Wang Jinli explained a little: "Actually, there are only three products: air conditioners, refrigerators, and washing machines, but there are more styles. Take air conditioners, for example, there are hanging type, vertical type, and central air conditioning."
The classifications are different, the wind power is different, and the price ranges are also different. The same is true for refrigerators and washing machines. There are single-door, double-door, roller, and fully automatic... After all, there are fifteen products that are really not as many as expected.
Originally, Midea wanted to develop a few more types of products, such as range hoods, integrated stoves, vacuum cleaners, drinking/water purifiers, etc., but in the end they gave up. You can't get fat by eating it all at once, so you have to launch a few models to test the water first.
Let’s take down the “three major items” of daily household appliances first, and then consider other things. Moreover, Midea’s development strategy is completely different from that of Stardust Technology. Stardust Technology takes a specialized route and only has a few products in one category.
Midea, on the other hand, casts its net everywhere, covering the firepower, and has many and mixed product lines. Some products are still OEM products processed by OEMs. There is nothing as clear as Stardust 2 → Stardust 3, Xinghan 01, Xinghan 001, and Xinghan 009.
Product planning seems very confusing.
Ordinary consumers only know that Midea is a big brand, but they can't tell which products are good... they can't tell. When they walk into Midea's home appliance store, it seems that every model is good and the design is quite beautiful.
The product feels solid enough, but the price is not much different from Gree, Haier, and Supor. However, Supor specializes in kitchen utensils and seems to have won the title of "Kitchen Overlord" in that year.
As a result, several brands that specialize in household appliances may not put as much thought into their products as brand marketing, advertising, and grabbing market share. As long as the products maintain normal standards, that will be enough.
In other words, Gree also advertised "mastering core technology" when advertising. In the early stage, many people did become users of Gree air conditioners, but later... Xiaomi already made air conditioners. Where is your technology?
Or was it just an advertising slogan from the beginning?
If Chen Zifan were asked to make electrical appliances, he might not specialize in air conditioners, washing machines and other products. Instead, he would choose emerging home appliances that are eccentric, such as dishwashers, shoe washers, sweeping robots, etc.
Even if he were asked to make air conditioners, he would only launch a few models and upgrade them every two years. However, because air conditioners and washing machines have a long service life, brand becomes a key factor.
Air conditioners, washing machines, and refrigerators from big brands may not be that good, nor may they be better than those produced by small factories. They may even be the same thing as what they sell, but with a different brand.
Of course, these are just Chen Zifan's "malicious speculations". He has never had an in-depth understanding of these brands. As far as Midea is concerned, Wang Jinli's investigation shows that Midea actually has a production factory.
It is also equipped with a dedicated product design team. This time it wants to develop "smart home" and is also seeking new breakthrough points to enhance its brand power.
Chen Zifan carefully looked at the documents Wang Jinli brought back and realized that he had misunderstood Midea. Although they wanted to create many products this time, their product positioning was very clear and their product lines were also very clear.
For example, for washing machines, they have come up with a simple and colorful series with very beautiful colors, which directly reminded Chen Zifan of LG's LG AKA big-eye mobile phone.
"This color scheme...is not appropriate? Isn't it easy to get dirty if the washing machine uses light colors? And the texture is not good enough, and it is not as attractive as dark colors!"
"Ahem, the person in charge sent by Midea this time said that they also want to create more 'younger' products. These things are preliminary plans and have not been finalized yet. They will definitely be adjusted back in the future?"
"In the name of intelligence, how to improve product positioning? Oh, it turns out to be this intelligence. Stardust OS is used to connect refrigerators, washing machines and other products to achieve remote control of various functions..."
It is definitely much easier to use than an infrared remote control, but if you think about it carefully, it is not of much use. The air conditioner has a remote control, and you can directly turn it on and off, adjust the temperature, and adjust the mode. The refrigerator will basically not care as long as it is turned on.
The remaining washing machines are used more frequently, but who would use their mobile phones to control them while washing clothes? Chen Zifan didn't know what to say for a while. Is this smarter or more inconvenient?
In other words, throw the clothes directly into the drum, close the door, turn on the phone, select the mode on the phone, set the timer, then dry the clothes directly and throw them into the rack, and then just hang them up.
