Even before Li Mu's private plane landed in Boston, the news that Makino Technology and Ford had reached an acquisition intention had already triggered competing reports from the entire Western media.
Although Makino Technology has a wide range of businesses, ranging from social software to portals to online music, online games, hardware development, data services, etc., these are far from the automobile manufacturing industry.
For such an Internet company to suddenly make cars, the public was as surprised as if NASA suddenly decided to make real estate, because these are two completely unrelated industries.
Moreover, what is even more incomprehensible to the public is that Li Mu bought three brands from Ford in one go. This battle is really astonishing.
The most surprised people are those in the automobile industry, especially the senior executives of Japanese and German automobile brands.
At this stage, no matter which industry Li Mu enters, it is enough to make people in this industry nervous. He suddenly entered the automobile industry with such a large force, giving the industry the feeling that it is about to face an invasion.
What Li Mu is good at is to break and then build, entering an industry, destroying it first, and then rebuilding his own home from the ruins.
Just like MP3 players, once Mango-Me came in, the entire industry was greatly affected. Those that are better than it are far less expensive than others, and those that are cheaper than it are far less good than others. Products with the same price range are also more cost-effective than others. A lot lower.
In this way, whether it is a product that is stronger than Mango-Me, a product that is weaker than it, or a product that is equivalent to its strength, it will be greatly affected.
Li Mu suddenly entered the automobile industry, and no one knew whether he would use the Mango-Me method to develop automobiles.
Among them, the only one who is calm is Daimler of Germany.
Daimler had already known about Li Mu's intention to acquire these three brands through Davidson of the Goldberg family. They also learned from Davidson Li Mu's motivation for purchasing these three brands: feelings.
Knowing that it was feelings, Daimler and its most important brand Mercedes-Benz were not too worried.
But other brands are more or less worried.
Although BMW feels that based on the three brands acquired by Li Mu, even if they do well, they cannot be better than BMW. However, they are afraid that Li Mu will engage in cost-effectiveness, in case they end up with something as disgusting as Mango-Me. Competitor models are really a headache.
The public is also a little worried that Li Mu will take the cost-effective route. Once Li Mu takes the approach of "my stuff may not be as good as yours, but it must be much cheaper than yours", it will really be a headache.
This is what cars are like. If the price difference between Jaguar's mid-size sedan and BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz's mid-size sedan is not much different, the German Troika will never take it seriously.
Of course, they are not afraid of Jaguar's price cuts. No matter how much the price is lowered, there must be a cost there. If the price is lowered less, it will not be enough to widen the gap between themselves and the Troika. If the price is lowered too much, let alone threaten the Troika, even themselves. Can't survive.
However, once Li Mu intervenes, the routine will be completely different.
Just like the people who were engaged in MP3 in the past, they all felt that no matter how hard Li Mu lowered his price, it would never be below the cost line. As a result, Li Mu found a way to control his costs even lower than theirs.
For example, this guy directly set up a shopping website and a logistics company, put aside all middlemen, channel costs, and logistics costs, and sold MP3s directly to users online. Who can beat him
Fortunately, the automobile industry is completely different from MP3. MP3 is an ultra-lightweight product, while automobiles are a heavyweight product, and may be the heaviest industrial product among civilians. For most families who own cars, the most valuable thing is their house. The second is cars. The complexity behind such heavy-duty products has also increased exponentially. Li Mu can sell MP3s online, but can he sell cars online? impossible…
Among them, the most worrying thing is Japanese automobile companies.
Japan has a large population, a small area, and fierce competition, so Japanese entrepreneurs pay more attention to details and have a greater sense of crisis.
When they learned that Li Mu was going to build a car, the top executives of Honda, Toyota, and Nissan were all anxious.
Especially Toyota, they have the biggest market share and the most serious sense of crisis.
Regardless of the time difference, Toyota North America's senior executives called the senior executives from the Japanese headquarters up early in the morning to hold a video conference. There was almost no time difference, and they informed the domestic senior executives about Li Mu's acquisition of three Ford car brands.
Almost all the senior managers in Japan were frightened.
Toyota is different from Ford. Ford's management model is to open and close, so success and failure are also due to it. Toyota is a step-by-step approach, exactly as Li Mu planned for himself, one step at a time.
Looking back at Toyota over the years, we can see that at any time and at any stage, there are hot-selling hot models. What they have done is to accumulate hot models, create a hot model, and then maintain the popularity of this hot model while developing new models. In this way, there will be more and more popular items.
Therefore, Toyota has many extremely competitive models at any time, or in other words, most of the models produced by this company are very competitive.
