Gree'S Low Profile Launch Of DASONG 5G Mobile Phone Sales Is Still A Mystery

On the evening of December 12, Gree Electric's last national live tour of this year ended successfully in Zhuhai, the "main venue". That night, Dong Mingzhu, as always, worked hard to carry goods for Gree live broadcast on stage and in front of the camera.

The live broadcast finally achieved 2.51 billion yuan in sales, including air conditioning, ice washing, kitchen and toilet, all kinds of small household appliances, air disinfection purifier, new energy mobile nucleic acid detection vehicle Gree's new and old products appear one by one, but there is no sign of Gree mobile phone.

Five days ago, Gree launched the big song 5g mobile phone in its official mall in a low-key manner. Although the action was not discovered four or five days later, it still caused a lot of discussion. There are no more than two focuses of attention: Da song and 5g.

Compared with before, Gree launched 5g mobile phone for the first time, and took "DASONG" as the brand for the first time. In this regard, Gree Electric Appliances told relevant media on December 10 that the launch of 5g mobile phone is the deployment at the group level, and the replacement of Gree brand with DASONG brand is to better promote the secondary sub brands of Gree to the front desk.

From the initial "to surpass Xiaomi" to becoming Gree's "smart plus" entrance, Gree has been adjusting its positioning for mobile phone business in recent years. The only thing that remains unchanged is Dong Mingzhu's stubbornness. In any case, without her insistence, Gree mobile phone may not have come to this day.

"One word doesn't agree with you"

On January 6, 2015, when Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric appliances, was recording the financial program of Shenzhen satellite TV "Bailao Hui", talking about Lei Jun's Xiaomi mobile phone, she suddenly said: "I want to make a mobile phone, minutes, too easy." "Making mobile phones will definitely surpass Xiaomi." At that time, people thought that she was just talking about it. Unexpectedly, more than two months later, Dong Mingzhu really started a mobile phone.

On March 18 of the same year, at the scene of "breakthrough and growth of traditional enterprises" in the erudite lecture hall of Sun Yat sen University, Dong Mingzhu, chairman of Gree Electric appliances, suddenly announced that Gree mobile phone had been made, "I have been using it."

Less than half a month later, Gree generation mobile phones passed the official record and appeared on the website of the Ministry of industry and information technology's telecommunications equipment certification center. From the appearance, the appearance of Gree mobile phone is regular, with black front and white back. The logo of "green" is printed on the back shell. The size is 139 × 70 × 8.8mm, and the weight is 118g.

In terms of configuration, Gree mobile phone uses a 5.0-inch, 720p screen (TFT Technology), 1.2Ghz high-pass four core processor, 1GB memory + 8GB body storage (maximum support for 32GB expansion), camera combination of 2 megapixel front camera and 5 million pixel rear camera, running Android 4.4.4 system.

On June 1 of the same year, Gree Electric held a shareholders' meeting. Dong Mingzhu disclosed at the meeting that Gree mobile phones had begun to be sold internally, and the supply was in short supply, and the external price was 1600 yuan / unit.

However, no matter in terms of appearance, configuration or price, Gree mobile phone was difficult to compete with the mainstream products in the market at that time. It was even criticized as "low configuration and high price" by netizens. The only bright spot was Dong Mingzhu's greetings when the mobile phone was on the screen. This advertising and marketing method was admirable.

According to the incomplete statistics of the 21st century economic report, since the official appearance of Gree mobile phone in March 2015, the topic of Gree making mobile phone has been on the hot search for many times. Dong Mingzhu has also mentioned the reasons and objectives of Gree's mobile phone in public occasions, large and small, of course, including responding to external queries.

At the "2015 Zhenghe Island adjacent conference" held in Beijing from June 12 to 13, 2015, Dong Mingzhu said that Gree mobile phone is characterized by "intelligent IOT", which is embedded with a wireless module, which can remotely monitor and control electrical appliances. This is the first time she has mentioned the relationship between Gree mobile phone and Gree business. As for sales volume, she also said: "Gree mobile phone is not sold in the market at all. It is too late for group buying."

