Meizu Huang Zhang: A Shanzhai Myth Of Domestic Mobile Phones

There is a popular duality recently: there is no Shi Yuzhu in the US, but there is no Jobs in China.

Jobs stands for idealism. He is like a child sitting in a symbol.

Shi Yuzhu represents pragmatism. He is like a pirate, swimming in a big ocean symbolizing smart, speculative and material flows. He is looking forward to the landing of the land and stepping on his feet.

Therefore, the United States can produce iPhone and China can produce platinum.

However, the above review obviously ignores the existence of a person.

His name is Huang Zhang, and his company is in Zhuhai.

As millions of kerosene in the country craze for Meizu M8 mobile phones, Huang seems to tell you:

The future made in China may be rewritten from the "fever of products".

The identity of M8

In February 18, 2009, Nanchang Meizu brand store.

There were more than 100 long queues at the door, although the first batch arrived only 20, but people were still waiting patiently.

This day is the first national day of the M8 mobile phone.

It is said that there is a consumer in Shandong who has been reversing four provinces and reversing four times, from Anhui Fuyang to Shandong Linyi, only to buy 3 Meizu M8.

This kind of scene is familiar. It happened in the United States on the other side of the ocean. What people are waiting for is an apple iPhone mobile phone.

The kerosene in Linyi, Shandong, should be honored because the prince of Saudi Arabia is also one of the kerosene.

The magic of M8 is: sales exceeded 100 thousand units in two months, and sales exceeded 500 million yuan in five months, surpassing NOKIA, Motorola and Samsung.

It was once the champion of smartphone sales in Chinese market in 2009.

However, its identity is more like the most powerful "Shanzhai" in history.

M8 is almost the same as iPhone: full screen touch, super large screen, identical operation; M8 is also enhanced version iPhone, which is thinner than iPhone, 23 grams lighter than iPhone, higher resolution than iPhone screen, and can broadcast video format and music format that iPhone can not broadcast.

The most important cottage feature is that the M8 price is less than half of that of iPhone.

However, M8 seems to be different from all other "Shanzhai" machines, because "cottage machines" will not use Samsung's import chips and screens. "Shanzhai" will not take three years to do research and development in advance.

Some people say that Meizu has been "Shanzhai" abnormal, to a normal level.

M8, more like a megaku CEO Huang Zhang's toy, similar to Jobs's love for his iPhone, Huang Zhang paranoid pursuit, is a dream of the perfect phone.

Madman nurturance

Unlike Jobs, Huang Zhang likes to wrap himself tightly. His past has always been a mystery.

{page_break}

Huang Zhang was born in the rural area of Meixian, north of Guangdong Province. He had not graduated from high school. He was said to have been a chef in Cantonese cuisine. This was Jo Busby's "woodlouse", but he liked to tinkering with electrical appliances from an early age.

After a blank record, Huang Zhang became the general manager of VCD manufacturer Aegean company in 2002 and moved to the MP3 market.

However, strands of the East want Huang Zhang to appear frequently and implement the advertising bombing strategy. Huang Zhang is only willing to communicate with users on the Aegean website message board.

Finally, under pressure from the stock market, Huang Zhang was forced to leave.

Huang Zhang chose entrepreneurship. He has 3 technicians, 2 mainstay, 100 thousand yuan cash and 600 thousand yuan equipment. This is the first of all the Meizu.

In June 2003, the first MP3 product of Meizu was released.

Because there is no money to lay up channels, a large part of Meizu products are sold on ONDA brand, and the original image of the Meizu brand is mixed up for ONDA's OEM.

Similarly, Huang Zhang did not advertise. He made a website and a forum, calling himself Jack.

Wong, personally post reply, rely on word of mouth to maintain brand reputation.

In that year, kerosene increased slowly, less than ten thousand.

In October 2004, Meizu E2 became the first MP3 to replace the color metal shell and the first TXT e-book.

E2 became the start of Meizu's fortune making, and helped Huang Zhang attract the attention of SigmaTel, the US chip supplier. The former became the world's largest customer.

However, in 2005, Huang Zhang abandoned SigmaTel to PHILPS chips. The reason is simple: although expensive, but good!

This is actually the beginning of Huang Zhang's imitation of Jobs.

The logic of Meizu is to win the product and aim at the highest benchmark to create the perfect product.

This is a good reason to follow the low level of income and pay attention to users, as well as the born product worshiper. The number of registered kerosene in the Meizu forum has exceeded 100 thousand in 2005, and is growing faster and faster.

Huang Zhang will be in the forum for 4 hours every day, communicating with users. "Kerosene" has gradually formed the "Wong party". Anyone who disagrees with Meizu will become "coal black".

