Although the three smartphone companies have not previously announced that they will release new mobile phones this year, most consumers are still very smart and feel that there will definitely be new mobile phones released in the second half of this year.
This is based on consumers' intuition and is also a relatively reasonable judgment. Because the three companies are all large companies, it is impossible for them not to release new products for more than a year. Especially consumers who are relatively clear about Polaris's strategy have some concerns about this. a more accurate judgment.
Except for products that cannot be upgraded, such as CD players, it is impossible to upgrade every year, and new products are generally not launched regularly.
For other electronic products, such as computer products, new products of the same model are released every year, which not only improve hardware performance, but also add some new functions.
Smartphones are actually very suitable for annual upgrades. As long as Polaris upgrades, the other two companies will have to follow suit, otherwise the market structure will be broken.
Therefore, the closer the time is to June, the global sales of smartphones will be less and less. Everyone will endure it and wait for the new products to come out. Why not buy better products in all aspects at similar prices? .
Sure enough, August has just arrived, and Polaris took the lead in announcing a new product launch conference. The product launch conference is not only about promoting new smartphones, but also Polaris brand products will be held at this conference.
However, this time Zhang Ruimin is no longer the presenter of the press conference. He is now only managing the affairs of the head office. The press conference has been handed over to the president of the subsidiary company that took over the Polaris brand, and he has little relationship with him.
This conference will mainly focus on smartphones, but there will also be some smart home products, and more importantly, the release of Polaris' second-generation home game console and handheld game console.
As early as a year ago, Polaris' home game console and handheld game console had been successfully developed, but they were not launched due to various reasons.
The first reason is naturally that there are not enough users with Internet access in the world, and the main focus of the second-generation game console is the networking function. Without the Internet, this highlight will not be of much use, and consumers will have no desire to buy.
The second reason is that the previous first-generation products were actually released only a few years ago and still have great market potential. The demand for second-generation products is not so urgent.
The third reason is that Polaris is busy internally with structural reforms, which involves a lot of energy. In addition, this year is also a year to deal with domestic financial expansion, which requires a lot of arrangements. The game industry has become less important.
So it has been pushed to this year, released with the second generation of smartphones, in addition to a new generation of tablets, and various models of computer products.
The second-generation game console products released now are slightly different from those developed a year ago. This is mainly because the changes brought about by new technologies over time have led to more powerful performance of chips and other products.
Polaris hopes that the products it produces will have the best performance at a relatively affordable cost, rather than appearing outdated.
Although they are the only ones in the world that have advanced home game console products, the CPUs and GPUs are customized products for Polaris game consoles, and consumers are not particularly sure whether they are outdated or not.
But this idea can only deceive novices. People who are familiar with electronic products can easily see the gap from the manufacturing process. Even if the performance is equally good, they will still be criticized by consumers.
Just because you are a monopoly operator, you cannot not care about the feelings of consumers. This is the advantage of Polaris Company, and it also ensures that even if they are a monopoly operator, their products will not be criticized excessively by consumers.
Therefore, the game console products they brought out this time are quite powerful in terms of hardware performance. Whether it is fluency or picture expression, they have improved by more than one level than before.
In addition to common network access interfaces, it also embeds Xuantian Technology Company's global satellite communication network interface to provide users with more network service options.
In the past eight months this year, Polaris has sold a total of 120 million smartphones worldwide, Hengtong Communications has sold 160 million mobile phones globally, and Huawei Technologies has sold a total of 200 million mobile phones.
In fact, this sales data far exceeded the expectations of major companies. Even if a large number of sales were achieved last year, it was only considered an initial explosive increase in demand.
Even if they have achieved the same impressive sales results in the past eight months of this year, the three companies also believe that there is an explosive demand. After this year is over, the sales volume will return to normal next year.
Last year, the three companies sold a total of more than 260 million units. In less than 8 months this year, a total of 480 million units were sold. It is expected that the three companies will sell a total of about 700 million units this year.
Then the stock of smartphones on the market has reached 960 million units, which is already very large. Now the people in the world who can afford smartphones are basically developed countries, and the number of people in third world countries who can afford smartphones is much smaller. .
The total population of developed countries in the world is less than 1.5 billion. Adding my country's population of 1 billion and the people with purchasing power in other countries, the total will not exceed 2 billion.
Children need to be removed from this, and the number of people in the consumer market for smartphone products will further decrease. In fact, a population of 1.5 billion is quite good.
Therefore, starting next year, smartphone products will gradually enter the stock replacement stage, and the growth rate will not be as exaggerated as it is now. The combined annual sales of the three companies will not exceed 400 million units.
Unless the price of smartphones drops further and the number of people who can buy them expands, it may gain support from users in third world countries.
This is why the three companies will reduce the price of the smartphones released last year instead of completely withdrawing from the market, because these cheaper products have a large market in third world countries.
