On June 17th, Liu Zuohu, CEO of Yijia Mobile, released an internal letter revealing that Yijia Team and OPPO Team will be fully merged, and Yijia will become an independent sub-brand of OPPO.
Building a car breaks the iron triangle of "OPPO system",
Is it a foreshadowing or a low-key investment?
OPPO has always had a complicated relationship. Guangzhou Oujia Holdings is the holding company of OPPO and Oujia Communication, while Oujia Communication is the major shareholder of two brands, one plus and Realme. Therefore, although one plus mobile phone used to belong to OPPO in principle, it operates completely independently, more like a relative relationship, so OPPO's supply chain and production line can be lent to it.
In fact, by the end of last year, one plus e-commerce, R&D, customer service and other departments had integrated with OPPO, which should be a low-key "testing water" stage. In March of this year, the new one plus nine series abandoned the original hydrogen OS and adopted the same ColorOS operating system as the OPPO mobile phone, and the contacts between OPPO brands began to get through.
This time, it emphasizes comprehensive integration, and it is time to change the relationship from "relatives" to "mother and child". Therefore, in order to seize the new round of "opportunity", with the help of the core teams of both sides, the merger between the two sides has finally been implemented, and what is this opportunity? Of course, it is a very popular "building a car" recently.
The editor believes that one plus one was established at the end of 213 to compete with the giants. These eight years were almost the most competitive period in the smart phone industry, and there is no shortcut. Now it will be its most important turning point. In fact, the merger of the two sides is not unexpected. As mentioned above, many foreshadowing has been laid earlier.
after all, building a car is much more advanced than a mobile phone, and the two sides can better integrate resources and work together. More than a month ago, it was reported that OPPO was preparing to build a car, and even set the automobile division in Chengdu. Although OPPO has no high-profile official announcement and has not been formally established for the time being, everything is obviously not groundless.
The editor recently learned that Liu Zuohu personally visited LI a few days ago. Therefore, Chen Mingyong, the head of OPPO, intends to let Liu Zuohu participate in some car-making work at this stage. Prior to this, Chen Mingyong also had close exchanges with relevant institutions and people in the automobile circle, including meeting with the president of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited Passenger Car Division and visiting China Automobile Technology Research Center. It seems that he has begun to make a thorough investigation and research on industrial chain resources and talents.
Obviously, like Xiaomi Lei Jun's persistent efforts to build cars, Chen Mingyong has also become the actual promoter behind OPPO's car-building plan. Crucially, OPPO has recently launched the recruitment of R&D talents related to intelligent cockpit and autonomous driving, and Guo Yandong, the former chief scientist of Xpeng Motors, has joined OPPO, including the disclosure of a number of patents and investment layouts related to autonomous driving. There are various indications that OPPO may have invested more in the automotive field than we thought.
Smartphones are caught in an "involution".
If you don't build a car, how can you expect the market?
although the details of the deep integration between the two parties were not found in the internal letter, in any case, minimizing the impact of organizational changes on the team is the direction that needs the most efforts in the initial stage of the merger. What kind of resources will the new OPPO company allocate for the new car-making plan through organizational and personnel adjustments, and what sparks will it spark?
However, although OPPO has no strong advantages in building cars, it is also suspected of "joining in the fun". However, given that the market size of mobile phones is only about 3, trillion, the head enterprises have almost divided up the market, and the market is close to saturation, and the incremental space is too small. In the future, it will be in the stage of stock game, and the competition is very fierce.
Therefore, this can spur enterprises to open up new business areas and even diversify cross-industry operations. After all, the market size of smart cars may exceed 1 trillion yuan, which is still much larger than that of mobile phones. At present, the starting point of each player is similar, and there is no obvious head enterprise.
So, for a technology enterprise with a little strength like OPPO at present, how can it be recognized by capital, talents and the market in the future without building a car? If you can't keep up with the wind, it may be a few years. The lessons from the past have made large enterprises "hold high" their sense of urgency, and the herding effect is actually helpless.
At present, the smart phone industry is caught in an "involution", either repeating at a low level or blindly piling up hardware, ignoring the initial intention of consumer experience. It is foreseeable that in the future, not only those who make mobile phones, but also those in other industries will take the opportunity to squeeze into the air of building cars. In the past six months, there have been many examples, and the drama of building cars has just begun.