An Exclusive Interview With Hu Huazhi, Chairman And Chief Executive Officer Of The 100 Million Airlines, Seven Of The World'S Civilian UAV Is Expected To Experience "Air Taxis" During The Year.

During the new crown pneumonia outbreak, the application of UAV in contactless distribution, air patrols and shouting has made people further see the future application of the industry.

The bay area of Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau is the highland of the global UAV industry. Market research firm EVTank predicted that by 2020, Guangdong enterprises will occupy 70% of the global market share of civilian UAVs. These enterprises, including those in the consumer market, are also strong in the field of agriculture.

In the view of Hu Huazhi, founder of billion airlines, the perfect industrial chain in the bay area has brought exceptional advantages to the UAV industry. The soul of this UAV enterprise is software, but it is not a pure software company. It needs hardware as a carrier. Unlike mobile phone or computer software companies, the hardware it needs is "unavailable". "We need to popularize our hardware, synchronize our hardware and software." He told the twenty-first Century economic news reporter, "thanks to the supply chain in Guangdong, the development and production of hardware will be very smooth here."

In December 2019, 100 million Airlines listed in the United States. At present, the company has a market value of about $630 million. Air traffic (Air Mobility) is now the main business of billion airlines. Morgan Stanley released a research report in early 2019, saying that the scale of the market is expected to reach US $1 trillion and 500 billion in 2040.

This is the market that Hu Huazhi hopes to win, but trying to cut into the blue ocean is not only billion. On this track, the potential competitors of billion Airlines include Airbus, Boeing and other traditional manufacturers. There are also a number of start-up companies that also focus on manned autopilot. Among them, there are Lilium, Volocopter and other enterprises that have completed financing in recent years.

But when it comes to competition, Hu Huazhi seems quite confident. In an interview with the economic news reporters in twenty-first Century, he said that since the launch of the billion airline's manned products, its safety and commercialization level is higher than that of other similar products. Many manufacturers have not even completed their own safety tests, and it is difficult for them to commercialize in a short period of time in Guangzhou.

In an exclusive interview, Hu Huazhi showed reporters a video of the introduction and Prospect of the air traffic (UAM) industry released by Roland Begg, a consultancy, at the beginning of last year. He reminded reporters that only one million passengers in the video were actually taken by passengers. The products of other manufacturers appearing in the video also did not carry passengers.

Do not make "enlarged version of aerial photography machine".

Hu Huazhi has always expressed a view to the outside world: Although the appearance is indeed somewhat similar, the product of the billion boat is by no means an enlarged version of the aerial photography machine. He stressed that the core of the billion airline business is manned level, which has a high demand for safety.

When it released the first manned class product "billion airline 184" in 2016, the company proposed the "full backup" requirement. Popularly speaking, it is necessary to ensure that the aircraft can continue to fly safely when there are one or more faults. The appearance elements are usually intuitive. For example, there are 16 propellers on a "billion boat 216".

"But what about" belly "? Our flight control system has 3 main CPU and 6 sensors. " Hu Huazhi said that these systems will work together to avoid a single loop failure. This "backup" runs across batteries, speed regulators, communications and other systems.

"We only reached the market after reaching the" full backup "standard. Hu Huazhi said, "we have passed our own security requirements. It is worth mentioning that video data show that the officials, including Norbert Hofer, Minister of transportation innovation and technology of the former Austria, and the whole management of the billion airlines have already taken the manned level autopilot of the billion flights. Hu Huazhi himself occasionally commutes on "billion boat 216".

Bloomberg BusinessWeek listed a number of companies aiming at autopilot in an article in early June, including Volocopter, Astro Aerospace, Kitty Hawk, Workhorse and Lilium. Confidence in the safety of their products is the bottom line for Hu Huazhi to talk about competition. "We solved many key technical problems before we launched products." He said.

In August 2019, Yi hang announced a strategic cooperation with the Guangzhou municipal government. The two sides will focus on the application of manned automatic flying aircraft, intelligent command and control center, intelligent logistics and other applications in the field of urban air traffic. At present, billion airlines have launched test flights near Canton Tower and two locations in Garden Hotel, Nansha. However, at present, billion airlines are still deliberately limiting the amount of flight. "We need to make sure that there are no accidents. Any accident is a blow to billions of airlines and industries. " Hu Huazhi said.

The market has not been cut down under the epidemic.

