Exclusive interview with Zhou Hongyi: Smartphones will become the interface for the Internet of Things

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Editor’s Note:

I just want to say quietly, don't students use Apple products now? Are they targeting primary and secondary school students and selling them together with safety watches?

Zhou Hongyi first talks about mobile phone strategy: products targeting students will be released in October

Zhou Hongyi’s internal letter: Why does 360 make mobile phones?

Entering the mobile phone market again, Zhou Hongyi laughed and said that he was a bit willful. "I think among all the products invented by humans, mobile phones can be said to be an organ of human beings. So I think mobile phones will be a very critical interface for smart hardware, home furnishings, wearable devices, and even cars in the future."

He is one of the earliest product managers in China. He advocates innovation and is also controversial. Netizens call him "Red Cannon" because of his sharp words. Earlier this year, in an internal email to employees, he officially announced his entry into the smartphone field. He said that making mobile phones now is a battle of scale.

At the Yabuli Entrepreneurs Forum on March 2, Zhou Hongyi spoke to Sina Technology about his original intention of making mobile phones, his views on the sluggish economic situation, and some suggestions for young entrepreneurs.

Why make mobile phones?

Talking about his involvement in the mobile phone industry, Zhou Hongyi used the words "bitter and sweet" to describe it. In the past few years, China's smartphone shipments have increased significantly. Zhou Hongyi had previously cooperated with traditional mobile phone manufacturers at the marketing level using the "360***machine" model.

Entering the mobile phone market again, Zhou Hongyi laughed and said that he was a bit willful. "I think among all the products invented by humans, mobile phones can be said to be an organ of human beings. So I think mobile phones will be a very critical interface for smart hardware, home furnishings, wearable devices, and even cars in the future."

Although Xiaomi, Meizu and other domestic mobile phones have formed a user scale in the market, Zhou Hongyi believes that the consumption habits of young people who "love new things and dislike old things" for digital products still leave a lot of room for development in the smartphone market. The target users of 360 mobile phones in the future will also be mainly college students and young people who have just entered the workplace.

However, Zhou Hongyi said that it is not convenient to disclose the price and specific launch time of this phone at the moment. "If it is just ODM, it will be very fast, just a few days. But if I want to make a mobile phone that can be shown off, it must be up to par in terms of software and hardware, which will take at least 6-8 months."

As for entering the mobile phone market at this time, Zhou Hongyi believes that according to Moore's Law, mobile phones have reached a very good period after several years of development and popularization. However, from the perspective of a product manager, Zhou Hongyi frankly admits that Android phones on the market are far from being the best, and mobile phones will have more changes in the future. Through continuous innovation, they will be able to replace more products, not just the current cameras, game consoles, etc.

Since last year, influenced by the Internet of Things, 360 has also made arrangements in smart homes and hardware. The development of a mobile phone will play a key role in 360's future smart hardware, homes, wearable devices, and even cars.

In the future, there will be more innovations in business models in the smartphone industry. "Only by participating in it can we truly grasp its direction," Zhou Hongyi predicted.

In addition, Zhou Hongyi believes that 360's technical barriers in security will become 360's biggest advantage in making mobile phones. "Now many mobile phone manufacturers have made security hardware that imitates 360, so I think if 360 has enough permissions on mobile phones, the advantages of 360 Security Guard can be fully utilized."

The Internet is not subject to economic downturns

Referring to the downturn in the traditional economy in the past two years, Zhou Hongyi admitted that the Internet will not be affected by this. "The Internet is more targeted at ordinary consumer innovation and covers as many users as possible. Although it seems that not much money can be made from each user, when added up, it is a very considerable number."

"On the contrary, when the economy is in recession, people will rely more on the Internet and use it for more consumption," Zhou Hongyi added.

In Zhou Hongyi's view, in the current economic environment, IOT will become an opportunity for traditional manufacturing. In other words, through connection, the hardware made by traditional manufacturing will be able to achieve interconnection, completely subverting the product experience and business model of traditional industries in the past, and helping traditional entrepreneurs to cope with the so-called economic downturn.

Entrepreneurs must innovate

Zhou Hongyi admitted that he envied the entrepreneurial boom in recent years, "In the past, we couldn't find VCs, but now the situation is completely reversed, but there are too many similar companies." Zhou Hongyi believes that entrepreneurs must innovate, and it is difficult to succeed by copying other people's models.

In addition, it is also very important for Chinese entrepreneurs to change the past value system of "the winners are kings and the losers are bandits". Finance cannot be used as the sole measure of value as the criterion for whether a company is successful or not. Entrepreneurs should be in a state of interest, hobby and willfulness.

Zhou Hongyi believes that too many entrepreneurs now share their success stories but are very reluctant to talk about their failures, which gives young people the impression that starting a business is easy. But in fact, the chances of success for most entrepreneurs are very low, and "starting a business is actually a long-term struggle."