Compared with Polaris and Hengtong Communications, which need to maintain their own brand image, Huawei Technologies does not have too many concerns. Anyway, they are just getting involved in consumer brand management and have no historical baggage.
Moreover, as the company with the lowest brand among the three companies, what it needs is not to increase its own brand price, but to use a low-price strategy to occupy more consumer markets and increase its market share.
Therefore, we originally planned to reduce the price of the previous generation smartphone to 500 yuan, but now after careful consideration, we have directly reduced the price to 400 yuan, which is a direct reduction of double.
And not only that, this year also launched a lower-end model of smart phone products, the price is only 200 yuan, directly reducing the price to the point where many consumers can afford it.
They hope that with such low prices, their smartphone products can occupy the majority of third world countries and become the well-deserved sales king in the world smartphone market.
Although profits may be much lower than those of Polaris, Huawei Technologies' huge sales data can also be of great benefit, and one thing must always be achieved to the extreme.
On the contrary, companies like Hengtong Communications Co., Ltd. are the most uncomfortable if they are neither good nor bad. It is much more difficult for them to break through than Huawei Technologies. If they go down, it will damage the brand image. If they go up, they will not be able to compete with Polaris. The ceiling is there.
So this time they learned the lesson and not just launched smartphones with different configurations, but prepared two products with slightly different appearances and slightly different screen sizes, named PRO.
In this way, he can not only maintain his downstream product positioning, but also slightly test the market response, increase his share in the high-end field, and create certain competitive pressure on Polaris.
This decision was not discussed with the other two companies. Just as Huawei Technologies intends to completely occupy the low-end smartphone field, it is also not discussed with the other two companies.
Although the three companies have discussed their respective positioning before, each has its own little ninety-nine in mind, and everyone wants to strive for more benefits for themselves. No one can tell what is wrong with this level of competition.
Just when the much-anticipated new generation of smartphones and other electronic products are released, domestic changes are unfolding quietly, such as the Internet of Things application practices of several companies mentioned earlier.
In addition, Shenlong Automobile Company also released its own self-driving car at this time. The highest level launched is L3 self-driving technology.
With existing technology, achieving L4 level autonomous driving technology requires the support of a lot of supporting facilities. In addition, too many sensors make the price relatively expensive.
In addition, there are currently no other companies that can compete with DPCA in the field of autonomous driving technology, so there is no need to launch higher autonomous driving technology.
But even so, after the release of L3 level autonomous driving, it immediately caused a super earthquake in the global automobile industry, which made many automobile giants feel dizzy.
Originally, everyone was still quietly catching up with Shenlong Motors' vehicle technology, whether it was engines, vehicle electronics, vehicle design, etc., in these areas, Shenlong Motors has surpassed them in all aspects.
This is why in the global market, the high-end automobile field is almost dominated by Shenlong Motors. Although the annual sales volume may not be the highest, the profits are definitely the highest.
Just relying on its monopoly position in the high-end car market has made Shenlong Motors the most profitable car company in the world. This has naturally aroused the jealousy of other car companies and wants to seize the high-end car market.
Although their automotive technology has made great progress with their research and development over the years, Shenlong Automobile Company is not standing still, and its technological improvements are not slow at all.
Therefore, in the high-end car market, they still have not taken advantage of it at all, and are still firmly in the hands of Shenlong Automobile Company. Even competitors have to admire this.
Today's Shenlong Automobile Company is almost leading the development of global automobile technology and has become the target of imitation by all automobile companies around the world. However, imitation is not that easy.
Copying products that look too similar will be looked down upon by consumers. After all, they have been brilliant in the past. They are not the kind of new car companies that don't care about face at all, and they will also face patent disputes.
Although the idea of making some own innovations on the basis of Shenlong Automobile Company is good, it is not the same in practice. Sometimes it becomes a dog that cannot be compared to a tiger, which attracts complaints from consumers.
Fortunately, Shenlong Automobile Company adheres to its duties and only concentrates on operating in the high-end car market. On the surface, everyone seems to be in peace. The main reason for this situation is that they cannot produce the technology that high-end cars should have.
In addition, over the years, the high-end brand image of Shenlong Automobile Company has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. If they only come up with similar technologies, it will be difficult to compete with Shenlong Automobile Company.
Unless it has disruptive innovation like the Shenlong Motor Company did back then, suppressing the advantages of all other brands of cars and climbing to the top, otherwise, it can only be a hard-earned following.
I originally thought that Shenlong Automobile Company would continue to work hard in traditional areas of advantage such as automotive performance, materials, and design. Everyone also followed and competed in these aspects.
I just didn't expect that Shenlong Automobile Company would act so unconventionally and directly launch autonomous driving technology that no one had considered much before. The major automobile manufacturers did not have any technology accumulation in this regard.
