The Death and Life of Cool Mobile Phone

Some time ago, I saw the news that Jiang Chao, CEO of Coolpad, was fired by the new stock family in Tokyo. I was shocked to think that there was once a cool mobile phone, an all-around mobile phone, which suddenly disappeared into public discourse.

When it comes to coolpad, people's first impression is big screen and dual card dual standby. In the year before Android was released and Apple 4 was released, Coolpad stood at the peak of domestic mobile phones in China with more than 6,000 patents and the world's first dual-card dual-standby mobile phone. Cooperate with operators and follow the trend. Together with ZTE, Huawei and Lenovo, it is called "China Cool Alliance".

However, both Coolpad and China Cool Alliance have path dependence. With strong operator channels, these four manufacturers have easily won most of the market share, which has been tried and tested in the 3G era of mobile phone charges.

The turning point of Coolpad, or "China Cool Alliance", probably appeared at 20 14. When 4G was commercialized, operators began to reduce 4G tariffs and gradually stopped purchasing subsidies. China Cool Alliance, which lost its operator channel, was caught off guard. Prior to this, they did not accumulate too many e-commerce and offline store channels. All mobile phone brands are displayed in JD.COM, Amazon and Tmall Mall, and the moat of brands is not wide.

At this time, Xiaomi has been in the self-operated e-commerce channel for three years. Xiaomi 2S, Xiaomi 3 and Xiaomi 4 mobile phones are on sale at the same time, and the red rice mobile phone has also been released, which is a great threat.

On the other hand, the promoters of BBK department are busy looking at the facade, decorating and opening stores in various counties.

"China Cool Alliance" looked around and found that it had not even established its own channels after many years of operation.

Among the four families, only Huawei responded at the first time, and Ren's tough personality played a great role here. At the end of 20 13, glory was released, mobile phone glory 3C was listed, Huawei online mall was established, and Xiaomi launched an attack.

Since then, domestic mobile phones in China have formed a new camp, Xiaomi, Huawei, vivo and oppo, and this pattern has been maintained to this day.

Is this the end of things? Not exactly.

In the new camp, the financial report just released by Xiaomi shows that the comprehensive after-tax net profit of Xiaomi hardware is less than 1%, and it is struggling in the profit and loss line. Of course, this is also Xiaomi's strategy, not making money by hardware, but by software and services. But it also shows the difficulty of making mobile phone hardware.

Huawei's situation is not optimistic. Ren said in a recent interview, "Huawei embarked on the road of communication industry from the beginning, and invested a lot of money and time in this area. Huawei can only fight for its life and move on. There is no other way. " Ren's statement also hinted at the difficulty of doing business.

On the other hand, although Coolpad has been losing ground in the mobile phone market, its revenue has dropped from HK$ 24.9 billion in 20 14 to HK$ 3.3 billion in 20 17, a drop of 90%. However, in the capital market, Coolpad is still popular. 2065438+May 2008, Jingji family invested in Coolpad, borrowed 500 million yuan from it, and gave it preferential conditions such as unsecured and unsecured.

All this stems from the unique feelings of Guo Deying, founder of Coolpad, for real estate.

In 2008, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out in the United States, and then the storm swept the world, leading to the decline of global assets, especially real estate prices. Guo Deying began to buy a lot of land at this time, and cities such as Shenzhen, Dongguan, Xi and Zhengzhou all set foot in it.

The turnaround occurred on 20 12, the real estate industry picked up, and the park projects in various places were accelerated. Coolpad also began to demolish their headquarters in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park, preparing to expand the building scale six times.

When the time came to 20 14, the housing price in Shenzhen entered a crazy growth mode, and the average annual growth rate in the following three years was 43%, 60% and 96% respectively. The huge wealth effect has stimulated the nerves of Coolpad, and the construction process of Coolpad Information Port has been accelerated.

However, it backfired. Like Shi Yuzhu, Coolpad's cash flow was cut off. 20 14 is the year when "China Cool Alliance" turned to "Little Flower Step". Coolpad's mobile phone business has been declining year by year, and because of misjudging the time node of 4G commercialization, it has led to a large amount of inventory, which has dragged down the recovery of funds. Cool News Port failed in the triumph of the property market.

Coolpad has lost its vitality, but the land it left behind is still a valuable asset. On 20 16, Guo reduced his shareholding in Coolpad and sold it to LeTV, cashing in several billion yuan.

Cool at this time, although the mobile phone business is completely depressed, the new CEO Jiang Chao even cut off all the businesses in China, but this technology company still holds 654.38+0 billion yuan of real estate. From 2065438 to 2008, Jingji Property invested in Coolpad and began to revitalize the land.

It's hard to say whether Coolpad is dead or alive. If you think of it as a mobile phone technology company, it is undoubtedly a dead end. However, if we only regard it as a profitable company, it is still alive and well. After all, Xiaomi Technology, which used to rub around on the ground, is still struggling in the hardware profit margin of 1%.