Top of the big era

Hearing that Zhou Shaoning had returned to China and that the Asda Group was holding an important strategic meeting, Zhou Buqi temporarily changed his arrangements and attended the meeting.

Very important!

Now, in the global smartphone market, the mobile phone with the highest shipment volume is Apple's iPhone 3gs, followed by Asda's Aster2, followed by well-known manufacturers such as BlackBerry, Samsung, Nokia, and HTC.

In terms of single-machine share, iPhone has the largest share.

However, the total sales of Android-based machines may surpass Apple this year.

Android is already gaining momentum.

For Asda, it now has two goals: to further consolidate its position as the leader in the Android market and to surpass Apple in sales.

The Android system is more open, with more developers, more apps, and more playability. In addition, the price of Android-based mobile phones is generally lower than that of iPhone.

The lower the price, the higher the sales volume.

The Aster series is now taking the high-end line, and its stand-alone price is $50-80 lower than the iPhone 3gs. The design features of mobile phones reveal traces of the iPhone everywhere. It is not surprising that consumers are choosing iPhones all the time.

Find a way to change this situation!

Innovation is a must!

In addition, internal news has been reported in China recently. Affected by the international mobile Internet market, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and communications giants cannot go against the trend and implement strict policy control. They must keep up with the times and follow the times. Otherwise, domestic technology will The industry has been regulated to such an extent that it has lagged behind as a whole.

At next year's conference, members will put forward relevant proposals, and then they will make concessions and remove restrictions on the WiFi function of smartphones.

With policy changes, the spring of smartphones in the domestic market will truly come.

Aisda Group can launch the domestic version of its mobile phone!

However, the current domestic consumption capacity is relatively limited. The signal transmission speed of 3G network is similar to that of foreign 2G network. High-end smart phones have a very limited domestic audience.

In order to solve these two problems at the same time, Zhou Buqi communicated with Zhou Shaoning as early as November last year and gave two plans.

First, Aster3 needs to innovate!

We need to make some innovations that are different from iPhone 4, and defeat our competitors in sales through differentiation.

What kind of differentiation?

Technical updates that are too high-end are definitely not possible. Mobile phones these days are too severely restricted by processors.

Zhou Buqi’s initial plan was to launch fingerprint unlocking in Aster3. At present, this technology is not stable enough and cannot be commercialized on a large scale. This plan can be postponed to 2011 and applied in Aster4, which can also lead Apple to become the world's first fingerprint unlocked smartphone.

The fingerprint unlocking solution is immature, it doesn’t matter, there is a new solution – large-screen mobile phones.

Jobs' aesthetics were exquisite, meticulous, simple, and clean. The products he led the design were relatively sophisticated, and he was very opposed to the design concept of large-screen mobile phones.

This leaves Aster3 with opportunities for innovation.

A large-screen smartphone can be launched!

A smartphone is equivalent to a handheld computer, and it is too inconvenient to operate on a small screen. A large screen is more user-friendly and comfortable to play games on. Through such differentiation, Aster3 has more differentiated designs that iPhone4 does not have.

But this is not safe.

It is really difficult to compete with the iPhone in terms of sales using high-end phones alone. iPhone is the leader in the smartphone industry. It makes sense to buy iPhone 4 instead of Aster 3 at the same price under normal circumstances.

So a second way is needed.

Low-end machine.

Zhou Buqi suggested that Aster Group will launch two mobile phones at the same time next year, one is the high-end third-generation Aster and the other is the low-end first-generation Astermini.

The launch of low-end phones can increase sales and satisfy the spending power of domestic users, especially college students.

In order to meet the needs of universities to purchase mobile phones, Xiaonei.com has done some things that are "hated" by the mobile phone circle in the past few years, such as buying some stock machines in the market and selling them to college students at low prices; later, it also specially developed a product for college students. The special version of low-end mobile phones is even cheaper, with a mobile phone costing just over 200 yuan.

Entering the era of smartphones, there will be no such good things in the short term.

Nowadays, there are more than 5 million domestic smartphones of various brands and systems in stock, with an average price of more than 5,000 yuan, which is too expensive for college students.

The purpose of serving college students must not be forgotten!

This is a value concept that all companies in the entire Ziwei Galaxy must follow. This is not only social responsibility, but also delayed gratification in business philosophy.

Times have changed. In the past, the "upper-class people" might only have a junior high school diploma. They became rich instantly by reaping the dividends of reform and opening up, and became superior people.

Not anymore.

All social elites must graduate from college.

To please college students is actually to please future social elites, who will be the group of people with the most spending power in China. To please college students is to cater to the future.

This strategic policy must be implemented unswervingly.