On July 10, 2015, Gree world's first fashion life Museum opened in Hangzhou. At that time, Dong Mingzhu not only showed her mobile phone in an exclusive interview with the media, but also stressed again, "when Xiaomi makes a mobile phone, Gree can also do it. In the mobile phone field that Xiaomi is good at, Gree can still play well."

Initially, Dong Mingzhu said that Gree mobile phones could sell 100 million units, but how Gree mobile phones, which are not sold to the outside world, can not help but arouse doubts from the outside world.

Later, Dong Mingzhu responded in a media interview in September of that year, "some people said that" Dong Mingzhu said that mobile phones sold 50 million units and changed their mouth. "I never changed my mouth. Whether 50 million or 100 million is not a problem for Gree." She said that Gree mobile phone did not choose to fight a price war to boost sales because it was responsible to consumers, "why does Gree use my photo as a boot screen? It's not because of saving advertising expenses, but because I want to tell consumers that I am the founder of Gree mobile phone, which is to respect consumers. "

However, the Gree mobile phone, which is responsible for consumers, is not very friendly to dealers. During this period, a small episode occurred, that is, in August of that year, the Gree mobile phone, which was not sold to the public, was taken off the shelf after a short time of juhuasuan online. According to Gree's official microblog at that time, it was the dealer's personal act, which was not authorized by Gree, so it was revoked.

According to online news, Gree generation mobile phone did not appear in the retail market, it was only issued internally. Later, it was revealed that employees and dealers were forced to buy. In this regard, Gree Electric later responded to the forced purchase in the official microblog as false news.

Enigmatic sales

In fact, the actual sales of Gree mobile phones have always been a mystery.

At the opening ceremony of the fourth session of the 12th Guangdong Provincial People's Congress held in January 2016, Dong Mingzhu said, "Gree's mobile phones are sold as soon as they are made. Gree is still in the process of construction, and the current quantity is too small." She also said that Gree mobile phone is not to PK Xiaomi, but to compete with the market.

In May of the same year, in an exclusive interview with China Entrepreneur Magazine, Dong Mingzhu said: "if Gree cooperates with Huawei, it will certainly be OK to have hundreds of millions of units a year." But when asked if he had any plans to cooperate with Huawei, Dong said nothing with a smile.

The 21st century economic report has noticed that, in addition to the 1 billion Xiaomi bets, Huawei is the benchmarking object that Dong Mingzhu often mentions. In March 2017, Dong Mingzhu participated in the dialogue column of CCTV. Coincidentally, Yu Chengdong was also in the program, so Dong Mingzhu talked about her views on Huawei mobile phones.

At that time, Dong Mingzhu said that Huawei's revenue was more than 500 billion yuan, which was worth learning from the whole staff of Gree, and Gree needed to catch up. As for Huawei mobile phones, Dong Mingzhu said that he hoped Huawei would become the first in the world one day, and Gree mobile phones would be the second in the world at that time.

This is not only a good hope. At the 2016 annual general meeting of Gree Electric more than two months later, Dong Mingzhu once again made a bold statement about Gree mobile phone, saying: "if Huawei sells the number one, I will sell the second."

Although Gree mobile phone sales or word-of-mouth in recent years are not satisfactory, but did not hit Dong Mingzhu's confidence. During the two sessions in 2018, when the sales of the previous two generations of mobile phones were not so good, she told the media, "I think I will succeed." Later, in the face of the reporter's query again, she directly refuted: "my mobile phone has not been sold in the market. Why do you say Gree failed to make a mobile phone?"

Before that, Dong Mingzhu once disclosed her views on the mobile phone market. Two months after the first offline show of the second generation mobile phone, Dong Mingzhu said in a live video: "before making mobile phones, some people said that the mobile phone market is already a red sea, so don't go in. But I think the Red Sea market is caused by no technology and no innovation. The difference between the Red Sea and the blue ocean mainly depends on how determined the enterprise is to innovate. Once there is innovation and technology, the Red Sea market can be broken. What Gree wants to do is the best mobile phone in the world. "

What happened later proved that, in Dong Mingzhu's eyes, one of the characteristics of the world's best mobile phones included "falling resistance".

