Wang Chuanfu, After completing his master's degree, Wang Chuanfu worked in his research institute for 3 years, and then became the general manager of a Shenzhen battery company. In 1995, he founded BYD with his cousin Lu Xiangyang (No. 48). It is currently replacing the monopoly of Japanese battery companies and becoming the first-class battery manufacturer. During the Asian financial crisis, BYD's exports shrank extremely. But it was successfully listed on the Hong Kong main board this summer. Last year's sales revenue reached US$155 million (US$105 million in 2000), taxes were US$24 million, and there were 15,000 employees.
In 1990, Wang Chuanfu graduated with a master's degree from the Beijing Institute of Nonferrous Metals and stayed to work in Room 301 of the institute. He successively served as deputy director, director, senior engineer, and associate professor step by step, and also led a group of graduate students. .
Wang Chuanfu, who had worked in the research institute for five years, suddenly discovered one day that batteries, one of his research fields, faced huge investment opportunities. At that time, it cost 20,000 to 30,000 yuan to buy a "Big Brother", and people who wanted to buy it were flocking to it. Wang realized that the development of mobile phones would require increasing demand for rechargeable batteries. In his opinion, as a professor, technology is not a problem. As long as it can be scaled up, it can make great achievements. In February 1995, Wang Chuanfu resolutely went into business and registered BYD Industrial in Shenzhen.
Wang Chuanfu’s project also has his own uniqueness. Compared with many domestic companies that blindly pursue modernization and often spend large amounts of money to introduce internationally leading production lines, Wang Chuanfu independently develops and develops products from beginning to end. Not only that, Wang Chuanfu also invested a lot of energy in technology, raw materials and quality control, cost reduction and other aspects.
In addition, Wang Chuanfu directly intervened in the material development process of suppliers, using BYD's strong scientific research capabilities to jointly formulate cost reduction plans. For example, nickel-cadmium batteries require a large amount of cobalt, the negative electrode manufacturing material. If you import cobalt with better performance from abroad, the cost will be extremely high. BYD cooperated with a company in Shenzhen. After clarifying the quality gap between domestic and foreign cobalt, BYD formulated detailed methods to improve the quality of domestic cobalt, finally making domestic cobalt meet international quality requirements and cost 40% less than foreign products. Due to the extreme application of negative electrode materials Guang, BYD can save tens of millions of yuan a year through this alone.
In the second half of 1995, Wang Chuanfu tried to send BYD's products to Daba, Taiwan's largest cordless phone manufacturer, for trial use. Unexpectedly, the excellent quality and low price of BYD products aroused Daba's strong interest. At the end of the year, Daba did not hesitate to give the order to Sanyo to Wang Chuanfu.
In 1997, BYD had grown from a little-known player to a medium-sized enterprise with annual sales of nearly 100 million yuan. In the past three years, BYD has been able to achieve a growth rate of 100% every year.
In 1997, the financial crisis swept across Southeast Asia, and global battery product prices plummeted by 20 to 40%. Japanese manufacturers were on the verge of losing money, but BYD's low-cost advantage became more and more comfortable. Philips, Panasonic, Sony and even General Motors have also issued exciting large purchase orders to BYD. In the nickel-cadmium battery market, Wang Chuanfu took only 3 years to capture nearly 40% of the global market share, making BYD the well-deserved leader in nickel-cadmium batteries.
After establishing a foothold in the field of nickel-cadmium batteries, Wang Chuanfu immediately seized the second opportunity and began to develop nickel-metal hydride batteries and lithium batteries with core technologies in the battery market. To this end, Wang Chuanfu invested a lot of money, purchased the most advanced equipment, searched for cutting-edge talents, and established a central research department. At that time, lithium-ion batteries were dominated by the Japanese, and domestic peers did not believe BYD could succeed. It is said that Wang Chuanfu was ridiculed in the industry at the time, but he believed this was an opportunity.
Subsequently, Wang Chuanfu specifically established BYD lithium-ion battery company, a decision that has bore fruit today. According to statistics from Nikkei Electronics, BYD currently ranks only behind Sanyo, Sony and Panasonic in the field of lithium-ion batteries and nickel-metal hydride batteries, becoming an international battery giant as famous as these three Japanese manufacturers.
At present, BYD's production scale has reached a daily production of 1.5 million nickel-cadmium batteries, 300,000 lithium-ion batteries, and 300,000 nickel-hydrogen batteries. 60% of its products are exported. Customers in the mobile phone field include Motorola, International communication industry giants such as Ericsson, Kyocera, and Philips also have domestic mobile phone newcomers such as Bird, TCL, and Konka, while cordless phone users include industry leaders such as VTech, Panasonic, and Sunli. BYD has become the world's second largest battery supplier after Sanyo, occupying nearly 15% of the global market.