A CES, behind the lively black technology, mapping is the firm pace of Chinese companies to catch up with the international giants.
This is probably the CES with the largest number of exhibitors in China in the history. Information from the CES website shows that about 500 exhibitors have the word 'Shenzhen' in their names, accounting for about 10% of all exhibitors. The rise of China's scientific and technological power is becoming impossible Neglected trend.
In the fields of smart appliances, smart devices and smart cars, foreign companies take the lead in starting, the market begins to popularize rapidly, the application is also mature, and the gap between Chinese enterprises and international giants is still objective. Jiang Feng, chairman of China Household Electrical Appliances Association, Financial said that the global influence of China's home appliance brand needs to be further improved, have a real voice.
However, on the other hand, in these frontier areas, how to use intelligence to inject new impetus into the industry has become the target of many Chinese and foreign enterprises to explore - which is a golden opportunity for Chinese enterprises to brew a force for mutual exchange opportunity.
Three big gaps
Scale and profit, core technology and research and development capabilities, industry chain and product line, as the three most critical gap between Chinese and foreign enterprises.
Size and profit are key words that any business can not be separated.
Looking to the world, the white goods industry, the United States, Haier, Gree, the three major Chinese white giant revenue size in 2017 has surpassed the United States Whirlpool, Sweden Electrolux and other European and American rivals.However, if with Samsung, LG, Panasonic These Japanese and South Korean integrated electronics companies compared to the size of the revenue of China's Big Three, white-white there is still a considerable gap.
From the perspective of listed companies, Midea Group is China's largest home appliance maker with revenue and profit. For the first three quarters of 2017, Midea realized a revenue of 186.95 billion yuan and a net profit of 14.998 billion yuan, a market capped by 400 billion yuan at the beginning of this year. Revenue for the full year of 2017 will exceed Rmb230bn and net profit will be about Rmb200bn, while Samsung Electronics 2017 revenue of Rmb239.58tn (approximately $ 223.5bn) and revenue of Rmb53.65tn 50 billion US dollars), the market value of last year had broken 320 billion US dollars last year.Although Samsung's biggest profit from the chip, but the difference between the amount of body enough to make the United States are alert.
In the auto sector as well, Volkswagen delivered 10.7 million vehicles worldwide in fiscal 2017, with revenues of 230.7 billion euros (about 1.8 trillion euros) and net profit of 11.638 billion euros (about 90.46 billion yuan); Toyota Car companies forecast 29 trillion yen (about 1.7 trillion yuan) and 2.4 trillion yen (about 141.75 billion yuan) respectively for their sales and net profits in fiscal year 2017. In contrast, domestic and large-scale The largest SAIC, sales volume in 2017 close to 7 million, estimated net profit of only 34.2 billion yuan, with the public, Toyota obvious gaps; and just shares Daimler star car Geely, its 2017 net profit It is estimated that 10 billion yuan is far behind.
Compared to the more mature development of home appliances and automotive industries, the gap between smart devices is even more obvious.From the user scale, the overseas market clearly has an advantage.According to a report released by the U.S. research institutes, the United States users in the smart speaker The time it takes to use voice far exceeds the time it takes to use voice on a smartphone.Compared with the domestic smart home products just started, the user data accumulation is still very limited.Moreover, the high degree of homogeneity of the various manufacturers, No obvious features and advantages.
According to research firm eMarketer latest research report, in the intelligent voice control speaker market, Amazon has accounted for more than 70% market share, Google's market share of 24% .Apple also recently released the flagship music smart speaker products HomePod.A headquartered in Zhuang Hongbin, founder of London-based Emotech, an intelligent hardware company founded by a Chinese team, told CBN reporter: 'Compared to the smart home and foreign countries, the penetration rate in the United States is significantly higher.'
In addition to the above obvious data at the front, hidden in the back of the core technology, research and development capabilities, domestic enterprises still need to get rid of barriers.