At the second made in China Summit Forum, Dong Mingzhu said: "today, I can boldly say that my mobile phone is the first in the world. Of course, I am not talking about the number one in sales, but at least I can say that my (mobile phone) quality is the first in terms of my commitment to consumers. I said here today that my (mobile phone) two meters fall will not be broken, do you dare to fall? " Said, the hand of the Gree mobile phone fell to the ground. Sure enough, it's not broken.

In 2017 and 2019, Gree successively released color boundary mobile phones (2-generation small screen version) and 3-generation mobile phones, with the price of 3200 yuan / unit and 3600 yuan / unit, respectively, which also reached the level of mid-range computers.

Take "color boundary" as an example, in the configuration, with snapdragon 820 processor. In the camera, it is equipped with a front 8 megapixel + Sony 13 million pixel rear lens. With 5.5 "1080p screen, 4GB memory + 64GB body storage (UFS 2.0), 3000mAh battery can charge 50% in 30 minutes.

But in the end, whether it's the second generation or the third generation, the market reaction remains mediocre. For the three generations, at that time, some people in the industry commented that they were "at the level of the first half of 2018". It is reported that Gree 3G mobile phone was granted the network access license in mid-2018, but it was postponed to March 2019 for unknown reasons.

Want to break the impression of "low allocation and high price"?

Although there are many doubts from the outside world, and no one has ever known where Gree mobile phones are produced, Dong Mingzhu's determination to make mobile phones has not wavered. In the next four years, Gree has launched the second generation, the third generation and the latest Komatsu 5g mobile phone.

According to the latest DASONG 5g mobile phone configuration released by Gree dongmingzhu store, although the appearance has been improved, there are also many slot points. It is equipped with snapdragon 765G dual-mode 5g chip, 6.81 inch blind hole full screen, S-shaped texture body, front 16mp lens, rear 64mp + 8mp + 2MP + 2MP four camera, 5000mAh capacity battery, the thickness of the body is 9.3mm, and there are two colors of "magic night Aurora" and "Night Star River".

Some mobile phone evaluation media said that compared with the current Android mobile phone camp, whether in terms of body thickness, display screen or charging power, DASONG 5g mobile phone was rated as "insincere" by netizens. If compared with the price, the price of mobile phone products such as redmi K30, vivo Z6 and Xiaomi 10 youth version, which are also equipped with medium and low-end processor, is 1000 yuan, while the official price of DASONG 5g mobile phone starts at 2699 yuan.

In terms of sales channels, according to Gree, at present, in addition to the traditional official Gree channels, DASONG 5g mobile phones will also be sold in official flagship stores of e-commerce platforms such as tmall and Jingdong, as well as the live delivery of Dong Mingzhu. However, a reporter search found that as of December 15, tmall and JD had not yet put the product on the shelves, while in the Gli Dong Mingzhu store, the cumulative sales of DASONG 5g mobile phones were 1006.

In contrast, in terms of hardware configuration, the redmi K30, which is basically the same as DASONG's 5g mobile phone, went online one week, and 14226 units were sold on Jingdong platform alone. However, even so, the big song 5g mobile phone, which has been on the shelves for about a week, has surpassed the best performance of Gree mobile phones.

It is reported that the cumulative sales volume of Gree three generations, which will be launched in 2019, in Gree dongmingzhu store has not exceeded 6000 units. However, some analysts believe that compared with the previous three generations of mobile phones, the price of DASONG 5g mobile phones has narrowed the gap with similar products in the market.

In this year's Guilin speech, the reporter noticed that when Dong Mingzhu introduced Gree's diversified business, the mobile phone communication business was included in Gree's consumer sector. Perhaps, Gree's mobile phone business, as Dong Mingzhu said before, "needs a time precipitation.".

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