Wired
ByteDance finally “ditched” the hammer phone.
According to LatePost reports, ByteDance’s mobile phone hardware business has been suspended. In the future, the hardware team will focus on education and no longer develop other unrelated products such as nut mobile phones and TNT displays. This means that consumers may never see the new generation of Nut (hammer) phones anymore.
On January 13, ByteDance announced that the Xinshi Lab established by the original Hammer Technology team was incorporated into the educational hardware team led by the original founder of Musical.ly, Yang Luyu.
After that, the hardware team of Bytedance was under the unified responsibility of Yang Luyu, reporting to Chen Lin, the senior vice president of Bytedance and the head of education business.
It seems that an abandoned child has been thrown down. Two years after Luo Yonghao said “Long live understanding”, Bytedance did not seem to understand Lao Luo’s efforts on the hammer phone.
The research and development of the hammer mobile phone stopped abruptly two years after Lao Luo sold it to ByteDance. It did not exchange any profit for ByteDance, but became a burden.
In the most difficult period of the hammer, Bytedance took the initiative to take the rescue, and Lao Luo also devoted himself to the live broadcast, making money and repaying debts, all of which did not conflict.
It’s just such a result, perhaps Lao Luo, a perfectionist, would not want to see it.
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Even in the past two years when ByteDance has been sold, the sales of Hammer phones are not optimistic. It can be said that they are far from the sales in the Luo era.
After all, in the Lao Luo period, a large proportion of consumers went to Luo Yonghao, but in the era of Bytedance, they became followers of the Hammer phone brand itself.
“No matter how you do (hammer) the Nut mobile phone, it is impossible to enter the first-tier echelon. He can’t even match the current Meizu.” An industry insider said.
In the two years since it was acquired by ByteDance, Xinshi Lab (a hardware center under ByteDance, which mainly researches smart hardware products including smart phones and educational hardware) has only released two generations of JMGO phones, TNT displays and Peripheral products, and further integrate the JMGO phone R2 and display TNT Go into the “LKP” package, which focuses on office scenarios.
On the hardware road, it is also exploring a full ecosystem with mobile phones as the mainstay and peripheral products as a supplement, but such a product portfolio is not optimistic in market feedback.
Some mobile phone distributors say that the overall acceptance rate and purchase rate of Hammer phones in the market are very low, but because Hammer phones are mainly sold online, they are mainly second-hand offline, and there are not many new products circulating offline.
“The sales and circulation rate of second-hand mobile phones are even worse. I stocked a few nut mobile phones at the end of last year. I haven’t sold them yet. I am ready to lose money.” A second-hand mobile phone dealer said.
It is reported that the sales volume of JD’s mobile phone R2 on JD.com and Taobao has so far been less than 100,000, and the current price of JD’s mobile phone in these e-commerce channels has been reduced from 4499 yuan to 2,999 yuan, and the sales of office sets are even more dismal. Sales are only three digits.
This seems to be expected.
At present, the overall situation of the Chinese mobile phone market is weak. According to IDC data, the market share occupied by small and medium-sized manufacturers has dropped from 12.5% to 2.5% from 2018 to the third quarter of 2020. During the same period, Huami OV (Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO, vivo)’s market share rose from 78.3% to 88.7%.
In this context, it is not surprising that ByteDance suspends mobile phone business. After all, mobile phones are not Internet products, and they will only spend money burning. Moreover, hardware manufacturing is a test of the comprehensive strength of a manufacturer, which includes supply chain capabilities, capital chain capabilities, and R&D chain capabilities.
Now, after being acquired by ByteDance, the R&D team assigned to the Nut mobile phone has only more than two hundred people, and such a R&D volume cannot support the update iteration cycle of a hardware product such as a mobile phone.
Moreover, ByteDance has no advantage in the hardware supply chain compared with the current head phone manufacturers. The huge hardware cost has become the burden of ByteDance. Therefore, ByteDance has turned to table lamps in the development of hardware products on the education side.
This is a way of killing two birds with one stone. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, online education has become a sweet pastry touted by capital, and online education companies such as homework help and ape tutoring continue to obtain financing, which makes ByteDance feel more possibilities.
According to the forecast by the Dowhale Capital Education Research Institute, by 2022, the market size of K12 smart education hardware alone may reach 57 billion yuan. Overweight educational hardware has naturally become one of the most important strategic directions for byte transfer.