'Intelligent car is very important, but our own conditions are not satisfactory. In the research and development of smart cars to invest less, the common problems facing the key, common, the lack of core technologies, the key components of long-term Monopolized by large foreign enterprises, let us worry that almost all of the foreign auto companies are investing heavily in research and development and application of intelligent, forward-looking layout, and world-class system suppliers even ahead of us, these car companies Carried out the research and development of vehicle intelligence. '' Beijing Automotive Group Co., Ltd. party secretary and chairman Xu He Yi had such a reflection of the gap between Chinese and foreign car prices.
This is also the consensus of the industry.Chinese car prices shortcomings lie in the lack of talent and core technology, as well as the lack of R & D investment.Data show that in 2017 the global car prices research and development into TOP10 enterprises, all clear for multinational brands. , Volkswagen of Germany took the first place of R & D for the second consecutive year with a total value of 13.672 billion euros, followed by General Motors and Daimler, which invested 7.684 billion euros and 7.575 billion euros in research and development respectively. China's auto brand SAIC ranks # 19 among automotive companies with R & D investment of 1,284 million euros.
In the field of home appliances, the Chinese home appliance enterprises have invested heavily in technological research and development and have the potential to make a come-home afterwards. According to "2017 Global Innovation Report" released by ClarivateAnalytics (formerly Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property and Technology Group), in the field of home appliances, In the United States, the number of invention patents in 2016 ranked first in the world, followed by Gree, Haier, the top three are all from China's enterprises, and this situation has been continuous for three years.But from R & D to products, to market performance, still Need a process.Microsoft, Gree they want to become the world's high-end home appliance brand still need to work hard.
In addition, there is a gap between the industrial chain and the product line, for example, Samsung Electronics's business covers black, white, mobile phones, chips and panels, and is the world's largest supplier of color TV, mobile phones, chips, OLED panels. , China's home appliance enterprises, black and white lead different, Gree, Haier is the world's largest home air conditioner, refrigerator washing machine suppliers, the United States has a complete air conditioner, refrigerator, washing machine, microwave oven and dishwasher industry chain and Kitchen appliances, small appliances group, its subsidiary Meizhi is the world's largest supplier of air conditioner compressors, but their black business is weak, did not get involved in the chip panel.
Three major reasons
Enterprises and markets started relatively late, brand influence needs to be improved, and the weakness of technology and talent reserves are the three most important factors that cause the gap between Chinese and foreign enterprises.
'The reason for these differences is still the accumulation of technology. NVIDIA's technology accumulated for 30 years before ushered in the artificial intelligence and automatic driving tuyere. In contrast, the development of China's chip technology started late, so far no A technology provider capable of influencing autopilot around the world, some technology providers in China are still relatively low-end technologies. "Turning to the gap between artificial intelligence and autonomous driving, the German auto parts giant Continental Group CEO Tom on the first financial reporter said.
Indeed, 'late start' is one of the important reasons for the significant gap between domestic and foreign enterprises.
From the historical heritage point of view, Mercedes-Benz is the inventor of the car, its manufacturing history of the car has more than a hundred years, many foreign brands, have decades or even centuries of development history, and China's car officially entered the family only 20 years, The scale development of China's auto industry is only over 30 years old. This objective time difference determines that China's auto industry lags behind developed countries such as Europe, the United States, Japan and Japan in terms of innovation stage.
This gap is not only reflected in the automotive sector, the entire manufacturing and technology fields, technology start-up in China are basically later than developed countries such as Europe, the United States and Japan.For example, Bosch, Panasonic is a century-old brand, Samsung, LG have about 80 years of history; The United States is only 50 years old, Haier and TCL are around the age of 35. They shift from the OEM export to establish a global brand overseas, but also much later than the European, American, Japanese and Korean enterprises.
Even from the speed of innovation in the new era, mature countries such as the United States are the most front-line beach-goers gathering at every round of technological revolution and the rise of the tide, a region that is itself an influx of innovative global talent, The forefront of industrial innovation was born in this speed is also not available to Chinese enterprises.
On the other hand, the late start is not limited to the young people in our country. The low level of education in the domestic market has also become one of the factors restricting its development.