During the meeting, Zhou Buqi took the initiative to speak and reiterated this idea, "When Astermini is launched, we cannot make a penny on college students. Not only will we not make money, we will also pay back. We must give back the greatest benefits to college students."

There are now more than a dozen senior executives of Aisda Group. Most of them do not know Zhou Buqi and have no respect for him.

A vice president in charge of marketing named Gao Shan put forward a different opinion, "Mr. Zhou, how much should we give back to college students?"

Zhou Buqi glanced at him and said, "At least 10% lower than the retail price."

Gao Shandao: "Mr. Zhou, this is the first time that Asda's products are being promoted in the domestic market. My plan is to use 200 million to 300 million yuan for marketing and establish a brand image. We expect that domestic sales next year will reach 600,000-700,000 units, which means that marketing expenses alone will drain all the profits of our next-generation products in the domestic market."

"marketing?"

Zhou Buqi was a little confused and looked at Zhou Shaoning.

Zhou Shaoning coughed lightly and said in a deep voice: "Danny, don't object in a hurry. Listen to what Mr. Zhou has to say." Then he explained to Zhou Buqi that this Gao Shan was from the Abbott Group, one of the world's top 500 companies, and he was proficient in the global market. of Marketing and Promotion and is the Senior Vice President of Asda Group. In the past two years, Aster has invested a total of US$320 million in advertising fees in the global market to promote the Aster mobile phone, all of which were managed by him.

Zhou Buqi asked: "What does Abbott Group do?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "In the field of life and health, such as Abbott milk powder, domestic sales are very good, and many people are looking for people to purchase from Hong Kong, Macao or abroad."

"Oh, a traditional enterprise, no wonder!"

Zhou Buqi glanced at Gao Shan and didn't think there was anything special about being born in one of the world's top 500 companies.

Gao Shan heard the disdain in his words and was slightly dissatisfied, "Mr. Zhou, do you have any advice? In my opinion, Ziweixing and Aisda are two companies. Subsidies for college students should be It is the responsibility of the school network.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "You come from a traditional industry, so it's not surprising that you don't understand the Internet model. But I have a request. Your domestic marketing plan should be terminated immediately. There is no need for marketing in the domestic market."

"No marketing? No advertising?"

Gao Shan was stunned for a moment, this was obviously not in line with business logic.

If you sell a product without advertising, who are you selling it to? Besides, Aster1 and Aster2 have achieved great success in overseas sales, which shows that this model is successful!

How good would it be to introduce successful foreign experience into China and make sure it works?

Why change?

Yan Guangming, the vice president in charge of the supply chain, said calmly: "Mr. Gao, I think you can be more modest. In this company, no one can keep their word, except Mr. Zhou."

Zhou Buqi waved his hand and said with a smile: "Old Yan, you are exaggerating. How can you keep your word? When it's a meeting, everyone discusses together, solves problems when they arise, and debates together when there are differences. The more we distinguish the truth, the clearer it becomes. However, Mr. Gao Shan, you may not know me well, and you may not be familiar with the Internet. Well... Forget it now, let's go to the evening. I will invite a group of more people tonight, and everyone here will go. I want to give a class about new things. The new concept of Internet point-to-point sales model in the era. We are a developing country, Europe and the United States are developed countries, and there are indeed many gaps. But in the exploration of Internet business models, we are far ahead."

This Gao Shan has obviously worked abroad for a long time and lacks understanding of the Internet industry. He subconsciously thinks that foreign companies are advanced.

But in the field of Internet business models, the biggest center of innovation and exploration is not Silicon Valley but China.

To sell Aster mobile phones abroad, it does require extensive advertising, which costs a lot of money. Because foreign markets are too traditional and too complicated.

But this is not necessary in China.

At least not until smartphones sink in society.

Gao Shan nodded, full of curiosity. Go take a class to learn and explore, and see what kind of real talents this Internet entrepreneur who is very famous overseas has.

The meeting continues.

The next talk was mainly about products, and it was mainly hosted by a Chinese-American product vice president named Lin. Several requirements are put forward that are relatively basic in Zhou Buqi's view, but are very important for the current exploration stage of smartphones.

For example, during the growth stage of product operations, try to update in stages instead of trying to update for all users. Updates are error-prone, so update a small area first as a test field. If there are no errors, then further promote the update to a wider range of users.

For example, most users are not very proficient in programming technology, so when managing and operating products, it is necessary to invite parents or friends outside the industry to test new features and evaluate their reactions to ensure that everything about the product is easy to understand.

Zhou Buqi did not participate in the discussion, and was already preparing for the evening class in his mind.

This lesson is important.

It is necessary to call people from Ziwei Galaxy companies such as Jieyu Media, Yuanwei Milk Tea, Chaowan Commune, Fantuan.com, Bajixing Technology and JD.com.