In more than 21 years at Qualcomm, Hou Mingjuan has witnessed the development of Qualcomm from 3G to 4G and then to 5G.
Text: "Chinese Entrepreneur" reporter Yan Junwen
Editor|Li Wei
Header image source: Respondents
Hou Mingjuan, Qualcomm's global vice president, likes to run and is a frequent visitor to the 42km marathon. But her first marathon experience didn't go well.
At that time, Hou Mingjuan, who had successfully run the half marathon (21 km), felt good and felt that she could run the whole marathon, so she found a chaperone to accompany the whole race. However, she ultimately missed the cut-off time for that game. It was only later that she realised that the whole marathon was not a half-marathon multiplied by two, and that the real challenge came from 30 kilometres later, which required the accumulation of ability.
Hou Mingjuan said: "You have to know what your body feels when you run 35 kilometers, so that you can run the next 7 kilometers, and you must train for the long distance." She stressed that the distribution of physical strength is essential to ensure performance.
"Unforeseen circumstances such as weather changes, fatigue or other unexpected events can cause you to miss your goal, so Over Prepare is a solid foundation for a successful accomplishment," Hou said. ”
From the experience of running a marathon, Hou Mingjuan summed up a truth - you can only win if you are fully prepared for something. This spirit was also brought to Qualcomm by her.
Snapdragon "debut" promoter
The first release of Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon chip is the favorite of many manufacturers.
In 2021, Qualcomm released the first-generation Snapdragon 8 (Snapdragon 8 Gen1) chip, and Lei Jun posted on Weibo that the Xiaomi 12 smartphone will be the world's first Snapdragon 8 Gen1 chip. Immediately, Lenovo came forward and said that only when there is goods can it really start. Immediately afterwards, realme, OPPO and other manufacturers also announced their debut.
Technological leadership combined with brand advantages can make people compete to pay. In the past few decades, the "debut" of Snapdragon chips is such a business story, and it has also witnessed the rise of Chinese mobile phone manufacturers. The driving force behind the shaping of this story is Hou Mingjuan.
Mingjuan Hou joined Qualcomm in 2002 and was promoted to Vice President in 2017, where she led the company's brand strategy, corporate communications, marketing and other matters in China, and was responsible for providing strategy to the company's senior management.
In 2012, Qualcomm named the Snapdragon series of processors "Snapdragon" in Chinese. Hou Mingjuan's team has done research, "Snapdragon" Chinese brand 12 years ago, if no hint is given, 37% of users know Snapdragon chip, which represents technology leadership and good user experience.
"An international car company said that in the Chinese market, for consumers who pursue the latest technology experience, the mention of 'Snapdragon' means that the terminal side is intelligent." Hou Mingjuan believes that this is the result of long-termism, which comes from long-term cultivation of the market.
In Qualcomm for more than 21 years, Hou Mingjuan has witnessed the development of Qualcomm from 3G to 4G and then to 5G, and Qualcomm's business has also expanded from mobile phones to various terminals such as cars, VR/AR, watches, and PCs. Today, the "Snapdragon" brand is ubiquitous.
Technological change is the biggest dividend in the development of technology companies, but the slightest negligence can also become a source of backwardness. Hou Mingjuan and her team are at the forefront of such change. She is committed to achieving the desired results through perfect and adequate preparation. She sums up her work and management experience at Qualcomm as follows:
First, you have to prepare a bucket of water before you can take out a bottle of water. As a member of the marketing team, she believes that in order to produce high-quality content, you need Over Prepare. When you're well prepared for something, you'll feel comfortable doing it and have more possibilities. Second, the team is always evolving, maintaining a strong sense of curiosity and curiosity, believing in the team, and focusing on collaboration.
Be prepared and take advantage of the opportunity
When Hou Mingjuan first arrived at Qualcomm, the mobile Internet coincided with the upgrade from 2G to 3G. In 2008, the advent of the iPhone 3G and the first Android smartphone, HTC Dream, as well as the issuance of 3G licenses in China, promoted the arrival of the big 3G era on a global scale.
