360 mobile phone finally has news, but unfortunately bad news.
According to Phoenix Technology, several 360 people revealed that the 360 mobile phone business has been suspended. The former 360 mobile phone president is currently leading the team to secretly develop 360 smartwatches for the elderly in Shenzhen. The current state of the mobile phone is waiting for opportunities. The team's bones are still preserved. Some support IoT development, and some expand their hardware business.
Subsequently, 360 responded to this message: the mobile phone business was not completely suspended, only slowed down. 360 said the team is still struggling to find 5G opportunities, and the IoT business is a family-oriented security solution for the 360 Group's big security strategy.
But for some industries, stop means that it means going out. In 2019, there are fewer and fewer opportunities left for smartphone manufacturers. 360 is not the first one, nor the last one.
- Time to return to 2012, the "red dressing master" of the world, announced that he will enter the smartphone industry. At that time, the Chinese smartphone industry began to enter a period of rapid development, and the competition for mobile Internet has just begun. The first attempt on the smartphone was “conservative”, but only Huawei launched the “Huawei Shine”, which was priced at RMB 1499. 360 provided R&D support for the built-in application store of this mobile phone and implemented revenue sharing with Huawei.
- In 2014, invested in the cool Internet brand god, and then joined forces with Cool to form a joint venture company “Qi Cool”. The complaints about 360, Cool and LeTV are not repeated. In short, invested a lot in the machine.
- In 2015, 360 released the first model of the Qiku brand. The highest version of the exclusive version was priced at 3,599 yuan. His heart was still very high. After all, Xiaomi was still in the “1999 era”. At the press conference, he said that he would surpass Apple in "security", which is also the source of the first picture of this article.
Of course, such a price is doomed to be not very good. In 2016, he dug up Huawei’s former vice president of sales, who is in charge of the mobile phone business. In the same year, 360 announced that Qikuo, Great God, and 360 mobile phones will be unified into 360 mobile phones. The positioning has also undergone some changes, and the comprehensive transformation of cost-effective models has begun. The price of the first generation of Qicool mobile phones is as high as 3,599 yuan.
After that, the 360 mobile phone is labeled “safe”, “big battery” and “cost-effective”. At the same price, it is often the one with the highest performance and the largest battery capacity. For example, 360 N4 is the first one with 4GB Ram at that time.
With the support of high-cost performance and 360 "safety features", 360 mobile phones have also had a honeymoon period. On the N7 Pro in August 2018, revealed that sales of 618 in 2018 increased by 50% compared with last year. At the press conference, rarely arrived at the platform. He also said in an interview after the press conference that expectation for 360 mobile phones is comparable to Huawei and OPPO.
But this also became the last launch of the 360 mobile phone. There were rumors in the first half of this year that the 360 N8 was released soon, but it was finally lost.
By the end of the year, it was reported that 360 mobile phones had disbanded their mobile phone R&D team in Xi'an, and a large number of Xi'an employees left the company, and employees were rewarded with N+1 resignation. 360 responded by saying that the 360 mobile phone said that the company did adjust the Xi'an team. However, it is only the adjustment of the workplace. It is not to lay off employees or dismantle the Xi'an mobile phone R&D team. The company's mobile phone business will remain unchanged, and IoT will be taken into account in the future to further adapt to the development of the industry and enhance competitiveness.
360 has also “strategic abandonment” for the mobile phone business. After returning to A-shares, 360 said that the group's current strategy is to “focus on national cybersecurity, urban and social security, and family and individual user security to create a triple-safe brain. "Nothing happened with the phone."
LeTV, Hammer, Gionee, Coolpad, 360...The domestic mobile phone small factory has almost no living space. It is well understood that the hardware business such as smartphones is a typical scale industry, and the big manufacturers can have the supply chain and channels.
According to the report, it will be responsible for the business of smartwatches for the elderly. Smart watches for specific groups of people are a very profitable industry, and the growth rate is considerable.
IDC's "China Wearable Device Market Quarterly Tracking Report, Third Quarter of 2018" shows that Qihoo 360 is the fourth-ranked manufacturer in China. Its main product is children's smartwatches. Backgammon also relies on "small genius" children's watches. In the third place, the fifth place is Wuzhou Wireless, which is also the main children's watch.
The 360's smart cameras, rearview mirrors, driving recorders, children's watches, etc., already have a certain share in the market. These are the industries with lower risks and lower entry and withdrawal costs. These products can also be more Goodly and 360's old line "safe" hooked.
Now, 360 can only hope that big manufacturers can enter these areas later.