In 2006, the Meizu new product MiniPlayer was listed, and the chips, screens, headphones and other parts were all purchased for the best option. In that year, the sales of Meizu reached 1 billion yuan, becoming the first brand of China's MP3, while Huang Zhang's "kerosene" team has increased to 500 thousand. The largest group of "enthusiasts" in the world has been formed under the guidance of J.Wong day after day.

But these first in Huang Zhang's mind may only last for a few seconds.

In June 2007, with the success of iPod, Jobs launched the iPhone mobile phone.

Huang Zhang of Zhuhai is obviously concerned about this move. He also wants to make mobile phones.

In contrast to the powerful Jobs, anyone can despise Huang Zhang. In fact, Huang Zhang doesn't care about the outside world at all.

You can think of him as a madman, a madman who has broken the floor of the company dining room for three times because he is not satisfied with the floor, a madman who gave up giving up in the face of MP3's first throne, a lunatic who had no experience in the mobile phone industry but dared to force Jobs's model to copy.

Although Huang Zhang is so free and easy, but from a commercial point of view, we still have to ask why.

A sentence by Meizu marketing director Hua Hai Liang seems to be able to explain why: "we stand at the top of the mountain, but find no way out."

In 2007, the MP3 industry in China has come to a fork in the road. Most manufacturers are at the end of the road - not their fault, but the times are advancing, and MP3 is getting old.

The way out for Huang Zhang's choice is cell phone.

But he was too independent, and shortly after the listing of iPhone, Huang published the design of M8: if the title is not marked with M8, you will think it is iPhone.

{page_break}

The outside world taunts Meizu for "Shanzhai". In fact, M8 only regards iPhone as a perfect catch-up object, which is a wild desire of product fanatics.

Fanatics

Similar to the smashed cafeteria floor, Huang Zhang's M8 has been tossing for three years.

IPhone is famous for its user interface fashion. Huang Zhang invited M8, the best user interface design studio EICO, to make breakthroughs in detail.

For example, M8 can not only replace wallpaper, but also change the background pattern of the main menu icon, called "desktop background", and the "wallpaper" in iPhone is more accurately named "lock background".

In terms of hardware procurement, Huang Zhang did "top class".

The same as iPhone, M8 chose the imported Samsung S3C6410 chip, and the screen, memory and other parts were also fully PK200 dollars. In fact, it is equal to iPhone and strive to configure the best.

However, there are only more than 20 people in Meizu's actual R & D staff. It is a matter of great difficulty to match these top-level hardware to achieve a product that pcends the iPhone experience.

But Huang didn't believe in this evil. He directly stared at the design team and tried to experience the user experience in person. He just decided to overturn the first two costly versions.

In Huang Zhang's own forum, the scheduled time for M8 listing is mid 2008, when M8 is still being rebuilt.

For a product maniac, what he cares most is whether the toy he finally gets is the best toy. If the toy has obvious defects, he would rather abandon his promise and bear the cost of it.

During this period, some kerosene left, and some kerosene joined. There was only one topic for discussion: when did that damn cute M8 come out?

Huang's behavior is contrary to the traditional scheme of China's mobile phone industry.

The so-called traditional plan is the "joint development programme".

MediaTek is a IC professional design company in Taiwan, China. The image is that the mobile phone manufacturers will hand over the R & D and design of the mobile phone chip to the MediaTek, and the manufacturers actually produce the cell phone according to the design plan provided by the MediaTek.

Those famous brands, such as Jinli, Tianyu Lang Tong, and countless Shanzhai small factories, are all customers of MediaTek.

This is a calculation problem, just like Shi Yuzhu, who was 200 million yuan in debt and wanted to make a comeback, and worked hard to innovate and engage in software. It was estimated that it would take 10 years to repay the debt. If we did health care products, the market was big and just started, and we could turn over the brain in 3 years.

There will be no different algorithm and result in this calculation question before Huang Zhang, but he has chosen the opposite solution with Shi Yuzhu, just like a classic speech he left to kerosene in the Forum:

"Now we must keep a low profile and make products in a high-profile manner.

I am whispering to those who despise us: someday the Meizu will shine and shoot you. "

However, the Jobs line of Huang Zhang is also very limited.

M8 appears after the iPhone third generation machine, and the future M9 will also be after the iPhone fourth generation machine.

Maybe someday MN will appear before the N-5 generation of iPhone. At that time, Huang Zhang could completely take off the hat of "imitation" and "Shanzhai".

The premise is that Huang Zhang has always maintained a fanatical passion for products, even though he has been rated as "the top cottage".

{page_break}

In January 15, 2009, Meizu got the mobile phone access license from the Ministry of industry after the thousand difficulties and dangers. In February 18th, the Meizu M8 was listed.