Source: Visual China
With many foundational inventions of wireless communication technology, Qualcomm is a leader in the 3G and 4G era. In order to serve the market well, Hou Mingjuan and her team need to plan every event and respond to the needs of each partner.
Hou Mingjuan said: "We can always learn a lot from our customers. It's our job to solve problems, and whenever we receive a customer request, we see it as an opportunity to demonstrate our capabilities and product strengths. In order to make the most of this opportunity, we need to fully mobilize internal resources to solve the problems raised by our customers. ”
Every year, Qualcomm holds the "Snapdragon Summit", which has become an important vane for domestic mobile phone manufacturers to release flagship products every year; Qualcomm has participated in ChinaJoy for 7 consecutive years, including 4 years in the form of private pavilions. In addition, the marketing department led by Hou Mingjuan also promoted the establishment of the Snapdragon fan community "Snapdragon Club".
In this community, consumers can learn about the phone's processor, such as how many generations of chips are used, how fast it runs, etc. These professional knowledge has become the common sense that consumers must know when choosing relevant 3C products, and chips have also become an important factor in consumers' decision-making minds.
As Qualcomm's products evolved, Qualcomm has grown its global workforce from a few hundred to 50,000 today, a scale that requires sophisticated collaboration and communication skills to keep departments running smoothly.
Hou Mingjuan still remembers a small incident. When she first joined Qualcomm, she met an engineer in the elevator one day who greeted her and asked her what she had been up to lately. At that time, Hou Mingjuan felt that it was difficult to express clearly in 20 seconds in the elevator, so she chose to be silent. If it were today, she would definitely make the most of this brief opportunity to communicate.
"You have to believe in your team and believe in the power of collaboration." "You can't pass up any opportunity to interact with other teams, including any possible leisure moments. ”
There are no limits to dreams
AI is one of the biggest variables of this era, and it is revolutionizing embodied intelligence such as mobile phones and robots.
Hou Mingjuan said: "Qualcomm focuses on end-of-device AI technology, because each of us has a variety of terminal devices in our hands, and our job is to explore how to develop this function to make everyone more perceptive, more practical, and more user-friendly." ”
In addition to mobile phones, "Snapdragon" has become the smart core of products such as personal computers (PCs), extended reality (XR), audio devices, gaming devices, wearables, and automobiles.
Hou Mingjuan believes that we are now on the eve of the explosive growth of AI, and there are many opportunities waiting to be explored. She stressed that if one company dominates the market, other companies will not have a chance.
At the end of October 2023, Qualcomm released the third-generation Snapdragon 8 (Snapdragon 8 Gen3), which brings generative AI models to the mobile phone for the first time. Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon said that 2024 will be a key year for global AI smartphones, and generative AI is entering mobile phones very quickly.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2024, Qualcomm's revenue was $9.935 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5%; Net profit was US$2.767 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24%. A few months ago, at the earnings conference, Qualcomm said that revenue from China's Android smartphone market increased by 35% more than expected, and many of them were driven by the new Snapdragon 8 Gen3 flagship.
Counterpoint, a specialist organization, predicts that "GenAI (generative artificial intelligence) will play an important role in the launch of differentiated new products by mobile phone manufacturers." In the next two years, Qualcomm will occupy more than 80% of the GenAI mobile phone market. ”
Hou Mingjuan remembers that when she first joined the company, she asked Qualcomm founder and first chairman Evan Jacob a question, "What is your dream?" ”
At that time, Jacob replied, "Change the world." Later, Hou Mingjuan discovered that this answer did not stop at the words, Jacob was really changing the world.
In the 80s of the 20th century, the CDMA technology promoted by Qualcomm was not widely recognized, and even a Stanford professor wrote an article questioning it, predicting that once the CDMA users exceeded 50,000, the system would crash. But CDMA has since become an important standard for 3G networks.
As Hou Mingjuan said, "Although you can't anticipate the growth opportunities brought by the cumulative external environment, you must be prepared. As long as you do the best in the moment, many things will change exponentially in a positive way. ”
With this belief, she has come to see her work not just as a career, but as a part of her life and even her life. "I've enjoyed my job every day for the past 21 years. Today, my team and I are committed to being the enablers of the intelligent interconnection of everything. ”