Take the automobile market as an example, the foreign auto market has been upgraded from the first purchase to the upgrading and redemption stage. Consumers' demand for automobiles is not only satisfied with the principle of transportation but rather with more technology, convenience and individuality. This demand-driven competition Forcing car companies to accelerate innovation and investment in technology In Germany, as early as the 1980s, the German Federal Defense University in Munich in cooperation with Mercedes-Benz started research and development of autonomous vehicles.The representative results of the Mercedes-Benz S500 driverless car 2013 Year car in the city and inter-city road to complete long-distance autonomous driving test replicated 125 years ago, Mrs. Benz lady journey, another example, as early as the late 20th century, the United States automotive industry began to have a large number of For example, Tesla, Fisker etc. However, in China, the wave of innovation only started to sprout around 2015, which is itself a stage of market development.
Mature markets such as automobiles show only the similarities and differences in the stages of development, while in the frontier areas such as smart devices, the market still needs to be nurtured, and user stickiness still needs to be strengthened. Here, the main market resistance faced by domestic manufacturers is Speech recognition, semantic understanding, and other related technologies are not mature enough, the user experience is not good enough, and related content and services are not rich enough, the application scenario is not yet broad enough, these led to the user stickiness is not strong. Zhuang Hongbin told First Financial reporter: At present, most domestic smart home products are still only passive tools, for example, on the ground if the intelligent speaker is not awakened, did not receive the command, it can only passively static in place .If you want to develop user stickiness, you must increase Product initiative.
On the product and brand level, Jiang Feng once told CBN reporter that on the world stage, the overall level of China's home appliance enterprises is rising and the rise of mass organizations is manifested in more innovative products and brands. However, the brand influence The force still needs further improvement, especially in the consumer market.
Jiang Feng said that in the past is the product of exports, 'Made in China', is now the brand out to the sea.Can be acquired through overseas, such as the acquisition of GE appliances by Haier in 2016, the United States acquisition of Toshiba appliances, and quickly enter the mainstream market in Europe and the United States.But brand authorization There is a limited number of years, the key is to take their own brand out. So have a real voice. 'We need innovative strength support. South Korea's Samsung, LG in the 90s of last century will not work, but after 20 years in the world Important influence, so we still need to go through 10 years and 20 years of hard work.
In addition, the reserve of talent is also one of the important factors.For a long time, artificial intelligence and other high-end talents are concentrated in the Silicon Valley of the United States until in recent years, domestic policies strongly support the electric car and autopilot technology for a large number of entrepreneurship Who created the opportunity, but also ushered in the Silicon Valley's "returnees." Domestic electric car startup singular point car founder, CEO Shen Haiyin told First Financial said: "part of the technology startups to develop through their own, but because we Lack of particularly cutting-edge technical support, so some technologies still rely on external forces, and the talents and technological advantages of Silicon Valley are very important to us. '
Break the road
Although there is still a gap between technology enterprises and multinational giants in our country and their commercial experience is relatively lacking, according to Miao Wei, minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China is accelerating its pursuit of catch-up and not entirely fails to catch up or surpass it.
So, how to catch up?
First of all, it is necessary to transform the disadvantages into advantages and seize the big trend of intelligence to achieve overtaking corners. Large multinational enterprises will pay more attention to the balance of investment in traditional and new businesses in the face of new changes in new trends. The other side of the company's 'start late' is no historical burden, can be more flexible, do more in-depth understanding and solutions for the pain points in the market.
To the automotive industry, for example, Li Bin, chairman of easy car that under the new trend, any car companies want to rely on their own power to master all of the core technology, is not realistic, so the future of technical subdivision The trend will be more and more obvious.Nowadays in unmanned, intelligent, voice interaction and other areas, the core technology more in the hands of suppliers, car companies have the same supply chain to do more is to play a resource Integration advantages, will focus more on user experience, access to front-end market recognition.
The United States has also opened up the second runway in the smart manufacturing industry: the acquisition of KUKA in Germany, the establishment of intelligent research institutes in various business units and the promotion of smart home development through smart voice control and artificial intelligence. Its large-scale custom industrial Internet platform COSMOPlat. Zhou Yunjie, president of Haier Group revealed on February 26 that the platform has access to tens of thousands of enterprises and the transaction volume is expected to reach about 400 billion yuan by 2018. From large-scale manufacturing to mass customization , Haier hopes in the Internet of Things era, with innovative business model, the first to detonate the wisdom of business opportunities.
