Chapter 385 Pre-installed Jianghu

Chapter 385 Pre-installed Jianghu

Chapter 385 Pre-installed Jianghu
Silicon Carbon Data has been slow to move into the pre-installed market.

After receiving the warning, Zhong Zhiling calmed down and reviewed the matter. He felt that the senior executives, including himself, did not take it seriously enough and he did have some doubts in his heart, which eventually led to his senior brother's intervention.

Among these...it's not that I'm shirking responsibility, Zhai Yifei and President Zhai's attitude also had an impact.

As a person who came from Baidu, he has always emphasized the power of technology from leading his own business to the current Carbon Silicon Data. He hopes to innovate in algorithms to meet the different preferences that users are increasingly showing.

Therefore, Zhai Yifei was rather dismissive of the pre-installation channels at the meeting. His apparent reason was that the opening rate of pre-installed mobile phone apps was not high, and the efficiency of investment conversion was also relatively low.

In fact, he probably felt that such promotion was not high-end and not polite enough.

In addition to the impact brought by this person, the numerous company affairs, the withdrawal of shareholder Alibaba, and the exchanges on the next round of financing have more or less contributed to the formation of this situation.

Zhong Zhiling did not act immediately, but re-sorted the things before determining the priorities.

In fact, the domestic pre-installed market has only experienced rapid development in the past two years along with the advent of smartphones, so it is inevitably quite chaotic. Carbon Silicon Data has invested in some of these channels since its establishment, but sometimes it has encountered the result that a company it invested in last month would run away the next month.

At the same time, the traffic diversion effect of small and medium-sized software in the industry was obviously better, so they relied on making their own software + mutual traffic diversion to pile up users.

However, this year's growth performance has obviously slowed down, and the pre-installed market has gradually become clear in the gray.

There are three main ways in the current pre-installation market: one is to cooperate with hardware manufacturers, the second is to cooperate with operators' customized machines, and the third is to cooperate with downstream flashing companies.

Carbon Silicon Data Company is now mainly in talks with mobile phone manufacturers and operators, and has hardly involved in downstream flashing companies. Its contacts with mobile phone manufacturers are also second- and third-tier brands, such as Coolpad in Pengcheng.

The reason is that this is more cost-effective. A Coolpad phone costs only 5 cents, but a Samsung phone costs 8 cents or even 1 yuan.

Zhong Zhiling sat in his office, thinking about the situation of the pre-installed market, and his mind flashed with a sentence his wife summarized last night - don't think about cost performance, don't you understand? Brother, I don't want cost performance now.

There was a knock on the office door.

Director Liang Hongtao, who had just flown back to Shanghai last night, walked in dejectedly.

"What's the matter? Are you still full of resentment?" Zhong Zhiling saw his direct subordinate who was suspended from work, and suddenly stretched out his hand and asked, "Where is the stuff?"

Liang Hongtao asked in confusion: "Boss Zhong, what is that?"

Zhong Zhiling said calmly: "Seeing that you still have resentment, I thought you were going to hand in your resignation letter today."

Liang Hongtao's heart skipped a beat, and most of his resentment was dispelled by this sentence. He said helplessly: "Boss Zhong, you don't know, I was talking to Coolpad yesterday, and then this happened... Coolpad's orders are also full, and it's not easy to find the right person. Now there are Baidu Maps, Amap, Ali WeChat, Penguin WeChat, and Sohu News... It's a group of people competing!"

"If Mr. Yu is willing to pay more, then it's easy. I won't bargain on the spot. It will be easier to do. Why do you need to change me back?"

This is what Liang Hongtao feels most resentful about.

"Either you or me." Zhong Zhiling said, "I think it's more cost-effective to change you."

Liang Hongtao looked at Mr. Zhong in astonishment. Why did it come to this?

"We can no longer think about how to enter this market with a better cost-effectiveness, or be picky about entering this market." Zhong Zhiling said seriously, "In a word, tactics must be subordinate to strategy."

He continued, "The current strategy is very clear, which is to gain market share. Whoever fails to implement this strategy will be replaced. Mr. Yu replaced you to let everyone know this."

Liang Hongtao lowered his head and thought for a while, then raised his head again: "Okay, if it's me who can serve Mr. Yu's strategy, that's fine too."

Seeing that his mentality changed quickly, Zhong Zhiling smiled and said directly: "Okay, don't ask about the mobile phone manufacturer. I'll give you a new job. You take people to Beijing to find Dingkai Company and negotiate the cooperation between our software matrix and it."

