Compared with the glory of the 1970s and 1980s, "Made in Hong Kong" has lost its former glory. Open the latest Forbes Hong Kong 50 rich list, full of real estate, financial tycoons, and few rich people do manufacturing.
"A little red in a hundred flowers", on the Hong Kong rich list, Yang Jianwen and Lin Huiying, who ranked 4th and worth $18.6 billion, became the last "flag bearers" made in Hong Kong.
The Last "Flag Bearer" Made in Hong Kong
Bern Optics
In February last year, the new crown epidemic affected mobile phone sales, when market research agencies calculated that the price of mobile phone panels would be loosened in March. For example, the price of a-Si/LTPS mobile phone panel fell by about $0.1-0.2, and the AMOLED mobile phone panel also fell by about $1.
The mobile phone panel is loose, but it does not mean that the panel supply situation at that time is optimistic, why?
In February 2020, Bourne Optics was not smooth due to the low resumption rate and poor supply, dragging down the shipment of the iPhone 11 supply chain. The problem was mainly due to the dual impact of the epidemic and the Spring Festival holiday, and later, after the special train of Bourne employees back to the factory was launched at the end of February and early March last year, more employees were put into the production line, and the supply problem was alleviated as the resumption rate resumed daily.
The supply problem of Bourne Optics also implicates other panel suppliers, which shows that any link in the supply chain is "leading the whole body". In addition to Apple, at that time, even the suppliers JDI, LGD, sharp were forced to reduce the supply, and the 6th generation LTPS panel factory once reduced the capacity utilization rate by about 20%.
Huizhou Bern Factory
Founded in 1987, Hong Kong billionaires Yang Jianwen and Lam Wai-ying are pioneers in the global optical industry. After 34 years of development, Bourne Optics has become one of the world's largest mobile phone screen manufacturers with the largest production scale, the highest production capacity and the most advanced production process and equipment.
Fuji Optics, the predecessor of Bern Optics, was established in Hong Kong in 1987 and created the first Fuji Optics Factory in Futian Shazui, Shenzhen. In 1989, Fuji Factory I and Ii Factory were set up in Henggang, Shenzhen, when Bern Optics was mainly engaged in the processing and manufacturing of world-renowned watch surface glass.
As we all know, Hong Kong is the distribution center of the world's famous watches, in fact, Hong Kong was once one of the world's watch manufacturing centers. Li Ka-shing's father-in-law (also uncle) Zhuang Jing'an, is the famous "King of Hong Kong Watches" and the founder of the Hong Kong watch industry.
It is worth mentioning that the family of Wong Tzu Ming, the former richest man in Thailand who is also the Chaoshan family with the Li Ka Shing family and the Zhuang Jing'an family, and his son Huang Chuangbao, has also won the reputation of Hong Kong's "King of Watches" and was once one of the world's major watch manufacturers.
Like the garment industry and the electronics industry, the watch industry was also one of the glories of Hong Kong manufacturing, if there is no Hong Kong manufacturing, relying on finance, trade, real estate, Hong Kong can not become the "Asian Tigers". Bern Optics started from the surface glass of Hong Kong's watch industry, and it also "came into being" and rose with the tide.
Founder of Bern Optics Yang Jianwen
In 2001, Boern Optics established its Headquarters in Hong Kong, and in the same year, Boern Optics (Shenzhen) was established in Henggang Jinquan Industrial Zone, Longgang District, Shenzhen, and in 2008, Huizhou Boon Factory was established in Qiuchangbaishi Industrial Zone, Huiyang District, Huizhou City.
By 2014, Bourne Optics was one of the most influential companies in the global touchscreen industry. Since then, in addition to the joint venture with Zhejiang Luxiao Technology in Tongliao, Inner Mongolia to establish "Bern Luxiao Sapphire", the company is now one of the world's largest sapphire glass production bases.
The following year, Yang Jianwen's Bern Optics expanded its production scale in the Yonghu, Third and Second Industrial Zones in Huiyang, Huizhou. In 2017, an industrial zone was built in Huiyang Tamsui Yangna Village. At the same time, Bern Optics (Vietnam) was established and built an industrial park in Vietnam.
For more than 30 years, there are very few rich people in Hong Kong who can adhere to the manufacturing industry like Yang Jianwen of Bourne Optics, and it can also be said that he is the last "flag bearer" made in Hong Kong, and the list of Hong Kong's rich people is "a little red in a hundred flowers".