No doubt, this is just the beginning of fanaticism, and 1 million kerosene has been impatient.

Adverse business choice

Huang Zhang and his more than 200 dealers chose Meizu M8 as a sales outlet for franchised stores.

When you interview the dealers of Meizu M8, you will find that apart from the store mode, you really can not find an appropriate way to show the dealer's love for this product.

Most dealers became "kerosene" from the time of Meizu MP3, and they met J.Wong through internet forums.

Huang Zhang has continued the tradition of Meizu MP3, and has planned the best configuration for M8, which is very tempting for kerosene dealers.

But you still can't imagine, although no new MP3 products are available, the loss rate of these dealers is very low.

The core reason lies in the success of the Meizu before: Huang Zhang initially did not intend to run a "kerosene" team, but when the group formed under the halo of the product and grew stronger and even formed a "kerosene culture", kerosene became the potential market group of the next product.

To know, which domestic mobile phone manufacturer has 1 million following users, and how can products like agents be sold?

In the initial trial sale, M8 mainly appeared in counters similar to the electronic city, except for "kerosene" basically no one was interested in it, and Meizu had no extra money to carry out large-scale marketing.

Dealers were the first to worry. They sought marketing director Hua Hai Liang. They discussed the design of the final sales mode of the street store, such as changing the black tone to blue, making the store a shop of experience - no counters, only one product, and the location was not wrong.

This is actually a way to replicate iPhone's success, and the best way for consumers to buy them is dealers.

However, in today's large shopping mall, the exclusive store mode will still restrict the popularity of Meizu M8.

But if you really think this is a problem, you will find that you still don't understand Huang Zhang.

Even if you find a Meizu store, if you tell customer service that you will never use smart phone, you may be faced with an embarrassing scene: customer service advise you not to buy M8.

Many actions of Meizu do not conform to the business logic that Chinese people often approve of. They even deviate from the mainstream commercial values. We can give Huang Zhang a name: "Huang Lao Xie" in the mobile phone industry.

But Huang Zhang firmly grasped one thing: products, products, and products, even imitation, must imitate the best; even without conditions, they should create the best.

But it is also a fanatical pursuit of products. Meizu M8 has become the favorite of fans. Their love for M8 will not be worse than that of Apple fans. IPhone

Let's see how Huang Zhang treats his enthusiasts well.

The national three package policy stipulates that mobile phone products should be exchanged for 15 days, and M8 will extend 15 days to 3 months.

Later, the first batch of M8 appeared instability of the system. The complaints on the forum seemed to be more than the patience of Huang Zhang. He had to replace the three months' replacement directly to one year. This move made the Meizu lose tens of millions of yuan.

How did Huang Zhang deal with VC?

IDG, a well-known venture capital investor, once sent a letter to Huang Zhang to cooperate. However, Huang Zhang did not give him any chance to negotiate.

{page_break}

After a while, Huang Zhang himself talked about this. He even said that there was a venture capitalist named P-I-G who wanted to talk to me.

PIG, the Chinese meaning is * pig.

For a product maniac, venture capital is speculation. Of course, there is nothing to talk about.

At this point, Huang Lao has been more mad than Qiao madman. Jobs has gone from the garage to the successful apple tree under the help of investor Markula.

Apple wants to lose

In 2010, Jobs launched a new generation of iPhone and a tablet computer called epoch-making iPad.

Huang Zhang, of course, is not idle. He plans to launch the enhanced version of M8 mobile phone by the end of 2010. On the day of uncertainty, Meizu will also launch a tablet computer named "Mbook" or "mPad". "M9"

Huang Zhang continues his style, the best components, the best design, the lowest price and the most enthusiastic service. He is still the most popular product on the planet.

But he still doesn't plan to advertise and do marketing promotion. He still refuses to go to the front desk and refuses to receive positive interviews from the media. He still calls J.Wong and his kerosene to communicate in the network, but his influence is no longer the same.

Tencent Ma Huateng seems to have noticed this. He wrote in micro-blog:

"...

Is M9 using Android? I wonder if we talked about QQ's built-in support or not, or more cooperation, otherwise kerosene would blame us for total discrimination against wince...

Android is much easier to handle. There are already ready versions to cooperate. "

Ma Huateng herself is a M8 user. Because M8 does not support QQ software, Ma Huateng's QQ forum was copied by kerosene before the micro-blog was released.

Fortunately, Ma Huateng finally realized the "situation", which is the market.

Vaguely, you will find Meizu's successful market reasons: good products and good market.

Perhaps Meizu has not been able to compete with iPhone, NOKIA and other intelligent machine owners. But Meizu has undoubtedly opened up a product myth of domestic mobile phones.

Maybe the apple that belongs to Huang Zhang is going to fall off. I wish him to catch it.