Chapter 633 New Force

"No matter what, it is impossible for Apple to monopolize the smartphone market..."

Following Barron's words, Jobs also looked thoughtful.

As he said, although the sales of touch-screen smartphones from Apple and Honor Electronics have exceeded 10 million units each this year, the current mainstream of the market is still traditional feature phones from Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung. brand.

For example, Nokia, the current “overlord” of mobile phones, reported sales of nearly 120 million units in the third quarter, and its annual sales have steadily exceeded 460 million units, accounting for nearly 40% of the global mobile phone share. Companies such as Apple and Honor Electronics Not to mention Nokia, even Samsung cannot compare with the sales volume. Samsung, as the world's second largest mobile phone manufacturer at this time, has a market share of more than 16%.

Apple and Android are the future, but after all, the future has not yet arrived. Therefore, at this time, facing the more powerful traditional mobile phone manufacturers, Apple, Android and even Honor Electronics can be regarded as part of the "new forces" of mobile phones. What Barron means is that he does not want internal fighting among the "new forces" to occur at this time - they must compete with each other, and this is also a matter of waiting until "old antiques" such as Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung are driven into history. …

Take the IPhone as an example, when it becomes an "arcade machine", it will have to wait until the IPhone 4 is launched.

Now, IPhone 3G and Mate series mobile phones have been praised by many users, but their user groups are still relatively limited compared to the entire mobile phone market.

What's more, even among the "new forces" of smartphones, Apple and Android are not the only ones - Microsoft, which is more powerful but has less market share than the two in the field of mobile operating systems, is about to join. Google, which is in the chaos of mobile operating systems, is probably more threatening to Apple than the "newcomer" Android.

It seems that this meeting between Barron and Jobs still has some effects.

Although Apple and Android did not reach any specific cooperation agreement in the end, after that, the two parties had a tacit understanding and would conduct some "collaboration" in the field of touch-screen smartphones, and some aspects of patents would be carried out. Peer-to-peer cross-authorization.

After all, in terms of patents, Honor Electronics, for example, already has patent licenses purchased from Philips at a high price, and has not received many "attacks" from traditional mobile phone manufacturers. However, Apple, so far, has been involved in many In the midst of patent litigation.

This is why three years later, they participated in a group acquisition of Nortel's patents.

…

"Now the employment situation in Silicon Valley is becoming more and more severe. Many companies have gone bankrupt due to broken capital chains. Even those that can survive have chosen to tighten expenditures by closing some projects and laying off employees..."

Accompanied by Ivanta, Barron went to Woaw's headquarters building in Silicon Valley.

Downstairs of the building, Barron looked around. Silicon Valley was still bustling, but he could clearly see that the expressions on the faces of people passing by were much more solemn than a year or two ago.

"Compared to large companies, it is more difficult for start-ups, because although large companies like Woaw are subject to many restrictions, they at least have some financing channels, but for start-up companies, it can be said that unless they are extremely It is already difficult for companies that are optimistic about becoming unicorns to take out money from the pockets of venture capital investors..."

Because she manages IC Capital, Ivanta also feels this very deeply. Not only is it a well-known investment company, IC Capital receives numerous emails and visits from companies seeking investment every day...

And the attitudes and requirements of start-ups have become lower and lower with the current economic situation...

"How about Woaw?"

At this time, they had entered the building. Barron, Ivanta, and Sage Byrne, the CEO of Woaw North America, and a bodyguard were riding in the same elevator. Barron's question this time It was directed at Sage Byrne.

"The impact of the crisis also involves many aspects. The most important thing is that our advertisers have become more cautious. Starting from today's first quarter, our advertising revenue has a trend of slowing down growth, and the situation is getting worse. According to the latest data, advertising revenue in the third quarter has dropped by more than 10% compared with the same period last year. It is foreseeable that the fourth quarter of this year will also be bad, although we have used many methods to improve advertisers’ Positivity, but…”

Sage Byrne shrugged and said helplessly:

"The market environment is like this, and other companies including Google and Yahoo are in similar situations... Yahoo's situation is even worse. They directly fired the previous CEO, and Yang Zhiyuan had to personally save the crisis again."

Sage is right. After the Internet winter of 2001, seven years later, the Internet industry was affected by the subprime mortgage crisis and once again ushered in a freezing moment.

Woaw's situation is not simply caused by the decline in advertising revenue. On the one hand, according to Barron's requirements, they have invested a lot of manpower in the development of mobile Internet. Whether it is Apple's iOS system or Android system, Woaw is the first Internet company to actively develop its APP and optimize it.

But in reality, after all, the market share of Apple and Android systems is far from as high as it will be in two or three years, and the returns that can be brought to Woaw are limited.

In addition, in terms of research and development, Woaw has also been investing in the research and development of technologies such as cloud computing and streaming media. In these aspects, the investment is relatively large. It can be said that a considerable part of the previous income has been invested in research and development. Although these technologies have achieved some results, it is still not time to get benefits.

Finally, there is YouTube. Last year, Woaw acquired YouTube from IC Capital. After acquiring this video sharing platform, Woaw also invested resources in YouTube, including a large amount of funds.

Of course, the effect is also significant. YouTube's user growth is very satisfactory, and there is also a good synergy between it and Woaw.com.

But for now, or for a long time, YouTube needs Woaw's continuous investment, and its advertising revenue is far from covering YouTube's subsidies to content creators. Barron also knows that this is very necessary, and it is these content creators who ensure YouTube's competitiveness in the field of video platforms.

And as a video website, YouTube's operation also requires high broadband and maintenance costs, which are not small expenses.

In his previous life, after Google acquired YouTube, it continued to transfuse it, and it only started to make a profit after many years of continuous transfusions...

"Again, crisis, both danger and opportunity..."

Barron said to Sage:

"Now is also an opportunity for Woaw to absorb some excellent personnel, and some start-ups that can supplement Woaw can be acquired."

Whether it is the continuous research and development or the support for projects such as YouTube, they are all layouts for Woaw's future, so it is necessary to continue.

As for the funding, Barron will solve this problem when he comes here this time.