Liang Hongtao kept repeating the name "Dingkai": "Dingkai's current flashing scale is very large, I'm just afraid... I'm afraid that a big tree will attract the wind. I'm worried that they might run away next year."

"If they run away next year, we can talk about it next year. Pick a few people who can drink and follow them." Zhong Zhiling thought, "This time, we can offer the latest hotspot + Wifi Master Key as a package. The cooperation model can be pre-installed + our subsequent advertising revenue sharing. Dingkai's machine costs 8 to 1 yuan. We install two softwares, and if we share the subsequent income from advertising, we can give it about 2 yuan. If it runs away, we don't have to share the subsequent advertising."

Not all software can be pre-installed. In Carbon Silicon Data's current software matrix, only the latest hotspot + Wifi Master Key is suitable. However, the user threshold for "Singing Karaoke Together" is higher and the group is more refined, so it is not suitable for promotion in this way.

Like Baidu Maps, WeChat Chat, and Sohu News mentioned by Liang Hongtao, they are also more tool-oriented.

Tool-type apps are used frequently by users, so using high frequency to promote low frequency apps has been proven to be more effective in actual promotion.

Liang Hongtao silently calculated in his mind. His first thought was to ask Dingkai to do a large quantity of pre-installation. The unit price of one machine should be close to 1 yuan. Now the price of two for 3 yuan is actually a lot, which is already a 5% price increase.

He did not raise any objections this time, as the names of employees who could drink well were already coming to his mind.

Liang Hongtao discussed the general actions and temporary authority with Mr. Zhong again, and finally asked: "Mr. Zhong, is this the only channel for marketing, or..."

He had the answer before Mr. Zhong replied, and asked, "Can the company make a profit by doing this?"

"You don't have to worry about that." Zhong Zhiling smiled and shook his head, "If the company is out of money, Mr. Yu can sell me and get the money to make up for it."

Liang Hongtao nodded heavily: "Okay, saving money is not easy, but don't you know how to spend money? I will take people to fly to Beijing this afternoon!!"

Zhong Zhiling threw a cigarette over and waved his hand, signaling him to go to work.

Throughout the whole morning, he threw out four cigarettes one after another and hired five people in total to do business with five flashing companies, namely Dingkai, Coolle, Huahai, Zhangxing and Youyoucun, striving to make the latest Hotspot + Wifi Master Key cover the flashing channel line.

These are basically the top five offline companies that pre-install firmware. Dingkai covers Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shandong Province, Henan Province and other regions, occupying more than 3% of the market in the north. The remaining four companies are focusing on Pengcheng to develop southern business, involving Huaqiangbei, small and medium-sized brands and even mobile phone stores in county towns.

Among them, some are technically savvy and specialize in Samsung, and can forge IMEI numbers to circumvent the manufacturer's anti-flashing mechanism; others go deep into the grassroots level and cooperate with stores to carry out integrated flashing and pre-installation.

Because it is gray, it is difficult to estimate the number. Zhong Zhiling judged based on the current information that the scale of mobile phones that this channel can affect may be 4000 million this year, and if it follows the growth of the overall industry, it may reach 6000 million next year.

According to this rough market calculation, if we can take up 30% of the market share next year, the budget for this part will exceed 5400 million. Adding the remaining fourth quarter of this year, the total budget will exceed 7000 million.

If we take Xingge's firm attitude into consideration, it is possible to increase the budget in this direction to 1 million.

This accounts for half of the funds on the books.

Zhong Zhiling continued to recruit people for two consecutive days to cover the pre-installation promotion to mobile phone manufacturers and operators, without considering the issue of capital chain for the time being.

If it really doesn't work, as he talked with Liang Hongtao, he can't sell it, but he has Bai Xiaosheng's shares in his hands. If Carbon Silicon Data Company is in financial trouble, he can sell the assets there first to support this side.

As for whether it will eventually fail...

Zhong Zhiling didn’t think about this question carefully. No matter what, could it be worse than when he just graduated from campus four years ago?

On September 9, Zhong Zhiling, who had been working non-stop for days, was called to the conference room by his senior, where he met five institutional shareholders: IDG, Capital Today, Qiming Venture Partners, Zhejiang Industrial Investment, and Falcon Capital.

Unlike what I had imagined, the atmosphere in the meeting room was very relaxed. We didn't discuss the terms much, just had a general chat.

Half of the time was spent talking about Carbon Silicon Group's electric cars, a small half of the time was spent talking about the competition between Alibaba and Penguin, and another small half of the time was spent by Zhong Zhiling introducing the advancement of the pre-installed market.

The only issue that Zhong Zhiling found a bit acute was the situation of third-party flashing companies.