Moreover, according to the classification of Shenlong Automobile Company, automobile self-driving technology is divided into five levels, and this time Shenlong Automobile Company directly reached the third level.
And if they want to invest in research in this area now, they can only start from the L1 level and slowly accumulate technology to reach the current level of Shenlong Automobile Company. They don't know how many years it will take.
Autonomous driving has a four-layer system. The first layer is the perception system, which means that like humans, it perceives the surrounding environment through various devices, which involves lidar, vision cameras, satellite positioning sensors, etc.
This is just the basic hardware condition. If this aspect is not done well, then there is no need to talk about the following, because collecting data is the most basic and is also a prerequisite for the work of other systems.
Shenlong Automobile Company's components in this area are developed by its brother companies. For example, the lidar is developed by Tiangong Precision Instrument Company, the vision camera is developed by Polaris Company, and satellite positioning goes without saying.
The second layer is the cognitive layer, which uses perceptual layer data such as the car's visual system to identify roadside signs, vehicle and pedestrian conditions, and optimize driving routes.
The third layer is the decision-making layer, which uses algorithms to process the information and route planning from the cognitive layer, and issues instructions to the control layer with the processing results.
The fourth layer is the control layer. This is simple. It accepts the instructions from the decision-making layer and controls the vehicle's brakes, accelerator, gear, etc. to control the vehicle's travel, speed and direction.
All these realizations are inseparable from massive amounts of data, big data analysis technology and capabilities, intelligent decision-making systems, and always-connected Internet of Things technology. These are all indispensable, otherwise driving accidents will easily occur.
Whether it is Shenlong Automobile Company or their brother companies, they have strong capabilities in the fields of big data, data collection and artificial intelligence, and are definitely in a leading position in the world.
The only thing that was lacking before was the Internet of Things. Now this area has been made up for by Xuantian Technology's global satellite communication network, and all the problems in autonomous driving technology have been solved.
Although the previous L3-level driving skills did not seem to be very big without the Internet of Things, they still performed very well, but compared with those with the Internet of Things, there is still a big gap.
As a Shenlong Motor Company that has always presented a high-end image, it will not allow its products to have flaws, which will seriously affect their brand image. Even if they are rotten in their hands, they will not launch them hastily.
The L3 level autonomous driving launched by Shenlong Automobile Company now basically completely eliminates the need for hands when the road conditions are not particularly complex. It is much ahead of many L3 level autonomous driving in previous generations and is already the pinnacle of the L3 level.
In fact, Fanxing Software Company is already conducting L4 level testing and improvement. As the work progresses and the deficiencies of the Internet of Things are made up, it is believed that it will be completed in the near future. With the surrounding sensing system, L5 level autonomous driving can basically be achieved.
But even so, DPCA's L3 level autonomous driving technology has been astonished by car enthusiasts around the world, and many people are even enjoying the fact that the future era of fully autonomous driving will soon arrive.
In fact, fossil fuel engines are much more difficult to control for autonomous driving than electric engines. For this reason, Shenlong Automobile Company and Star Power Company had to make improvements to adapt to the requirements of the technology.
In addition to autonomous driving technology, this is the first time that Shenlong Motors has installed an intelligent control system on its high-end car brand. It can control various functions of the car through various methods, which is much more advanced than the previous manual control.
Shenlong Automobile Company has not yet launched a development conference, but has only uploaded a video showing the performance of its autonomous driving technology on its official website and social platform accounts.
In just one week, this video was played 500 million times and became one of the most popular videos. It was this video that made the world feel the charm of autonomous driving technology.
It was also this video that caused car companies around the world to have trouble sleeping and eating. They have set up their own autonomous driving technology research and development project teams, hoping to shorten the technological gap with Shenlong Automobile Company in this area.
In addition to using autonomous driving technology in the field of mid- to high-end passenger cars, DPCA will also extensively use autonomous driving technology in its own mid- to high-end non-passenger vehicles.
This purpose is mainly to facilitate domestic consumers to experience the charm of autonomous driving technology. It makes no sense that all the good things are used abroad, and our own people cannot experience it. There is really no reason.
Unless it is a low-end brand, the price is too low, and with the addition of autonomous driving technology, the cost is too high to meet the cost considerations of low-end consumers.
Other vehicles can use autonomous driving if they can, so that people in our country can feel the fun of autonomous driving and prepare for future L4 and L5 autonomous driving technologies.
Various transportation vehicles, after installing automatic driving systems and using cameras on the highway, can achieve completely driverless operation, which is of great benefit in reducing the incidence of highway accidents.
Zhao Yiqi’s current goal is to achieve fully driverless driving on my country’s highways and to make sufficient preparations and experimental scenarios for fully autonomous driving in cities in the future. (End of chapter)