Second, we will take advantage of such opportunities as the rise of China's industrial chain and the policy of 'One Belt and One Road' to strengthen the global brand influence and strive to catch up with the premium products, cutting-edge technologies and brand premiums. TCL believes that the next three years will be the golden age of globalization , And has formulated a three-year development plan covering 16 overseas key markets in Europe and the United States. Haier and others have also actively completed the layout along the "Belt and Road". Last year, Haier India Industrial Park was completed. Hisense became the sponsor of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia , Once again passed on the Chinese brand in the global rise of the signal; the United States, Hisense, TCL and other Silicon Valley in the United States have set up R & D institutions to integrate the cutting-edge technology resources in the world.
China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export Chamber of Commerce appliance branch Zhounan believes that the Chinese household electrical appliance enterprises have entered a new stage of globalization, not only through products, brands, capital outreach to participate in global competition, is still fighting for the right to speak of the industrial chain.As the United States, the acquisition of KUKA, Haier acquired GE appliances, access to the boards of these influential companies and participate in the division of labor across the global industry.
Zhou Nan told CBN reporter that another manifestation of the globalization of China's household appliance enterprises entering the new stage is the globalization from 'internal and external' to the globalization of 'both inside and outside.' For example, Changhong has introduced domestic and foreign Brand sector integration, Skyworth last year, overseas marketing and domestic marketing departments combined, they think of the Chinese market as China.
Different from the European, American, Japanese and Korean enterprises, Zhou Nan said that the new round of globalization of China's household electrical appliance enterprises starts with a different approach. Now it is the era of information and internet of things. The globalization of Chinese enterprises can lend more information to information technology. Basically, the enterprises in Europe and the United States have the right to speak in the industrial chain and then expand their markets and industries. On the contrary, Chinese enterprises already have markets, industries and certain technological bases. However, they lack the right to speak in the industrial chain and now they are actively seeking The right to speak.
Thirdly, grafting domestic and foreign talents and resources to strengthen R & D efforts will only be better developed if we grasp the core technologies, and in fact, Chinese enterprises are making changes and, on the one hand, they go out and go through Silicon Valley and other places A large number of R & D layout, on the other hand through the introduction, to absorb a large number of overseas returnees to the talented people, be able to attack and defend, not only keep pace with the huge domestic market, but also with the most sophisticated technology overseas.
Although the number of Chinese home appliance leading enterprises has exceeded the number of technical patents overseas counterparts, but Zhou Nan believes that this is not enough, 'research and development cycle is more important, the need to develop the next generation of new technology products.' Like the United States, Hisense, TCL has set up in Silicon Valley R & D institutions, but a large number of elite Silicon Valley is still for Google, Apple and other technology giants.So, China's home appliance business from leading the industry trend to attract high-end talent and technology, to grasp the real voice is still a long way to go. However, this process is accelerating. Recently, many Chinese home appliance enterprises have expressed strong interest in acquiring high-end overseas brands. '
As Zhou Nan said, the tendency of overseas mergers and acquisitions or cross-border cooperation such as alliances has gradually become one of the ways enterprises seek to maximize their strengths and weaken their resources. For example, Chery has chosen to cooperate with Baidu and make alliances with SAIC and Ali. In this model, in fact, the Chinese car companies in the field of intelligent interconnection has led the application of precedence, such as SAIC Ali Internet car more than a year after its launch, the current market has more than 400,000 holdings, has been More than foreign car prices.
Finally, differentiated competition is also one of the ways to break through.Zhuang Hongbin told First Financial said that Chinese start-ups started later, so should avoid direct competition with large companies, but through the differentiation of the occupation of the market. 'Google and Amazon smart speakers , Their openness is relatively high, generally strong, with many scenarios and areas such as voice and speech recognition.In contrast, although our data less than large companies, but we are good at and focused on the algorithm with the field Google may not be at a disadvantage.
He also said that with the gradual cultivation of the domestic market is completed, the growth of domestic smart devices is very fast, there are many companies doing smart devices in the rise, the shipments are also very much, these are only time and user acceptance issues .