZTE Terminal Division, and discussed issues such as ZTE's future strategy, mobile terminals and market development.
First of all, Ni Fei revealed some key data. Last year, ZTE's consumer business revenue reached 25.73 billion yuan, a significant increase of 59.2% year-on-year. Among them, the revenue of household terminals increased by more than 80% year-on-year, ranking first in the global share, and the market share of 5G CPE was the first in the world; the revenue of mobile phone products increased by nearly 40% year-on-year, which also showed a very positive growth trend.
According to the overall financial report in 2021, relying on the good performance of the three main businesses, ZTE's revenue and net profit hit a new high, achieving operating income of 114.52 billion yuan, an increase of 12.9% year-on-year; net profit attributable to common shareholders of listed companies was 6.81 billion yuan, an increase of 59.9% year-on-year.
Among them, ZTE's operator network achieved operating income of 75.71 billion yuan, an increase of 2.29% year-on-year; government and enterprise affairs achieved operating income of 13.08 billion yuan, an increase of 16.03% year-on-year; consumer business achieved operating income of 25.73 billion yuan, an increase of 59.22% year-on-year.
Under the influence of factors such as the shortage of the global chip market, the epidemic problem and the weakness of the consumer market, it is not easy to achieve such results.
For the future development, Ni Fei said that ZTE will rely on ZTE's unique cloud, network, terminal, core comprehensive communication capabilities, continue to increase investment in core technologies such as chips, algorithms, operating systems and network architectures, and further increase the proportion of self-developed chips in products on the basis of 50% of last year's proportion.
If it is translated into the strategic development of products, it is to strengthen the "1+2+N" intelligent lifestyle, create a large terminal ecology, and cover the four core scenarios of sports and health, business travel, audio-visual entertainment, and family education.
In order to better achieve this goal, Ni Fei revealed that on this basis, ZTE will also challenge the target of 150 million terminal products and a 50% year-on-year increase in shipments. Specifically in terms of mobile phones, ZTE will insist on making efforts from the two directions of display and image. Previously, ZTE has launched the world's first under-screen camera mobile phone, and has taken the lead in launching the three-main camera computational photography technology. Ni Fei expects that the overall shipment of ZTE mobile phones this year will increase by 50% compared with previous years, and the domestic market will increase by 200%.
Previously, IDC announced the situation of China's smartphone market in the first quarter of 2022. According to its latest statistics, the overall shipment in the first quarter was about 74.2 million units, a sharp decline, down 14.1% year-on-year.
According to the report, in the first quarter of 2022, the decline in shipments in China's smartphone market was due to the impact of the continuous rebound of the epidemic on consumer budgets, as well as the small upgrade of new products, which led to a sustained downturn in market demand, and if there is no additional positive stimulus, the capacity of China's smartphone market in 2022 may fall below the 300 million unit mark.
In this context, titanium media app is also very curious about ZTE's confidence, where does this confidence come from? Ni Fei also answered directly.
He believes that in the past year, the performance of ZTE's consumer business has been red, creating a strong growth point of the second curve business, and we have the confidence to go further.
Secondly, based on the judgment of ZTE's own core competitiveness. The technical advantages in the field of communications, the accumulation of chips, OS and other aspects, and the product research and development capabilities of the terminal itself constitute the main pillar of the competitiveness of terminal products.
Off-screen camera technology
Mobile phone product innovation direction, screen and image, is the two most important innovation directions of mobile phone products, ZTE will continue to consolidate its own under-screen camera technology, multi-main camera computing photography advantages and characteristics, continue to lead the innovation of these two directions and product commercialization, but also will continue to strengthen the product experience.
Finally, observations and insights into the entire industry. Based on the consumption upgrade of personal and household products and the two major trends of digital transformation of the industry, ZTE adopts the strategy of consumer terminal business and industry terminal business at the same time.
Strengthen the construction of 1+2+N smart lifestyle in the consumer business. At present, ZTE's Wi-Fi router and set-top box products maintain a high-speed growth trend, and the 5G CPE market share ranks first in the world, so relying on the industry leader advantage of data connection products, it is accelerating the expansion of the ecological scale of smart tablets, wearables, smart screens, home data control centers and other products. In addition, ZTE also attaches great importance to the industry terminal business, helping the medical, automotive, electric power, coal mining, retail and other industries to change first.
In addition to its own products, ZTE has also been actively expanding its channels and establishing its different brand positioning in recent years.
First of all, according to Ni Fei, in terms of channels, ZTE insists on attaching equal importance to the open market and the government and enterprise markets, actively expands the retail channel team and strengthens the training of industry product experts. Promote the construction of domestic offline channels, and plan to build more than 10,000 sales positions in 2022 on the basis of more than 6,000 by the end of 2021.
Secondly, in terms of brand layout, further integrate the three major brands of ZTE, Nubia and Red Devils to expand the domestic market segment. For example, Red Devils are constantly exploring the infinite possibilities of gaming mobile phones and ecological products, becoming a professional game equipment brand. This year, on the fourth anniversary of the brand, Red Devils has partnered with the world's top IP Transformers.
Finally, it is ZTE's own Axon series of mobile phones, Ni Fei believes that technological innovation has always been an essential need to achieve a breakthrough in high-end mobile phones. To this end, ZTE insists on exerting its strength from the two directions of display and image.
In the upcoming May 9, ZTE will also release a new flagship mobile phone product - Axon 40 Ultra, which will become the "ultimate form of the straight board flagship". According to Ni Fei, this mobile phone will have three core points to watch: one is the truly flawless and flawless true full screen, the third generation of the most perfect under-screen camera, the second is the custom optical three main camera computing photography, and the third is the new generation of Snapdragon 8 chip with the best output performance through hardware and software.
Especially for the image aspect, the Axon 40 Ultra will bring five industry uniques on the basis of inheriting 64 million high-energy three main cameras: the only three main cameras can perform lightning capture, the only three main camera 8K video, the only three main camera preset focus, the only one equipped with dual Sony sensors and the only dual omni-pixel omni-directional focus.
In addition, the well-regarded 35mm master lens on the Nubia Z40 Pro will also be introduced to the Axon 40 series.
At the same time, on the whole, ZTE will further increase the proportion of high-end products, and will also expand the scale of entry-level inclusive products, that is, low-end products, to serve different users.
Whether it is from the 2021 financial report or from this interview with Ni Fei, it is not difficult for us to see that ZTE is regrouping and re-establishing ZTE's own advantages from many aspects such as brand, strategy, product and channel. Moreover, this change is not blindly panicked, but very planned, step by step to products, technology and other core advantages, steady play may be more difficult, but this solid foundation will bring higher development prospects to ZTE after all, at this time can recognize the situation, face the gap with big brands, do a solid job in the basic skills, the future there is still the possibility of returning to the head. (This article was first published on titanium media App)