UGB #489 - Sakura's Counterattack at the World Expo
#489 - Sakura's Counterattack at the World Expo
Amidst the rapid advancement of the electronics industry in East Asia, an unexpected new competitor emerged.
The Japanese, on the Sakura side, had always felt overshadowed by East Asia, finding that whatever projects they developed seemed to fall within East Asia's calculations.
Whether in the steel or electronics industries, the Japanese found themselves several steps behind East Asia in everything they did.
Niso Company felt particularly frustrated. Their efforts in radios, tape recorders, and televisions seemed to be anticipated by East Asia. While they were still planning, their competitor would release finished products that were even more perfect than they had envisioned!
They had to repeatedly overturn their research plans and resort to reverse-engineering East Asian products. Relying on their domestic market, Niso managed to avoid complete failure, but their development speed was incomparable to that of the main world's historical timeline.
The Japanese were fiercely loyal to their own brands. Even knowing they were reverse-engineering East Asian products, they took pride in buying local products. Tightening their belts, they supported companies like Niso, Natsushiro, and Liri, which clumsily followed East Asia's electronics product line and grew. Through ten years of reverse-engineering, they essentially caught up with East Asia's pace, lagging behind by about half a generation.
To penetrate the international market, the Japanese from the Bright Sword world adopted a low-price disruption strategy, pricing their products about 10% lower than East Asia's to enter the international low-end market.
Although the profit margins were low, for the resource-poor Japanese, a hundred million obedient workers still provided a certain level of productivity, earning them some opportunities for development.
This allowed them to invest some capital in research and development.
Thus, while Ren Zhong wasn't paying attention, Niso Company, tightening its belt and investing heavily in television screens, managed to develop a spherical rounded-corner picture tube ahead of schedule in the Bright Sword world.
In the main world, Niso relied on this powerful weapon to seize the high-end television market. Together with companies like Natsushiro and Liri, they once dominated the global high-end television market until the rise of Korean and East Asian television industries defeated them.
"We must always be ahead of others, creating things that no one else has done before. There is no other path for us," said Morita Akira, the CEO of Niso, with tears in his eyes at the celebration of the successful spherical rounded-corner picture tube.
"After experiencing various failures, some best-selling products will eventually emerge. Today, the new picture tube we have created is the reward for our perseverance."
"With this product, I believe we have a trump card to compete with the rogue eagles and East Asia in the future television industry. I hope you will continue to work hard and achieve mass production of this Trinitron as soon as possible, and upgrade our televisions within 3-6 months."
After speaking, Morita Akira stood up and bowed deeply to the Niso executives present. "Gentlemen, I implore you!"
"Chairman, we vow to work to the death to win this turnaround battle! We will either succeed or die trying!" The Niso executives, seeing the Chairman's actions, hurriedly stood up, returned the bow, and loudly proclaimed, patting their chests.
It was as if they were about to launch a kamikaze attack.
However, Morita Akira's move was not without effect. Without any other incentives, these executives went deep into the front lines, personally overseeing the construction, debugging, and preparation of the production line. They were all energized, and those researching new products were also working like crazy to replace the new picture tubes and adapt better video resources, upgrading the company's camcorder product line along with the televisions.
After half a year of hard work, they launched what they called the first-generation Trinitron television. In terms of color reproduction and viewing experience, the Japanese new picture tube was indeed much better than a simple spherical rounded-corner television.
Previously, the radius of curvature of television picture tubes was mostly below 1000 mm, but now the spherical rounded-corner picture tube launched by Niso had a radius of curvature of around 1000 mm, which immediately raised the display effect to a new level.
The Bright Sword World's 58-59 World's Fair was held in New York, the core city of the rogue eagles.
According to past practice, the World's Fair would gather most of the world's cutting-edge technological and cultural achievements. Because this exhibition had a huge impact and the ability to attract millions of visitors.
Many large companies with global development ambitions would take this opportunity to showcase their latest and strongest products, aiming to stand out at the World's Fair and boost product awareness.
As the main battleground for East Asia to promote its products, the East Asian industrial sector went all out for this session, exhibiting its latest products. Among them, the most eye-catching was the automotive sector, with East Asia's Passat Company launching its first muscle coupe - the Mustang coupe!
Introducing the concept of a coupe to the automotive industry for the first time, East Asia's Mustang coupe focused on a muscular feel, especially in terms of power. The entry-level version was equipped with a 4.8-liter V8 engine, and the top-of-the-line version had a 6-liter V12 engine, showcasing the wild North American style to the fullest.
Since East Asia developed the three major series of cars, Golf, JETTA, and Passat, for the world, the Golf and JETTA sales were very prominent, and they had already entered mainstream models and entered the homes of the great powers. However, the Passat always fell short and did not reproduce the glory of the main world in business cars. After re-analyzing the market, Ren Zhong felt that the main reason was that the brand of business cars had not been established. Therefore, it was necessary to add a model that could refresh people's minds to the Passat brand and drive the brand to take off!
After selecting and selecting, Ren Zhong finally chose the North American Mustang, which would not have a concept until 62 years in the main world, as an unrestrained entry-level sports car. Of course, considering the needs of the business car brand, Ren Zhong made a slight adjustment to it, crossing the Mustang towards the coupe direction. The power was surging and comparable to sports cars, competing with sports cars on the track and roads, but in terms of use, it also had some comfortable adjustments of business cars, providing the best experience for two people to ride.
Therefore, as a compromise, in terms of power, it was equipped with the latest research and development of V8 and V12 engines. These two engines were originally created by Ren Zhong for the Rolls-Royce car sub-brand and will become the exclusive engine for the high-end brand of Passat Company in the future. However, due to the cooperation with RORO Company, the two sides have only just started, and the investment between the two sides originally signed a clause not to interfere with the development of Rolls-Royce cars.
