Miss Dong must be very big, and Gree seems to have "grown" on the hot search recently.
The front foot just because the dividend was not as expected, the stock price rarely touched the drop limit, the market value lost about 22 billion yuan, and the back foot made a big oolong in the first quarter report, and Dong Mingzhu's share status was written as "frozen", and then the company urgently corrected it to "pledge".
Just after the storm of the first quarterly report, Gree reported the resignation of Meng Yutong, who was once regarded as Dong Mingzhu's "successor". This news is also a twist and turn, first Meng Yutong sent a video saying that he wanted to continue studying in order to pursue his studies, and then there was news that Meng Yutong was dismissed because he often missed work to participate in business activities and took over private work. Until now, Meng Yutong's Xiaohongshu account is still topped with a photo with Dong Mingzhu, and the title of the note is "I am the 22-year-old girl selected by Dong Mingzhu."
This is not over, on the evening of May 19, news came out that Gree Electric has disbanded the core team of mobile phones, and there is a high probability that it will no longer make mobile phones. Subsequently, Gree responded to the media that the research and development of mobile phones is continuing, TOSOT G7 is the sixth generation of Gree mobile phones, welcome to enter the "Gree Dong Pearl Store" shopping experience.
The news of the dissolution of the Gree mobile phone team, whether true or not, is regarded as another symbolic node of Gree's diversification.
After repeated setbacks, can Dong Mingzhu, who is nearly 70 years old, and Gree, who has been established for 32 years, end this "water reversal"?
An attempt to "go high and go low"
"It's long overdue," when Gree reported that the mobile phone team was about to be disbanded, a number of industry insiders told "City Boundary".
"Dong Mingzhu said that Gree mobile phones have their own R & D team and production factories, but no media person has witnessed Gree's mobile phone factory," said Liu Buchen, an analyst in the home appliance industry. ”
"Gree's mobile phone has not been iterated for a long time, the most recent new product release is in 2021", a mobile phone industry source said, "two years without new products on sale, for mobile phone manufacturers can be ready to close." ”
According to interface reports, Gree mobile phone business was first established in Zhuhai and moved the core team to Shenzhen around 2019. The Shenzhen team, which includes development, testing, and administrative HR, peaked at close to 100 people. But since last year, the Shenzhen team has gradually disbanded, and by mid-2022 there will be more than 40 people left. In June last year, First Finance said that Ye Ruiquan, the operator of Gree mobile phone business and former executive of Coolpad Group, had left in the first half of the year.
Although there are sporadic media reports, the Gree mobile phone team has been very mysterious from beginning to end, and the identity of the person in charge of the mobile phone business has always been a mystery. Gree has also publicly said that it is its Communication Technology Research Institute responsible for the mobile phone business, and the person in charge is not Ye Ruiquan. As for the most important mobile phone sales, Gree has not publicly disclosed it until now, and in Gree's financial reports over the years, the mobile phone business is as if it does not exist, and it is rarely mentioned. In fact, in the third quarter financial report of 2019, Gree deleted the "operating telecommunications business and value-added telecommunications business" section in the proposed amendment of the company's articles of association, at that time, this amendment was regarded as a sign of abandoning the mobile phone business.
Eight years ago, Gree mobile phone was regarded as a star project from the ground up, claiming to have invested hundreds of millions of yuan, and also recruited a large number of mobile phone talents from Gionee and Lenovo with high salaries. Dong Mingzhu is even "golden sentences" in the mobile phone business, saying ruthlessly that "Gree's mobile phone will not be broken for three years". This confidence continued until the 2022 shareholders' meeting, where she confidently said that "Gree mobile phones are no worse than Apple".
▲(Source/Visual China)
However, its own products have not been able to support the various boastful words released by Dong Mingzhu. Just when the Gree mobile phone was first launched, the boot animation was Dong Mingzhu's avatar and personal message, and this design became the public's slot. "If you don't ask celebrities to endorse yourself, advertising costs are saved," a user complained.
In terms of configuration, Gree mobile phone even lags behind a whole generation, 1600 yuan Gree generation, equipped with 4-core processor, 2 million front camera, while the same period of Redmi Note2 configuration is 8-core processor, 13 million pixels, the price is half cheaper than Gree. If you take Gree's latest mobile phone Dasong G7, the 8+128GB version of Damatsu G7 costs 2959 yuan, and this mobile phone is also equipped with the Snapdragon 870 chip, the same support 120Hz refresh rate, the same Redmi K40 with 2400×1080 resolution, the price at that time was 1999 yuan.