Educational hardware has become one of Bytedance’s hands on the education business. Chen Lin, the head of Bytedance Education, once publicly stated that an ideal education product “must make a breakthrough in the combination of software and hardware.”
“There are many different directions for hardware. For example, the Dali desk lamp is also an educational hardware product that integrates a screen and a camera. Its overall cost is much lower than that of a mobile phone, and the price of the desk lamp is very cheap, which basically does not put too much pressure on inventory. “An analyst in the intelligent hardware industry said.
This is also the primary way that ByteDance can easily control the hardware market compared to mobile phones. For now, many education companies have launched related hardware products. For example, NetEase Youdao’s most-selling hardware category is dictionary pens, and its potential users are nearly 300 million Chinese K12 students.
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“Bytedance using mobile phones for education itself is the wrong direction of development.” The analyst added.
He believes that there are many ways to conquer the education hardware market, but Bytedance chose the most expensive and unwise path before. “Current desk lamps are much better than mobile phones, and Byte has a complete APP development system. It will be easier for them to emphasize software and light hardware products.”
Just before Bytedance announced that he would press the pause button on his phone, Luo’s old subordinate Wu Dezhou planned to further the internal office hardware in the first quarter of 2021, but now it seems that this variable may make Wu Dezhou have to plan this year. Make changes.
In the old Luo era, Wu Dezhou was his savior. At that time, Lao Luo had no experience in making products, which was called a shortcoming. Luo Yonghao once said, “Don’t make up for your shortcomings, but invite someone with long-term skills to make up your shortcomings.” The person who made up for the shortcomings is Wu Dezhou.
Wu Dezhou is recognized as an “exciting” person in the mobile phone industry. He worked hard at Huawei in 2001 and once led the Honor team to create a model for the industry. “Wu’s ability in Huawei is strong, and I admire him very much. The Honor mobile phone was made by Wu, and it only took a few years to go from 0 to 1.” Former Honor employees once commented on him.
Therefore, Luo Yonghao spared no expense to hire the glorious “general” Wu Dezhou as the CTO of Hammer Technology. The hammer at that time was full of difficulties and the prospects were unclear. Many people were surprised by Wu Dezhou’s choice and expressed that they did not understand his decision.
The first thing Wu Dezhou did after joining Hammer was to expand the hardware team of Hammer, but even under the leadership of Wu Dezhou, there were not many companies in the hammer technology that fell into a financial crisis. It can be said that an idealist was finally defeated by ideals.
The hammer has raised only 1.7 billion yuan in total, which can only allow Luo Yonghao to move forward in the niche runway until Bytedance becomes the receiver.
But when ByteDance announced the acquisition of Hammer mobile phones, the outside world was in an uproar: an Internet company without any hardware knowledge, actually took the Hammer unscrupulously.
“It is really difficult to make hardware, and it is difficult for a company without hardware genes to do it.” The analyst said.
Summarizing Hammer’s past, from pricing errors and dystocia of Hammer T1, to the closure of Hammer’s T2 foundry, to the TNT workstation that has been excited by Luo Yonghao for a long time, and finally to the two mobile phone products released after the acquisition of Bytedance. Successfully cross the river.
But in this world, there are still people who are willing to pay for feelings, otherwise we will not see sales of less than 100,000 units.
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Now, what we cannot deny is that Luo Yonghao has injected a clear stream into the industry, and he has also brought some refreshing products to the industry, including innovative products such as industrial design, simple UI design, hammer notes, flash capsules and so on.
Luo Yonghao is a paranoid, but also an idealistic person. In his mind, the product must be simple and the design must be like a handicraft.
“Lao Luo is still very good. We also know that he has paid a lot for Hammer, but he can’t go back now.” A former employee of Hammer Technology once sighed in his circle of friends.
Now that Luo Yonghao has become a master of goods, he seems to be constantly erasing the label of hammer technology that has been imprinted on him. But now, ByteDance has pressed the “death button” of the hammer phone. Perhaps Lao Luo will have a lot of reluctance in his heart, but he cannot beat reality after all.
This also made Luo Yonghao no longer insist on his ideals, but only for a few bad money. Perhaps, when Fanghua is over, only years have left him with suffering.
Farewell, hammer the phone.
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