Hisense Leapfrogging: Industrial Transformation Driven By Technological Innovation

[editor's note]

2021 is the first year of the 14th five year plan, which is the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, and is also a key year for the strategy of strengthening the country and independent innovation.

The world is changing so much that it is hard to prevent China from rejuvenating. In such a period of great historical changes and opportunities, the 21st century economic report exclusively planned and launched a series of reports entitled "the road to greatness: Top 100 innovation power" throughout the year. Through screening and reporting the key enterprises and outstanding entrepreneurs in the national strategic industries, it has helped China's magnificent journey to climb new heights.

The series of "the road to greatness: the top 100 of innovation in big countries" is launched every month in the form of pictures, videos and posters on its own platform and cooperation platform.

This issue brings exclusive interview with Hisense Group and Huazhong CNC, please pay attention.

Right now, it's less than 40 days from the European Cup in June. For the international sports circle, which has been silent for a year and a half due to the epidemic situation, this event has attracted much attention; For Hisense, it's even more expected.

As the official global sponsor of this year's European Cup, Hisense, as early as last year when UEFA announced the extension of the 2020 European Cup, signed the name of "Hisense, the global official sponsor of the European Cup in 2016 and 2021", and released a poster of "returning people in spring next year".

Zhou Houjian, chairman of Hisense, once said, "in the future, the majority of Hisense will be overseas." From sponsoring the 2016 European Cup, to the 2018 Russia world cup, and then to the 2021 European Cup, Hisense has achieved the leap forward of its brand and the leap forward development of its enterprises through the strategy of continuously binding with the world's top events.

According to the data, under the triple influence of economic downturn, shrinking home appliance market and epidemic situation at home and abroad last year, Hisense Group achieved revenue of 140.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%; The profit was 9.83 billion yuan, up 23.7% year on year. Among them, the overseas revenue was 54.8 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of 18.6%, accounting for 39% of the sales revenue of the whole group. More than half of the income of the household appliances sector came from the overseas market.

The "14th five year plan" puts innovation first in specific tasks, and takes self-reliance in science and technology as a strategic support for national development. Jia Shaoqian, President of Hisense Group, told reporters of 21st century economic report that Hisense will "devote itself to scientific and technological innovation" as its corporate mission in 2019, and put forward "to continuously introduce technologies, applications and products that can meet the improvement of life quality."

For Hisense, innovation is both a proposition and an answer. Over the past 20 years, Hisense has continuously increased its investment in technology, adhered to chip R & D, incubated industries with technology, and gradually broken the foreign monopoly.

Insist on creating "core"

Hisense is one of the first color TV manufacturers involved in chip research and development. Looking back on the past, China's color TV industry has been in an embarrassing situation of "lack of core and few areas" for a long time“ At that time, all the chips and panels were imported, which was a common problem for the whole TV industry. " When Jia Shaoqian recalled that year, he could not help feeling with emotion.

At present, Hisense has put independent chip research and development on the agenda. From 2000, Hisense entered the field of chip research and development, and in 2005, it successfully developed China's first digital video processing chip with independent intellectual property rights and industrialization - "Xinxin". During this period, Hisense spent more than four years starting from scratch without any achievements.

As China's first TV video quality processing chip, "Xinxin" not only means a technological breakthrough, but also marks the end of the monopoly situation of Chinese market by foreign chips“ "Xinxin" has brought confidence to Hisense and laid the foundation for technological innovation since then.

Jia Shaoqian said: "after the success of Xinxin R & D, Hisense itself has a new capability, and for the industry, it has improved the confidence of Chinese enterprises. On the one hand, it shows that Chinese enterprises can make their own chips. On the other hand, they have broken the foreign monopoly and directly reduced the price of imported chips of the same kind from US $13 to US $5. "

As we all know, chip is a "money burning" industry with large investment scale, high risk and long return period. Many enterprises are unable to afford the large amount of film production costs, which are often millions or even tens of millions. At present, the majority of domestic chip industry is small and medium-sized enterprises, which choose the categories with lower entry threshold, so their products are concentrated in the low-end market.

"Homogeneous competition leads to price competition in the market, rather than thinking about how to improve product performance and innovate product development." In Jia Shaoqian's opinion, domestic enterprises should learn from the advanced enterprises in Europe and the United States, focus more on in-depth research on technology, make the technical indicators and reliability of products to the extreme, and win by leading technology.

This is what Hisense has insisted on and made great efforts in the field of chips in the past 20 years. At the end of 2017, Hisense acquired Toshiba image and integrated the Toshiba image chip design team; In June 2019, Hisense integrated the original chip Department of the company with Shanghai Hongyou company, and signed a contract with Qingdao microelectronics Innovation Center Co., Ltd. to jointly invest 500 million yuan to establish Qingdao Xinxin Microelectronics Technology Co., Ltd., so as to further improve the level of chip design and development.

At present, Hisense's image quality chip has been iterated to the fourth generation. Jia Shaoqian revealed that Hisense is independently developing the first 8K + 120Hz UHD chip in China. In May this year, it will return the film and take the lead in applying it to the whole machine. It is expected to achieve full-scale production in November this year.