Ford's approach is far less pragmatic than Toyota's step-by-step approach. Their approach is to break the stick and throw away the previous results.
Take Mondeo and Focus, for example. These two models were once extremely popular around the world, but then they became less popular. Look at Toyota's Corolla and Camry, their sales have never dropped for many years.
The Escape was once popular for a while, and then gradually faded away. But look at the Rav4, the sales volume of the Escape in one month exceeds that of the Escape in a year.
Precisely because Toyota has always walked extremely steadily, chills ran down his back at Li Mu's sudden attack.
Although the elderly Shoichiro Toyoda is gray-haired, he is still working hard. At five o'clock in the morning local time in Japan, he sat in his study room, facing the computer and seven or eight Toyota executives on a video call. He said with a worried look on his face: "We must be wary of Li Mu's next moves. We must find out Li Mu's plans for cars at all costs. We must always be prepared to deal with Li Mu's sudden attack!"
The CEO of North America nodded heavily and said solemnly: "President, please rest assured that I will definitely try my best to control every move of Li Mu in the automotive field!"
Shoichiro Toyoda sighed: "I thought Li Mu's next target was electronic appliances. Last month, I reminded the presidents of Sony and Panasonic to be wary of Li Mu's actions. I didn't expect that Li Mu suddenly acquired Ford today. Three brands, this guy is coming in a big way!"
Toyoda Shonan, who has separated from Shoichiro Toyoda and serves as a senior executive at Toyota, said: "Father, although Li Mu is very strong, you don't have to worry too much. If Li Mu is really very destructive in the automotive field, He also has to pass five levels and defeat six generals before he can stand in front of us."
Shonan Toyoda is right. Toyota is the car brand with the strongest comprehensive strength and the highest profit margin in the world. If there is a natural or man-made disaster in the automobile industry, the first ones to be unable to withstand it will be those companies with weaker strength and lower profit margins. .
However, Shoichiro Toyoda was worried. He said with a serious expression: "China is one of our largest markets, and it is too close to Japan. I am worried that Li Mu will withdraw these three brands back to China and occupy the Chinese market first. Then it will use China as its base camp and spread to surrounding countries. When the time comes, we will bear the brunt."
Toyoda Shonan said: "Father, it is very possible for Li Mu to occupy the Chinese market, but it should be impossible for him to enter the Japanese domestic market. Over the years, except for a few luxury car brands entering the Japanese market in small quantities, from From the high-end to the low-end car market, no foreign brand has been able to threaten us locally."
Shoichiro Toyoda shook his head and said: "Li Mu is young and very subversive. No one knows whether he can subvert the automobile industry. Moreover, he is the spiritual leader of young people around the world and is crazily admired by young people. He If a car is really produced, he will not take the initiative to sell it to Japan, but Japanese young people will also take the initiative to buy it. You should be very clear about the demand and obsession of our young people for their idols."
Toyoda Shonan suddenly fell silent.
That's right, Japanese young people's demand for and obsession with idols can be said to be the highest in the world.
Even if there are no idols, creating virtual idols will still require crazy pursuit. Once an idol successfully captures Japanese fans, then no matter what he or she sells to Japanese fans, there will be a strong market.
It is common in Japan for fans who are reluctant to spend a penny on themselves, but are willing to spend all their money to buy all the idol's peripherals, follow their idol everywhere to support them, and spend money everywhere.
Although Li Mu is a Chinese, he is the biggest idol in the minds of young people in Japan. Japanese media once conducted an interview and found that among Japanese young people aged 15 to 25, he ranks first among the modern celebrities they admire the most. It’s Li Mu.
The most frightening thing is that the proportion of young people who admire Li Mu is higher among college students.
Li Mu gave a speech at Harvard to students from Harvard and MIT. That speech inspired young people all over the world, especially college students, and Japanese college students were even more shocked by him.
After the war, the Japanese had an extremely serious mentality. While they felt that they were the super elite in Asia and even the entire yellow race, they also felt that they could not hold their heads high in front of white people.
Japanese young people used to have a sense of superiority when they went to China, South Korea, and other Asian countries, but when they came to the United States, they didn't even dare to speak loudly.
At a time when Japanese young people regard being able to study in the United States as the greatest honor, Li Mu, a yellow race like them, can be like Caesar at Harvard and have the top students from Harvard and MIT worship him. This is very important to Japan. The impact on young people is unparalleled.
Under this premise, if Li Mu publishes an autobiography and sells it to Japan, young Japanese people will definitely get a copy. If Li Mu publishes a car, who can guarantee that these fans will not spend money to "support" it
(End of chapter)