For Yu Yifang, vice president of ZTE and general manager of ZTE Device China, 2015 is a little tough.
In 2015, ZTE carried out extensive reform in device division, especially in the smartphone business, it also bore continuous pain. In the domestic market of which Yu Yifang be in charge, due to long time dependence on B2B operator market, the reform pain was more obvious. Compared with some competitors, ZTE Device China was faced with huge pressure in revenue, profit, shipments and other aspects.
However, it is pleasant that ZTE device division made it through. In an interview with C114 during the CES, Yu Yifang also admitted that ZTE was under great pressure in the past year, but it is ready right now and he hoped that ZTE will achieve reversal in 2016 and double the smartphone shipment.
2016, year of carrying out innovation
In Yu Yifang’s view, by adopting the strategy of reducing product lines and creating excellent products, ZTE device has come to the forefront of the market in product definition.
"We have launched many industry-leading technologies before, including Smart Voice and Biometric Identification which were successfully integrated in our products and gradually accepted by the market and consumers.” Yu Yifang said, "In 2016, we want to speed up utilization and popularization of these innovations, so that the ordinary consumers can get high quality and low price communication products and services."
Speaking of the hot technologies in 2016, he believed mobile phone photographing, VR and UAV will be very popular. ZTE has also been enhancing its technology accumulation in photographing and VR. "I think mobile phone photographing will become universal in 2016. In fact, we have made preparation to grasp the chance to solve relevant problems of battery life capability, storage and other relating aspects."
As for VR, Yu Yifang believed that ZTE should make steady developments, "we will provide sustained technology investment, but the key is to combine technology development with the latest trend of the industry, therefore it can create real value for the consumers."
He also emphasized the differences in products between now and the past, "we just produced mobile phones in the past and have nothing to do with the devices after they were delivered to the operators, but now we will release new versions in every two weeks and let consumers truly participate in the product definition and R&D."
Speaking of implementing the innovation, he also pointed out that innovation is no longer limited to the vendors alone but also in the perspective of industry chain cooperation. For example, ZTE has made cooperation with Tencent and launched Smart Watch based on Tencent operating system.
2016, year of intensifying the channels
In 2015, domestic smartphone market went through considerable changes, and performances of online brand vendors such as Xiaomi were barely satisfactory. On the contrary, vendors featured by off-line open channels including OPPO and vivo have made remarkable profits, value return of the traditional channels has become consensus inside the industry.
For all the device vendors including ZTE, the importance of channel distribution and operation strategies is needless to say. In Yu’s opinion, ZTE needs to make up a lot in the channels, which is difficult, however, ZTE will carry out continuous adjustment and optimization, and ultimately achieve synchronous enhancement in operators, social open channels and online E-commerce channels.
ZTE will also continue strengthening its off-line open channels. In 2016, it plans to double the number of its retail stores at least. At the same time, ZTE has carried out deep cooperation with D-phone, Gome, Suning and other mainstream channels; in the off-line operator channel, ZTE will launch customized products and invest in operators’ self-owned stores. For online channels, ZTE has conducted strategic cooperation with Jingdong and released Blade 1, which is a strategic-level device. Meanwhile, it will also carry out cooperation with Suning, Taobao and other online channels in the future and develop its own online store.
"We hope that the ratio of E-commerce and open channels will be higher and the ratio of operation channel will reach 40-50% in 2016. Of course, you may have questions like how to distinguish good products and good channels, which seems to be difficult. Considering that I’m the responsible person of ZTE Device China, this problem must be solved. Only if three channels are strong can ZTE mobile phone return back to the forefront of domestic market. "