The most expensive mobile phone in history with a debt of 128 million pounds failed due to technical shortcomings
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According to foreign media, Vertu's UK manufacturing business will be shut down, and 200 employees will lose their jobs. Vertu's total debt is as high as 128 million pounds, but it can only pay creditors 1.9 million pounds, and has to end its manufacturing business in the UK. However, Vertu China's official Weibo refuted the rumor. Vertu China said that the Vertu brand is currently operating normally, including product development, sales and after-sales service. Although Vertu said that Vertu is operating normally, we know that Vertu's current situation is already precarious. Speaking of Vertu, many people may not be unfamiliar with it. Vertu, the world's first luxury mobile phone company founded by Nokia, was once popular. The brand produces luxury mobile phones inlaid with various jewels, all handmade, and the materials are extremely luxurious. It was also glorious. Vertu launched its first mobile phone in 2002 and sold 450,000 mobile phones worldwide by 2015. But in recent years, it has not announced its sales volume, but judging from the current situation that its brand is almost ignored, Vertu's sales volume has seriously affected its profits and cash flow. Moreover, the brand has changed hands several times. In March this year, Baferton, an investment institution under Turkish businessman Hakan Uzan, bought Vertu from Hong Kong company Godin Holdings for only 50 million pounds (equivalent to about 420 million yuan). Faced with a debt crisis, poor sales and no capital support, the situation is getting worse and worse. What did Vertu do wrong? Vertu mobile phones are wrong because they cannot keep up with the times and the trend of technological development . From the development trajectory of Vertu mobile phones, it can be seen that the current software and hardware development trends and technological trends of smartphones are rapidly iterating, from the launch of 3D touch on iPhone 6s to fingerprint recognition and in-screen fingerprint, from AR and VR technology applications to the rapid development of AI assistants, from iris recognition, dual cameras to OLED hyperbolic screens, from ordinary chips to 10nm technology chips to artificial intelligence chips, to flash charging batteries and even Apple may launch wireless charging in the future. It can be said that from software to hardware, the current technological innovation and maturity of smartphones have reached a relatively perfect level, and especially today, many rigid super software applications such as WeChat and Alipay have become an indispensable part of everyone's social, entertainment, food, clothing, housing and transportation. After all, at least among the middle class and young and middle-aged groups, few people are willing to avoid using the current mainstream smartphones and use a luxury phone with poor configuration, poor hardware and software system experience, and expensive price that does not show taste. But Vertu, before the popularization of smartphones, was even more dazzling in the mobile phone industry. Vertu's philosophy is to create mobile phones for wealthy customers who are willing to spend extra money on high-end materials, such as precious metals, leather cases and sapphire screens. In China, its customers are mainly businessmen, because this phone looks luxurious and can help them enter certain circles and expand some resources and connections in the eyes of many high-end business people. But until today, the development of smartphones has changed with each passing day. But Vertu has not changed anything. Although Vertu switched from Symbian to Android system a few years ago, the impression given by this phone has actually remained in the era of feature phones. Vertu does not compete with any mobile phone today. It does not sell technology, feelings, system parameters, marketing and participation. The fierce competition in the current mobile phone market has nothing to do with it. It only sticks to its own sense of high-end and dignity. If you say that in today's era, a feature phone with expensive materials can fool the rich to pay for it, it is obviously underestimating the IQ of the rich. According to industry insiders, the characteristics of Vertu mobile phones are that the functions are very ordinary or even backward, but they are still sky-high. The price of Vertu mobile phones ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of RMB. For many years, Apple has always launched several limited edition iPhones inlaid with gold and silver. But Apple has powerful technology, software and hardware integration, and the high-end brand influence and popularity of the world's largest market value company to empower and endorse its high-end brand. Where is the brand premium of Vertu mobile phones except for the mobile phone shell? Since it is positioned as a luxury product, but there is no well-known designer, the product configuration, function and experience are not better than the flagship models of smartphones, and even lag behind the configuration and operation of ordinary smartphones. Why can it still fool the rich to pay for it? Fundamentally speaking, Vertu mobile phones are wrong in not keeping up with the times and the development trend of mobile phone technology, but they wishfully expect someone to pay for its materials. No big group endorsement behind it: the brand premium cannot support the high price. It is said that among the more than 400 components of Vertu, there are precious diamonds, gold, jewelry, and Ferrari materials, and each one is purely hand-processed and assembled. But the use of high-end materials is not the core competitiveness, and any mobile phone brand can copy it. Generally speaking, the high price of luxury mobile phones requires the support of long-lasting high-end brand power and brand connotation and the strong financial resources of large groups, which is an important prerequisite for people to pay for their brands. For example, LV is backed by the French LVMH Group, Cartier, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Vacheron Constantin is backed by the Swiss Richemont Group, and Gucci is backed by the French Kering Group. These large groups are at the world's top level in terms of sales, market value, influence, etc. Therefore, at present, if a luxury mobile phone needs a company with strong financial resources to endorse its brand, reputation, and influence, Apple and Samsung have the financial resources and brand influence. So we can see that Apple and Samsung have launched corresponding luxury mobile phones. When the iPhone 6 was launched, the gold limited edition was also exposed, with a price of 36,000 yuan, a global limit of 300 units, and made of 24K pure gold. After the release of the iPhone 7, various luxury limited editions