Accelerate industrial transformation

On March 1 this year, Hisense home appliances (000921. SZ) took control of Japan's tri electric with a total price of 21.409 billion yen (equivalent to 1.302 billion yuan), so as to accelerate its march into the field of automobile air conditioning. This is also an important epitome of Chinese household electrical appliances enterprises' overseas M & a gradually involved in all aspects of the industrial chain, especially the upstream core components.

Jia Shaoqian told the 21st century economic report that although China has made considerable progress in key technologies in the past decade, the most critical and core industrial component materials still rely on imports, such as integrated circuits. In his view, some key components and technologies of China's high-end upstream industry supply capacity are still in the primary stage of development.

Last year, Zhou Houjian, chairman of Hisense, recommended the article "what happened in Japan's lost 30 years" to the group's management team, asking the management team to think about what the industry should maintain, what to abandon and what to pursue based on the experience and lessons of enterprises and even the country in the past reform process.

"Only when you know and act a step earlier than others, will you be more leisurely." It is under such insight that in recent years, in addition to the home appliance industry, Hisense has also made frequent efforts in emerging industries. At present, Hisense has made a lot of achievements in the fields of medical treatment, smart city and optical communication.

In October last year, Hisense released a color ultrasound product with completely independent intellectual property rights, using the industry-leading GPU parallel processing architecture, which has attracted great attention in the field of high-end medical imaging equipment. In addition, in the field of optical communication chips, Hisense has a complete vertical integrated manufacturing capability of chips, and its products are widely used in optical module products of Hisense broadband company, and has successfully ranked among the world's leading optical communication module suppliers.

At this year's awe exhibition, Hisense dedicated nearly one-third of the exhibition area, showing the layout of smart industry ecology such as smart city, smart medical, smart community, etc., to show the transformation results of the company's current B2C and B2B industrial pattern to the outside world.

Jia Shaoqian told reporters that Hisense will accelerate its development towards the information industry in the future industrial layout, "Hisense should strive to move forward to the high-end industry or the high-end industry."

He cited the medical industry as an example. "Smart medical" can connect medical resources and family environment through cloud exchange. "99% of the diseases we see can be solved remotely. With the help of digital technology, social public resources, community resources and families can be connected together."

At the same time, with the upgrading of consumption and the deepening of China's urbanization, it will provide new development opportunities for different formats“ The future of home appliances is no longer the traditional sense of home appliances, but will open up the whole life. Hisense is now committed to being a smart home, a smart community and a smart city. The strategy of smart new life proposed by Hisense is actually to transform traditional household appliances into new consumption areas, that is, to improve the quality of life. " Jia Shaoqian said.

Innovation should endure loneliness

Within Hisense, there is a statement about "one life" and "one meal" about industrial transformation and upgrading. For Hisense, the adjustment of industrial structure is a bowl of rice at present and a life in the long run.

The discussion on "meal" and "life" has gradually formed Hisense's unique business philosophy - in Hisense, structural adjustment is the life of an enterprise, not a meal. There are many ways to eat rice, but there is only one life.

In the process of industrial upgrading and adjustment, it usually takes 10 years for a new industry to hatch successfully, and it is even more lonely to cultivate a team. Only treat the future of an enterprise like "one life", waiting and paying are the processes that must be experienced.

Hisense has invested seven years in the field of laser TV without output. Optical communication entered the industry in 2002, which was the most sluggish in the industry. It has been dormant in intelligent transportation for many years before it conquers the industrial highland. Every breakthrough has experienced the baptism of time.

In order to encourage the innovation spirit of "bravely entering no man's land" within the enterprise, Hisense promulgated the management measures for major frontier and core research projects of the group, which "rewards the undertakers of major frontier and innovative research projects with a maximum of 8 million yuan".

According to previous media reports, Hisense set up a "special talent zone" as early as the early 1990s, and started the selection of "science and Technology Innovation Award" since 2002, and took out special funds to reward and commend the project teams and individuals who have made outstanding achievements in R & D and achieved important scientific and technological innovation achievements.

"In my opinion, no matter the enterprises in the household appliance industry or other enterprises, everyone is the same. If China's economy wants to develop and China wants to become strong, it will ultimately depend on independent innovation and technology guidance." Jia Shaoqian said that many enterprises were satisfied with food and clothing in the past and did not have the ability of independent innovation, but they must have such ability in the future“ Although there are great challenges and pressures, Chinese enterprises must take the road of independent innovation. Only in this way can Chinese enterprises really move from "rich" to "strong."

At present, Hisense has more than 10000 R & D technicians, and has established more than ten R & D centers in Silicon Valley, Atlanta, Germany, the Netherlands, Israel and other places. Through technology cooperation, technology introduction and independent R & D, Hisense continuously improves its own capabilities.

"Hisense's current main work is to adjust and upgrade the industrial orientation. In the past, it was manufacturing. Now we should consider making breakthroughs in core technologies, core key devices, and even key materials, so as to expand the industrial chain. " Jia Shaoqian said that in the next three years, Hisense will take the "pilot plan" of TV and Rongsheng refrigerator and smart home appliances as strategic fulcrums to create a dual advantage in the field of black and white electricity, and accelerate towards the goal of 300 billion revenue in 2025.

?