"My suggestion is to let them develop some 'novel' products, and then label these products with 'technology' and 'smart', such as dishwashers. It's not impossible to do this now. It depends on the quality of the product..."
If Midea's APP is developed well and the product's functions can be fully transplanted to mobile phones for remote control, it seems that you can give it a try.
Thinking of this, Chen Zifan suddenly remembered something and quickly stopped Wang Jinli who was about to retreat and continued: "By the way, be sure to remind Midea! Don't install ads on their smart homes!"
Wang Jinli: "...I understand."
From a manufacturer's point of view, it is a good thing that a product can obtain a lot of advertising revenue, but from a consumer's point of view, no one wants advertisements to pop up when their refrigerator lights up the screen.
It can’t be on the APP either. If you want to really make a good product and run the brand well, you have to give up part of the profit. You need to improve the product experience and user satisfaction first, and then talk about the profit issue later.
This is just an ideal state. Chen Zifan is just reminding them that it is good to cooperate and save trouble. He also wants to achieve his goal as soon as possible, but if it doesn't work, he will do it himself.
"Smart TVs", "smart refrigerators", "smart air conditioners"... many products originally carried very beautiful development concepts, but in the end they were all ruined by advertising, causing smart homes to become "deceptions".
These are all okay. Some crazy car manufacturers even have advertisements on their cars. Fortunately, they are not on the dashboard. If an advertisement pops up on the dashboard while driving, the driver will probably collapse on the spot.
At present, Stardust Technology is probably the only one in China that can control advertising. Some remaining mobile phone manufacturers have already begun to receive pre-installed applications and built-in advertising, such as LeTV, which is now in dire straits.
On the one hand, Boss Jia "ignores his business" every day and is busy competing with Rolls-Royce and Bentley's Faraday Future. On the other hand, he has suffered a fierce attack from Xiaomi, and the product experience is indeed not good.
The price/performance ratio is high enough, but Boss Jia’s “software subsidizes hardware” has flooded LeTV’s mobile phones, televisions and other products with all kinds of advertisements. As a result, Xiaomi has seized the opportunity and started to sow discord with their users.
There is also a saying circulating on the Internet: If you want cost-effectiveness when buying a mobile phone, then buy LeTV, but LeTV phones must use Xiaomi UI system!
Taking advantage of this opportunity, Xiaomi Mi 1 has also entered the most critical period before its launch. It is almost the end of the year. What if Stardust Technology makes another "limited edition" during the Spring Festival and advertises on the Spring Festival evening...
Or breaking the news in advance about Stardust 4, Stardust 4+, or other products... Rebus is really overwhelmed. While the residual heat of Stardust 3 is still there, he must seize the opportunity to enter the market.
Rebus regrets it now. He originally wanted to choose the brand with the highest sales volume and the greatest influence in China to benchmark the price/performance ratio, but after choosing Stardust 3...he realized that things were not that simple.
The starting price of Stardust 3 seems to be as high as 3999. However, a closer analysis shows that Stardust 3 is extremely cost-effective, and other brands are not popular enough. There seem to be many supporters of Apple and Samsung abroad, but it is useless!
They can’t even enter the Chinese market, so what’s the use of benchmarking? So there’s no way, no matter how powerful Stardust 3 is, they still have to find some loopholes, such as the most criticized 5-megapixel camera on Stardust 3.
The 5.2-megapixel camera came into being~
Another example is that Stardust 3 only has 3G...
Let’s not mention the 3G issue for now, because Xiaomi cannot get 4G chips for the time being, and the Tiangong generation of Haihua chips is still being prepared. It will be after the Spring Festival when the test is completed, so next year will be the main battlefield for 4G mobile phones.
Although Stardust 3 only has 3G, the current package fee... sometimes there is no difference between 2G, 3G, and 4G. The data traffic is not much, and the fee is still huge.
We can continue to talk about Midea and slowly finalize the final product. The 4G era has just begun, and "intelligentization" is not something that happens overnight. This time Wang Jinli came to Midea and had another important thing:
"In terms of smartphones..."
Regarding smartphones, there is another important but not urgent project to solve this year, and that is the issue of "low-priced brands". Strictly speaking, it is not a sub-brand of Stardust Technology.