Gree's mobile phone business has also been repeatedly jumping between Dong Mingzhu's "export bold words" and "being slapped in the face by bold words". In terms of sales, Dong Mingzhu once said that the target sales volume of Gree mobile phones in 2015 is 100 million units, and later said that more than 50 million units are no problem, and finally said that the mobile phone will not be sold; In terms of factories, Dong Mingzhu once said that the mobile phone was developed and manufactured by Gree and refused to be produced by OEM, but the Gree mobile phone was designed by the OEM company Longqi and produced by Shenzhen Zhuoyi OEM.
In the channel distribution, Gree mobile phones are also unique strange. According to the practice of mainstream mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Huawei, after the release of new mobile phone products, they will often be distributed to social channels as soon as possible, including online third-party e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall, as well as offline physical stores or cooperative channel providers. However, Gree Mobile initially chose to focus on the online platform and offline stores of Gree's "Dong Mingzhu Store".
"Sales channels all rely on internal employees and agents," Sun Yanbiao, president of the First Mobile Phone Research Institute, once said. Some dealers also revealed that in 2017, Gree forced dealers to buy mobile phones for mobile phone shipments, and as a result, more than 4,000 mobile phones were bought back and sold for 1,000 and no one wanted. "This approach of Gree mobile phones on the channel is not like the style of a large enterprise, but more like testing the market acceptance of products in a small entrepreneurial company," a mobile phone industry source said.
At present, Gree mobile phones are still sold on e-commerce platforms, but sales are quite dismal. In Gree's Taobao official flagship store, the first 5G mobile phone launched by Gree Dasong G5 is priced at 2959 yuan after discount, and the monthly sales volume is displayed as 0.
Why can't you make a mobile phone?
To say why Gree failed to build a good mobile phone, the misplaced timing and product ideas are all important reasons.
Gree began to make mobile phones in 2015, but throughout China and global smartphone shipments, 2016 is a high point, which is equivalent to the end of Gree in the global smartphone market growth decided to enter, missing the dividends of the entire market growth stage.
In 2015, the top five global smartphones were Samsung, Apple, Huawei, Lenovo, and Xiaomi, and the top seven domestic smartphones were Huawei, Apple, Xiaomi, Samsung, OPPO, vivo and Lenovo. Compared with today's market structure, there is no qualitative change - only Lenovo has fallen behind because of its own problems, and Huawei has been frustrated by sanctions after briefly sitting in the second place in the world and the first place in China.
After that, the growth rate of global smartphone shipments fell sharply to 2.49% in 2016, and began to decline continuously from 2017, and the decline rate of domestic smartphone shipments was significantly higher than the global level - the latest data shows that global smartphone shipments in 2022 decreased by 11.2% year-on-year, and the domestic decline was as high as 23.11%.
The uncompetitive Gree mobile phone has not been able to get a piece of the market growth stage, and it has no chance when the market shrinks.
Of course, the dislocation of the time point is far from all, home appliance industry analyst Liu Buchen believes that the reason why Gree mobile phones have not been done is mainly because of two congenital shortcomings - that is, the lack of competitiveness of the mobile phone product itself and the unprofessional operation of the team.
Specifically, every time Gree launches a mobile phone, netizens will complain about "low configuration and high price", and the root cause lies in the superficial understanding of mobile phones by Gree's decision-making level; In addition, since the launch of the first mobile phone in the spring of 2015, Gree has not held a decent press conference, and even has not even had its own professional sales channels for 8 years, and the mobile phone is sold in Gree air conditioning specialty stores or sold internally by Gree employees.
Looking back at the beginning, Dong Mingzhu hoped to seize the entrance to the smart home by entering the mobile phone track, and there was no problem with this starting point itself, but Gree still thought too simply about making a mobile phone.
In the view of Wit Display analyst Lin Zhi, the idea of making home appliances and making mobile phones is actually very different, Hisense, TCL, Gree and Konka have all been involved, but they are not much, basically "the whole army is destroyed".
Specifically, home appliances are a necessity and durable product for every family, and have the characteristics of slow replacement. For example, the average service life of air conditioners, TVs, and washing machines is basically more than 8-10 years, so home appliance manufacturers need to accumulate technology in established fields, polish good product quality and after-sales service, and superimpose appropriate marketing strategies, which are also the keys to Gree's previous success in the field of air conditioning.