Top 10 Richest People in Forbes 2021 Hong Kong, China
In February this year, Forbes released the "2021 China Hong Kong Rich List", "Superman" Li Ka-shing re-ascended to the "Hong Kong richest man" throne, his net worth of 35.4 billion US dollars. His second son, 54-year-old Li Zekai, is 22nd and worth $4.4 billion. Li Ka-shing and Li Zekai's father and son are worth a total of US$39.8 billion. Li Ka-shing, 92, separated before retiring, with his eldest son Li Zeju taking over his family's "Changhe Department", while the second son, Li Zekai, continued to invest independently in telecommunications and other industries.
Among the top ten richest people in Hong Kong, only Yang Jianwen and his wife of Bourne Optics are mainly engaged in manufacturing, most of which are profitable from real estate and hotel industries. If you can be counted as an industry, in addition to Yang Jianwen and his wife, the "Lee Kum Kee" Lee Wenda family engaged in the food industry is also a family, but the wealth contributed by "playing soy sauce" is only a part.
Judging from the way the rich people in the Forbes rich list make money and the characteristics of the rich people on the list, although it is still impossible to define the isolation of Hong Kong and the manufacturing industry today, the rise and fall of Hong Kong's manufacturing industry can be glimpsed.
Perhaps, some people will say that Hong Kong, a bustling city with little land, can only survive real estate and finance, and the other is trade, logistics and other service industries. However, some people will question whether such a deformed industrial structure can easily ignore the many social and people's livelihood problems it brings? Who will pay for Hong Kong's decay in the future?
Li Ka-shing (left) on a private jet
In the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong's manufacturing boomed, with one-fifth of the public engaged in manufacturing, and it was they who built Hong Kong into a global manufacturing city. At its peak in the early 1980s, manufacturing accounted for 23% of Hong Kong's GDP, and wage workers accounted for more than 40% of Hong Kong's workforce. In terms of exports to foreign countries, Hong Kong's manufactured products were as high as 69.6% at the peak, which is already a high proportion of Hong Kong for Hong Kong, which is known for its entrepot trade.
In the past, in the global economic and trade field, Hong Kong's garments, electronic products, watches, jewelry, toys, travel goods, handbags, shoes, etc., were well-known in the world, and Hong Kong also won the reputation of "world factory".
Some people say that the transformation of Hong Kong's manufacturing from prosperity to decline is caused by the bottleneck in the industrial structure of its light industry development, especially the decline in basic labor force and the decline in factor resources such as land, and it is also related to the investment of Hong Kong businessmen "changing cages for birds" into the mainland. To be honest, these factors do exist, but they are not a fundamental reason to stifle Hong Kong manufacturing.
Because, a core question has emerged, why can't Hong Kong manufacturing be "re-industrialized", why is there no opportunity to cultivate emerging high-tech industries, develop key technologies, and regain the glory of manufacturing?
After the emergence of "super rent" in the 1980s, it has created a large number of Hong Kong's top rich, but also made the interest relationship and class solidified, Hong Kong's manufacturing industry is sluggish, the fundamental reason is that its operating environment has been reversed and it has become difficult to have room for turning, who will be willing to make hard money in manufacturing?
Made in Hong Kong, it has lost a rare opportunity for transformation, and it has also laid the foundation for many chaos in the future.
Mr. and Mrs. Yang Jianwen of Bern Optics - the dark horse of wealth that broke into Hong Kong's rich list
Bern Optics Yang Jianwen (right) and Lin Huiying (center) couple
Bourne Optics, owned by Yeung Kin Man and his wife, Lam Wai Ying, is often considered Hong Kong's hidden rich because they are well accessed by the media.
When Bloomberg released the Bloomberg Billionaires Index at the end of 2016 in 2016, Yang Jianwen and Lam Huiying, who were worth US$11.8 billion at the time, became the third richest people in Hong Kong. At that time, he was the first Hong Kong manufacturer to break into the top three non-real estate developers in Hong Kong's rich list in 20 years, and he was also a dark horse of wealth in Hong Kong's non-real estate.
With up to 120,000 employees, Bourne Optics has been ranked among the top 100 enterprises in Guangdong and the top 100 manufacturing enterprises in Guangdong for many times, and has been awarded as a national high-tech enterprise, the most competitive enterprise in Guangdong, and the top 100 foreign-invested enterprises in Guangdong.
When it comes to Guangdong manufacturing, many people will immediately associate with Huawei, Gree, Midea, TCL, etc., and be unfamiliar with Bourne Optics. But many people don't know that Bourne Optics, like Foxconn, is also an important part of the Apple industry chain.