It’s just that compared to using Hongqi OS, other mobile phone brands from Stardust ecological chain manufacturers will receive some Stardust technology and official promotion resources. After Wang Jinli’s screening, there are four goals determined:
"Xiaomi, Meizu, Coolpad, Motorola!"
The current development situations of the first two and the latter two are completely different. Xiaomi and Meizu are on the upswing, and Coolpad has been swept up by other manufacturers and is about to collapse.
Not to mention Motorola, its eldest brother Nokia can't hold on. It was disintegrated two years in advance in the smartphone wave. Now Google has revealed its intention to acquire it at a high price.
In Chen Zifan's memory, Motorola was later acquired by Lenovo. In fact, it was a mess, and it cost 2.9 billion US dollars. But there was no way, since all the acquisitions were acquired, we could only bite the bullet and continue to make mobile phones.
The reason why I didn't choose Nokia... Firstly, Nokia has not fallen yet, and secondly, a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. If I want to acquire Nokia, Stardust Technology has paid a bit too much, and it will cost more than 5 billion US dollars.
In order to support an officially designated "people's livelihood brand" that is almost unprofitable, paying more than 30 billion yuan to acquire Nokia is a bit too expensive. Motorola is cheaper, but not much better.
So the only real alternatives are Xiaomi, Meizu, and Coolpad. Xiaomi has to wait until Xiaomi 1 comes out to see the situation. Meizu may not accept the life of being subordinate to others at the moment. A small factory is a small factory, but a small factory has a dream.
Coolpad is the best place to start, but even though Coolpad is a domestic mobile phone brand, the acquisition price is not low. But if they don't acquire it, their development philosophy conflicts with Stardust Technology, and they can't support it.
As for other brands...such as Big Cola, this brand that specializes in "square" mobile phones has fallen. There is no way, the square screen is too anti-human, big and heavy, and there are two big black edges when watching videos.
Chen Zifan is quite interested, but he won't joke about this kind of thing, so in the end he may have to choose between Xiaomi and Meizu:
"We'll leave Xiaomi aside for now. Let's see what tricks they can come up with. We'll send people to contact Meizu. Are they planning to launch a sub-brand called 'Meizu'? Do you think they have any ideas for a low-priced product?"
When Wang Jinli heard this, he immediately patted his chest and said, "Don't worry! They must have an idea!"
Chen Zifan:......
You can't do anything bad, right?
Forget it, as long as you can achieve your goal!
Wang Jinli’s idea is very simple. He believes that this is not a multiple-choice question. He will send people to contact not only Meizu, but also both brands. He will gain fame and wealth and resources for free. Are these two brands not fools?
Moreover, it is their sub-brands that are supported, which has a strong driving effect on the main brand. Of course, if you accept the support, you will not be able to break away from the Stardust ecological chain in the future, and you can only become a vassal of Stardust Technology.
They need to think clearly about this in advance.
Coolpad is an alternative. After all, they still have a certain financial background. After two rounds of purchase prices for Coolpad have dropped, it is not impossible to consider it.
The matter of low-priced brands can be finalized before the Spring Festival. There is still plenty of time. The reason why they want to do this is because officials and Chen Zifan are not satisfied with the current pattern of the Chinese mobile phone market.
And their products...are really outstanding.
Obviously there is Hongqi OS and various technologies authorized by the Stardust Ecological Chain Plan, which are much cheaper than those charged by foreign technology companies, but they just can't produce any good products, so they have to fight passively.
The psychology of these mobile phone manufacturers is also very simple: no matter how hard they try, they can't beat Stardust Technology, so it will simply fail. There are only a few mobile phone manufacturers with "dreams in their hearts" who are still working hard to build mobile phones.
In fact, it's Chen Zifan's fault. He also knew that Stardust Technology's initial development goals were not clear enough, so he would either go all the way to the dark side, or not be so radical and just maintain the lead in 1-2 generations of products.
Being caught in the middle is the most uncomfortable thing, but this is only from the current perspective. The development situation at that time and the strength of Stardust Technology may not allow them to use such a radical approach to take over the entire market.
The current situation is different. You can try to change the development method. The most important thing is: popularizing low-priced smartphones will be beneficial to the later announcement of Stardust Technology products and the promotion of mobile payments.