In contrast, mobile phones are personal consumer goods that are changing faster, and need to constantly cater to changing market trends and personal preferences through technological innovation, as well as stronger marketing investment and adapt to the marketing model of the times.
For example, Huawei, Honor, Xiaomi and OV, in addition to the basic expenses in product development and production, there will be at least several fixed and grand conferences every year, with various spokespersons sitting in town, various image brand blessings, and detailed interpretations of product concepts and positioning of different models. Today, when smartphones are constantly rolled in, these operations are already "I can not buy, but you can't do without" for consumers.
On the other hand, Gree always adopts the road of "quietly putting xx models on the shelf", and to some extent does lack the support of a professional operation team, trying to rely on Dong Mingzhu's personal "out of the circle" words to achieve delivery, or overestimating Miss Dong's brand appeal.
In general, mobile phones and home appliances are difficult to be compatible in product thinking and marketing ideas, but from mobile phones to home appliances, at least from high frequency to low frequency "attack", there are still such successful cases as Xiaomi, and from home appliances into mobile phones, there is no obvious success precedent in the market, Gree is just a typical of which shouts louder and has a larger gap.
Hot searches will also be cool
Recently, from the dividend less than expected to Meng Yutong's departure, and then to the dissolution of the mobile phone team, under the impact of negative news, Gree seems to have been "nailed" to the hot search.
This "hot search physique" is largely related to the distinctive style of its "spokesperson" Dong Mingzhu who has always held high and played.
Dong Mingzhu, who came from a marketing background, once chased the 420,000 yuan debt left by his predecessor for 40 consecutive days, becoming a legend after tea and dinner in the industry, and also led dozens of marketing salesmen to face a team of nearly 1,000 people in home appliance factories and won the first place in national sales.
She is well versed in the marketing methods of that era, and during the rise of Gree, Dong Mingzhu's distinctive personal style really helped Gree a lot. For example, she even has the confidence to replace the spokesperson Jackie Chan and personally go into battle, making "good air conditioning, Gree made" a marketing slogan that has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people for a long time.
However, in the process of the increasing binding of Gree and Dong Mingzhu's personal IP, Dong Mingzhu to Gree and Gree to Dong Mingzhu seem to have changed more and more "taste". For example, Gree Mall is called "Gree Dong Pearl Store", but it is difficult for us to imagine that Xiaomi Mall is called Xiaomi Lei Jun Store, or Midea Shopping Mall is called Midea Fang Hongbo Store.
▲(Source/Visual China)
In the "second half" of the development of Gree air conditioning business hindered and diversification was not as expected, Dong Mingzhu's self-confidence did not seem to have decreased, and the amazing quotes that repeatedly appeared in the circle were in sharp contrast with the reality after that, and took Gree frequently on the hot search.
"I have never made a mistake, I am always right" should be the most memorable sentence among Dong Mingzhu's many golden sentences.
After the acquisition of Yinlong layout of new energy vehicles, Dong Mingzhu resolutely pulled Wang Jianlin, Liu Qiangdong and others after the relevant resolutions were rejected by the shareholders' meeting, invested in shares in his personal name, and once spared no effort to shout for it, "With Yinlong car, ten years is not bad." But the reality after that is that the two sides went to court, Yinlong chairman Wei Yincang fled the United States, and Gree financial report at the end of 2022 showed that Gree Titanium (Zhuhai Yinlong) had a net asset of only 237 million yuan.
The same is true for Meng Yutong's attitude - since receiving Dong Mingzhu's appreciation from a puzzle quiz show, Meng Yutong entered Gree as Dong Mingzhu's secretary, and Dong Mingzhu has praised her many times in public, even titled "the successor should be like her", and changed the name of the Douyin account to "Pearl Yutong Selection", releasing many conjecture signals.
But the girl selected by Dong Mingzhu eventually left Gree, deleted it after posting on Weibo that "relying on others is never better than relying on yourself", and has not publicly responded to the revelations such as "Meng Yutong was either resigned or 'fired'" and "often absent from work to take over private work", and the cooperation between the two sides finally failed to get a decent ending.
Looking back on the dream that Dong Mingzhu once described, it is quite embarrassing - "everyone sits in the car made by Gree, holds Gree's mobile phone, controls the temperature of the air conditioner at home, and enjoys the delicious food brought by Gree."
Author | Lin Xiawei Zhang Jikang
Edit | Han Zhongqiang
Operations | Liu Shan