Xu Xin asked: "Mr. Zhong said that a mobile phone is likely to have WeChat, Weichat, Baidu Maps, Amap, Latest Hotspots, Wifi Master Key, Sohu News... just count them randomly, that's 7 apps. Doesn't this affect the user experience? Will it be unsustainable?"

The problem she noticed is actually a situation that is getting worse and worse.

Zhong Zhiling actually thinks that this model does have problems, but the promotion of Carbon Silicon Data Company must conform to reality. This is just like what Xing Ge once mentioned in the program, what should be and what is, what it actually is.

He pondered for a moment and wanted to answer the question by citing Xingge's remarks in "If You Are the One".

Yu Xing took over the conversation first: "Mr. Xu, you raised a very good point. So, I am also trying to solve this problem, hoping to improve the user experience."

The investors all looked over with interest. Logically speaking, such an investment would not help improve the user experience.

"We are considering negotiating an exclusive agreement. If users install our latest hot spots, they don't need to install the Sohu News client. In this way, users will have one less software on their phones, and the experience will be improved." Yu Xing said seriously.

Zhang Suyang sighed and said, "No wonder Sohu wants to terminate its cooperation with Carbon Silicon Data Company. Mr. Yu, you deserve it."

"What does this have to do with me? It's just that Sohu thinks that Carbon Silicon Data's scale is gradually posing a threat. Well, it's not just Sohu. I think Sina will be too soon." Yu Xing shook his head first, then smiled and said, "We had previously negotiated a two-year period for this authorization, and this time limit is far from here."

Sohu cancelled its content authorization for Carbon Silicon Data two weeks ago, but did not give any concrete reason.

Xu Xin said, "Let's talk business. I think Sina is also close. The content on Sina Weibo is actually pretty good."

Yu Xing shrugged: "Anyway, Sohu News is the most active traditional portal in pre-installing on mobile terminals. We do have competition, just like WeChat and Weichat are also competing for pre-installation. Alibaba and Penguin are really competing for everything now."

Liu Wanying, who just returned from Hong Kong yesterday, said at this time: "From the upstream chip and mobile phone factories to the downstream stores, even the three giants BAT can only use money to pave the way in the hardware world. It is indeed a very good promotion direction."

No matter who it is, whether it is an Internet giant or a cutting-edge APP, if you want to promote it now, you must pay for hardware.

The high-brow transactions like those of mobile phone manufacturers and the secret pre-installation by flashing companies together constitute the other side of the rapid development of mobile Internet.

Xu Xin agreed: "Yes, they spend money, so do we. They have large volumes, so do we. This avoids the influence of the giants on the Internet and is relatively fair."

Seeing this, Yu Xing said cheerfully, "Okay, then pay the money. If you pay the money, you can compete with the giants. There is nothing better than this."

The financing of the five companies was a natural progression at this point, and a total of 10 billion Chinese yuan was raised for the next stage of market promotion.

As the CEO of Carbon Silicon Data, Zhong Zhiling was relieved to see with his own eyes the investors' attitude towards spending money and the smooth financing process.

Since investors agree to burn money, there is really nothing better than this.

Lunch was a simple meal, and even the drinks were limited to a few servings.

Zhong Zhiling continued to work in the afternoon. In the evening, Zhang Yangxu called him and informed him, so he hurried to see his senior brother.

Yu Xing chatted with Zhong Zhiling with great interest, and then assigned work: "Tomorrow afternoon, the vice president of MediaTek will come to discuss cooperation. You come and discuss the details of the cooperation. I have already discussed the general intentions."

Zhong Zhiling was surprised: "MediaTek? I was still thinking about that today. Brother Xing, did you get the deal?"

"We had a relationship when we worked on WeChat. I made a phone call and they were willing to pay. What was there to discuss?" Yu Xing said with a smile, "MediaTek pre-installs the chips, with a fixed pre-installation fee and a commission from activations. Based on a shipment of 1 million units, our two software products will cost about 2 million units."

Zhong Zhiling: “…”

He couldn't help but sigh: "Brother Xing, the financing money hasn't arrived yet, and 20% of it has already been spent."

Yu Xing said calmly: "I don't know why, but when you guys discuss installation, it's either windy or rainy. The people from MediaTek are very enthusiastic and immediately made an appointment to come over to talk. I think you can really let Zhong Ai sit in the office for you, just let her nod."

Zhong Zhiling was speechless. Brother Xing was selling goods from the source, and he needed 1 million yuan to start with, and he spent 2 million yuan just by raising his hand...

All I can say is that big players have their own way of playing…

(End of this chapter)