Ren Zhong has always devoted a lot of effort to the development of the automobile industry because he is very clear about how magnificent the automobile industry will be in the next few decades!
Therefore, due to the unsuccessful development of the Passat brand, Ren Zhong created the Mustang to boost it.
As a super successful product with a cumulative sales volume of 10 million units in the main world, the Mustang, an entry-level sports car, is a perfect match for the future development of Passat.
On the other hand, as Golf was successful, Ren Zhong also considered adding fuel to the fire by launching the Polo as a sister model to the Golf, but focusing on fashionably fuel-efficient first entry-level cars for young people, mainly for urban use.
The engine displacement options are 1.1 liters and 1.3 liters, with a top speed of 60 miles/hour and 65 miles/hour.
Although there is a big gap compared to the Golf, this speed is more than enough for urban use.
In terms of price and usage cost, there is a clear difference compared to the Golf, which gives users a new choice in satisfying the low-end market.
The five-door, four-seat standard design also forms an advantage over competitors such as the Beetle.
Moreover, this time, Ren Zhong directly chose the classic 04-style four-eyed design, instantly raising the appearance of small cars to a new level!
At the same time, Golf underwent an early upgrade, entering the second-generation classic model, which formed a sharp contrast with the newly launched four-eyed Polo.
As a mass-produced model, Dongda Motors not only displayed each model at the World Expo but also prepared 10,000 units of each model to be sent to North America, ready for on-site sales at the World Expo, with 3,000 units being shipped to New York.
According to Ren Zhong's idea, this kind of see-and-get sales would turn the World Expo into a new platform for Dongda Motors' sales.
While others were still promoting pre-sale numbers, Dongda's cars were already able to occupy the pages with actual sales!
Although such soft advertising required spending money, compared to formal advertising, this method was significantly more effective than advertising.
Appearing on the news pages was two orders of magnitude more persuasive than appearing on the advertising pages.
In other product areas, Ren Zhong didn't pay much attention, after all, he didn't have enough time to cover everything.
When the World Expo kicked off, something shocking happened.
At least two hundred companies exhibited personal computers!
Most of them were North American companies.
Although the theme of this Expo was "Face the Future," the expectation that everyone expressed for the future was personal computers, which was somewhat unexpected but also reasonable.
After all, in the past year, personal computers frequently occupied the technology headline pages of various media such as television and newspapers.
Many radical futurists even regarded personal computers as a symbol of a new round of technological revolution, believing that the information age was about to unfold with the popularization of personal computers.
The rapid penetration of personal computers in the office confirmed this point from one aspect, but due to the relatively limited performance and functions of the first generation of personal computers, it is currently impossible to fully replace office use.
However, this does not prevent the vast majority of technology companies from regarding personal computers as their next key product strategic direction.
Vision's demonstration of the huge success of business personal computers has led large companies such as GE/MBI to start developing their own personal computer product lines.
As for other large and small startups and technology companies, it goes without saying that assembling personal computers under standardization with low technical barriers has attracted too many investors who want to get a piece of the pie in this industry.
Faced with competitors springing up like mushrooms after rain, Friedman, the vice president in charge of personal computer business at Vision Company, suddenly became nervous.
He found that many competitors had emerged in the field of business personal computers, and the core hardware was the same.
Basically, they all used the four major components from Dongda: motherboard, CPU, memory, and floppy disk.
Only the peripheral chassis, power supply, and keyboard had some differences, but not much.
Many manufacturers directly adopted standard parts from Dongda for assembly, and the difference was almost only reflected in the brand logo, and the rest was almost exactly the same!
However, for Vision, this was not the worst.
The worst thing was the new TV set launched by Niso Company from Sakura, which seemed to surpass Vision's current mainstream picture tube in terms of picture tubes.
The display effect had exceeded the current level.
In specially made video tape playback, the TV set of Niso Company surpassed Vision's new flagship product!
After the news that Xiaobenzi had broken through the technical limits in television sets was sent back to the rear by the delegation from Dongda participating in the exhibition, Ren Zhong looked at the detailed written description sent from the front and roughly understood the current level of Xiaobenzi's television sets.
Ren Zhong shook his head slightly, not expecting that he would doze off slightly in this area, and Xiaobenzi seized the opportunity to rush up.
It has to be said that even if the military spine of Xiaobenzi in the Bright Sword world was broken, and there are now military bases in more than a dozen countries, Xiaobenzi still has a fierce energy in product development, which is far less than the development conditions of the main world.
This group of people can also achieve breakthroughs in advance in the competition and begin to impact the television industry led by Dongda!
For Ren Zhong, Vision Company is not much different from Dongda's own company.
After all, Vision directly orders many components from Dongda's related factories.
Their production often completes the final assembly.
If there are no tariffs to restrict the import of these product components.
From the current point of view, Dongda can basically supply Vision's imported raw materials and components.
Although Vision Company seems to be operating independently, it actually relies on Dongda's supply chain, so that its product iteration speed can be synchronized with Dongda's industrial chain.
At the same time, it reduces costs and improves Vision's profitability and market share.
In the eyes of the stock market, Vision's is the wisest approach, constantly raising Vision's stock price, which has been rising for many years, constantly breaking through its historical level.
"In terms of display research, we now need to start researching two technical routes in parallel.
One aspect is the CRT technical route, focusing on overcoming the right-angle flat display technology, and on the other hand, we must start investing funds in the basic technology of liquid crystal displays," Ren Zhong said to one of his secretaries after reading the intelligence.
The research of these technologies had already been planned, but Ren Zhong originally wanted to squeeze toothpaste slowly, but now that Xiaobenzi has come up, he has to speed up. (End of this chapter)