were also launched. Samsung released a new luxury series W2017 last year. But Samsung W2017 is different from Vertu. Vertu is lowering its brand premium because of its outdated image in technology. Samsung does not have this worry. Instead, it injects science and technology into luxury mobile phones. It has a clearer positioning than Vertu, and keeps pace with or even surpasses the current high-end smartphones in configuration and technology iteration. However, Vertu has changed hands several times from Nokia. After being sold by Nokia, it has experienced the hands of EQT, Guoding and other merchants. This year, Baferton, a company funded by Turkish exiled businessman Hakan Uzan, spent about 50 million pounds to buy this former luxury mobile phone company. It can be said that every time it changes hands, its brand value will continue to decline. Because there is no big group to endorse it, there is no financial resources, capital and talent to transform its brand, and provide technology research and development and corresponding high-end special services that are more suitable for current user needs. The brand premium is difficult to support the high price, resulting in its high-end service level, technical capabilities, software and hardware and other aspects gradually lagging behind the times. For example, take Vertu's most proud unique personal assistant service. Vertu mobile phones have always been able to call a personal assistant with one click to help book air tickets, check in hotels, make restaurant reservations, clubs, etc. But today, this personal assistant is undoubtedly unattractive, because now using smartphone flight and O2O apps to book flights, check in to hotels, and make restaurant reservations has become a very common and regular function. In other words, it is now very convenient to complete these functions with smartphones. Even the voice assistants of various giants can provide simple personal assistant services. With the further development of smartphone AI technology in the future, many personal assistant services may become a standard feature. It is no longer a mobile phone that requires special services. The personal assistant service of Vertu mobile phones still costs 20,000 yuan a year. Therefore, Vertu is still living in the thinking of the feature phone era, and it is difficult not to collapse. Poor sales drag down Vertu's cash flow and financial situation: leading to the transformation of brand positioning and the delay of the time window for technology research and development . In addition, as mentioned earlier, Vertu was also exposed to arrears of employee wages and began to deduct employee pension insurance since February. In addition, Vertu can no longer afford to pay the material costs of manufacturing luxury mobile phones, and owes more than millions of dollars in debt to its partners, including suppliers and service providers. Vertu is said to owe a large debt to suppliers such as Qualcomm and Microsoft, including rent owed to Microsoft (because Microsoft is the owner of the headquarters rented by Vertu) and arrears to Qualcomm, as well as CBRE property management and pest control service fees. In fact, millions of dollars are just a small amount of money for a large smartphone manufacturer. The marketing expenses of many domestic manufacturers for new phone launch conferences are far more than this number, not to mention that the OPPO R11 launch conference invited more than a dozen first-line celebrities to the stage. If a luxury mobile phone brand is so poor that it cannot repay millions of dollars in debt, it is not only a problem of the company's financial situation, but also means that people will not pay a luxurious price for a company with limited cash flow and finances. In other words, its current company brand is not enough to support its selling price. The reason why it is so miserable that it cannot repay millions of dollars in debt is that as the trend of smartphones is rapidly moving forward, Vertu has been clinging to its self-proclaimed noble status and has not kept up with the pace of development and iteration of smartphone technology. Although Vertu has launched touch-screen phones and Android smartphones since the beginning of the year, compared with domestically produced high-end phones, Vertu still does not have top-level configurations, and its software and hardware experience is poor. Keyboard phones are against the trend and have basically not attracted much attention in the smartphone market. According to a 2011 statistical data, Vertu had more than 80 stores worldwide at the time. Currently, the brand has only 3 stores in the UK and the US, and the only 3 stores in Japan have also been closed. Vertu's mobile phone sales in 2014 were 110 million pounds, but its losses were as high as 53 million pounds. In addition, the customized private service upgrades and localized operations of luxury mobile phones cannot be separated from the support of operators, but Vertu has almost no operator channels, which has led to a continuous decline in sales and continued to affect its profits and cash flow. If Vertu had started to transform and position itself as a high-end luxury smartphone manufacturer with a fashionable and technological style a few years ago, strengthened its technology research and development and supply chain strength, strengthened cooperation with operators or introduced more capital parties to provide higher hardware configurations with better software service levels, and lowered its prices to increase sales to maintain its profit level and brand influence, then it would still have time to transform and save itself. Unfortunately, as a well-known brand that has already been recognized by a specific market, it has not released its potential. The mistake of Vertu mobile phone is that it did nothing, which eventually led to the delay of the brand positioning transformation and technology research and development time window. The author talked about a point of view in the early years that if there is no technical content to support luxury goods in the technology industry, its value will be diluted by the rapid iteration and upgrading of technology, and then quickly fall. Therefore, Vertu's exclusive personal assistant service was originally its proud advantage, but in the face of technological power, it is fragile and vulnerable. A company selling luxury mobile phones, if it is a brand with backward technology and out of touch with the trend of the times, it simply cannot support its high price. Judging from the current value of Vertu, it is less than one-third of what it was when it just separated from Nokia in 2012. Although Vertu has stated that it is not bankrupt, the current situation shows that it is already in danger under the impact of the trend of the times. As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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