According to Hu Huazhi's past forecast, manned class products should have seen a wave of "outbreak" in 2020. But the new crown pneumonia epidemic has left us somewhat unprepared. In particular, the large-scale isolation and blockade of the world's major countries has affected some application areas to a certain extent. However, Hu Huazhi believes that the purchasing power of customers has not "disappeared", will only "lag", "the entire market has not been reduced."

In addition, the epidemic has also affected some of the non core businesses of the billion airlines, such as the sudden drop in demand for flight formation performance. The impact of supply chain is relatively limited. Hu Huazhi said that the company did not lay off or cut salaries during the epidemic, or even raise staff salaries. In February 10th, the recovery rate of billion Airlines reached 50%, and now it is 100%.

Hu Huazhi believes that if optimistic, consumers will experience "air taxis" in the year. For example, billion airlines have already made a large number of flights in Hezhou, Guangxi, and are about to start building "exclusive terminal buildings". In addition, he believed that the epidemic indirectly brought fire to the "contactless" economy, which enabled the company to see new market opportunities, including the application of products in the field of medical emergency.

"Our product is going with technology to the market, and it is not a traditional product of sales volume." Hu Huazhi said, "despite the great demand, we have been controlling the pace of sales last year."

Hu Huazhi pointed out that billion airlines need to overcome the problem of a brand-new product adapting to the market at the same time of sales. For example, he said that some electric vehicles were not perfect at the early stage of the launch, but the biggest consequence was that they broke down because of power problems, and if the aircraft went wrong, they might "fall" and must eliminate all the key faults.

"We can't expand our capacity because of the intention of the order, although this will increase sales revenue." Hu Huazhi said, "but if there are any problems and problems, our service needs to keep up with the users' experience." This year, after more tests and preparations, billion Airlines is expected to improve its delivery capacity.

According to the financial data, in the first quarter of 2020, 100 million Airlines delivered 9 sets of "billion Airlines 216", compared to the fourth quarter of 2019 for 26 units, and 3 units for the first quarter of 2019. It is worth mentioning that the revenue of the billion airlines in the quarter was 18 million 800 thousand yuan (RMB), an increase of 80.3% over the same period last year, which outperformed analysts' expectations of 13 million 800 thousand yuan.

The company has never been transformed.

Although there are many tracks in the UAV field, it is undoubtedly a hot consumer market with aerial photography. This also makes almost all the UAV enterprises to be compared with Dajiang, which is quite large in terms of revenues and profits. For billions of airlines, it also faces the challenge of "replacing its main business" because it almost quit the aerial market.

Hu Huazhi was dissatisfied with this. "We can't afford to say that we do not make a consumer plane.

In his view, it is natural for us to enter the small aircraft market at the same time as big aircraft: this can play a very good role in promoting large aircraft. "We can test our system, including the test of cluster flight. It can also give us more market time. "

Hu Huazhi said that whether it used to use small aircraft for aerial photography, or now focus more on manned and logistics, these are the applications of existing products in different fields.

He emphasized that the products of billion Airlines did not change. For example, when developing human powered products, the company did not think that products could be applied to the field of fire protection. But in fact, by assembling firearms and fire extinguishing agents, UAVs can use their maneuverability and flight advantages to arrive at the scene in time before the fire spread, especially high-rise buildings. "Has our product changed? Maybe the landing gear needs to be changed. " Hu Huazhi said, "but is it even more important to change the landing gear?"

Billion airlines now divides its business into four parts: air traffic, air logistics, smart city management and air media. In its earnings report, the top two sectors were merged into "air traffic", which grew by 256% in the first quarter, accounting for 80.4% of the total revenue. However, Hu Huazhi still believes that in the next few years, the income of non core businesses will not exceed the core business temporarily, but the core of the company's long-term core will be manned. He said that billion airlines will launch more products to complete the comprehensive coverage of urban transportation, logistics and transportation.

Hu Huazhi also admitted that the revenue structure of billion Airlines is far from stable. "Our products can be applied in many fields." "There is not much difference in terms of technology," he said. Turning to the future, he pointed out that in addition to scenic spots and air taxis, fire and logistics two areas are also full of opportunities.

In terms of logistics, YCN has obtained the approval of the Civil Aviation Administration of the automatic pilot aircraft logistics trial operation in May 27th, and can carry out commercial trial operation of over 150 kilograms of heavy load air logistics. Prior to this, billion airlines had already tried with DHL, a logistics company, in the unmanned distribution, but Hu Huazhi thought those were only "capillaries". "We have begun to do some" aortic "logistics, such as heavy haul remote logistics. He said.

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