At its peak, about 60% of apple mobile phone panels, 70% of Samsung mobile phone panels, is manufactured by Bourne Optics, in addition to making mobile phone screen panels for mobile phone giants such as Apple, Bourne Optics, as one of the world's largest mobile phone screen manufacturers, but also for Samsung, Sony and many other mobile phones, tablets, watches and optical devices in the world to manufacture glass screens. For a long time, two out of every three mobile phone screens were produced by Bourne Optics.
Zhou Qunfei's badge when he worked in Aoya Optics
Doing apple industry chain mobile phone glass and touch screen, there are many rich people, such as Bourne Optics' Yang Jianwen and his wife, OFILM's Cai Rongjun, Cai Gao's brothers, the most eye-catching is the "mobile phone glass queen", Lansi Technology's Zhou Qunfei, she once became "China's richest woman".
Yang Jianwen, the earliest entrepreneur was to make watch dials, until the late 80s and early 90s of the last century, when mobile phones quietly emerged, "Spring River plumbing duck prophet!" Yang Jianwen found this business opportunity and switched from watch dials to the production of mobile phone panels.
Born in Hong Kong in 1953, Yang Jianwen is a native of Hong Kong, with his ancestral home in Nanhai, Foshan, Guangdong Province, graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute and later received an honorary doctorate in business administration from the City University of Hong Kong.
When I started my business in the mainland in the late 1980s, it was a time when the watch industry was growing by leaps and bounds. In 1986, Yang Jianwen came to Shenzhen from Hong Kong, built a tin shack in the factory area of a brick factory in Henggang Street, and recruited more than 100 workers to engage in the production of watch surface glass, that is, "Fuji Optics".
"Doing what others have not done" is the way for Yang Jianwen to succeed, when he was already an important partner of high-end Seiko watches such as Citizen. Later, when he was using his mobile phone (Big Brother), he found that the mobile phone panel, which was still plastic film at the time, was prone to scratches. He thought to himself: Can it be replaced by a glass material that is less likely to leave scratches?
Bourne Optics took off because of the chariot tied to the Apple. In 2007, when Apple launched the first generation of iPhones, it was with Yang Jianwen's Bern Optics industry chain cooperation. However, Bourne Optics' earliest contact with the mobile phone giant was Motorola in the United States.
Yang Jianwen used his own watch glass technology foundation, coupled with the advantages of good research and development, quickly made the glass mobile phone screen products, recommended to mobile phone manufacturers, the product was suddenly recognized by the mobile phone giant Motorola at that time.
Yang Jianwen later said that he received a product order faxed by Motorola at that time, which was simply "stunned"! In 2004, Bourne Optics produced only a few thousand watch surfaces per month, and Motorola used the mobile phone screen at the beginning, and in the first month, it placed an order for Bourne, as many as 1 million pieces, and the second month arranged 4 million pieces.
Yang Jianwen said that when he saw such a large number of orders, "it was really scared to death", where to find so many people and places to do 4 million mobile phone screens. In desperation, Bourne had to give up 50% of the production share to a Japanese factory.
In just over 10 years, Bourne Optics has grown from a few thousand employees to the world's largest producer of mobile glass with 120,000 employees, and its core mobile glass business accounts for more than 60% of the global market. In the past few years, sapphire, 3D curved glass, etc. have gained a growth opportunity.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bourne Optics, Lam Wai Ying (2nd from right)
Yang Jianwen and his wife Lin Huiying, both founders of Bourne Optics, also belong to the successful entrepreneurial "husband and wife file". Yang Jianwen once jokingly said: I am working for my wife.
Originally, Yang Jianwen served as the president of Bourne Optics, and his wife, Lin Huiying, became the chairman of the board of directors of Bourne Optics. However, in terms of shareholding, Yang Jianwen holds 51% of the shares, and the remaining shares are held by Lin Huiying.
Dealing with major mobile phone giants often, Yang Jianwen also summed up his own experience. For example, when interacting with Koreans at Samsung Electronics, they must learn to boo cold and ask for warmth, and they must also know how to talk and communicate at the wine table. Dealing with Apple is different, and when talking to their young engineers, it is best to have creative "brainstorming".
"Do your own thing" is Bourne's corporate philosophy, there was a long time, Bourne did not have its own official website, the factory did not have a big signboard, which is also related to the low-key personality of founder Yang Jianwen. Perhaps there is no shortage of money, and Yang Jianwen has no intention of listing and financing. Like Huawei Ren Zhengfei, if it is not listed, it will be less disturbed by external factors, and it will work hard and do things without distraction.
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