How did Chang Cheng, who is not good at quarreling, make ZUKZ1 popular?

If you follow the mobile phone industry, you must have seen too many quarrels between mobile phone manufacturers in the past month. Of course, the tactics of quarrels between manufacturers have been constantly improving. The beginners directly bombarded competitors at the press conference, the literary ones made fun of competitors by making crosstalk, and the brutal ones chose to go to court.

But there are also some alternative "phone makers" who are not good at quarreling, but their mobile phones sell well. Chang Cheng, CEO of Magic Factory, and his ZUK mobile phone belong to this category. "We don't quarrel, and we hope you will supervise us," Chang Cheng assured the media at a small media communication meeting.

Let’s not quarrel. How is the sales of ZUKZ1?

"As of today, there have been over 10,000 reviews on ZUKZ1 on JD.com, and the favorable review rate for the Z1 phone from users who participated in the blind fundraising is close to 99%." Before the launch of the phone, Chang Cheng made it clear that he would not enter the low-end phone market for the time being. After the Z1, priced at 1,799, was released, it won a good reputation on the JD.com platform.

Regarding the sales data that the outside world is more concerned about, Chang Cheng said that it is not convenient to disclose it yet. "We start selling on JD.com every Tuesday, and there are about three waves. They are sold out in seconds on the official website and JD.com. In the past week, there were 560,000 new reservations on JD.com. This data, including the internal sales data of the ZUK official website, is twice the previous plan." So far, the number of online reservations on JD.com alone has reached more than 2.2 million. Chang Cheng expressed confidence in the future sales of Z1.

Consumers have also shown great enthusiasm for the Z1 space gray color that will be launched tomorrow. Chang Cheng said that the Z1 has begun to show a premium phenomenon. The phone, which was originally priced at 1,799 yuan, has been sold for around 2,000 yuan online.

In addition to domestic sales, it is reported that Z1 is also popular in overseas markets. As early as August 21, ZUK announced a strategic partnership with Cyanogen, the world's largest third-party Android development platform, and launched overseas market development plans. In less than a month, ZUK mobile phones have opened up the European, Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian markets, and received orders from France, Spain, Russia, the Middle East, Malaysia, the Philippines and other regions, with orders in some regions exceeding five figures.

In addition, Chang Cheng also revealed that ZUK is negotiating with Cyanogen about plans to enter the United States. "ZUK will soon enter the global market. The Chinese smartphone market is already very large, but the problem now is that the market is relatively saturated. The overseas market is now growing very rapidly, with an annual growth rate of 30%-40%."

The mobile phone market in autumn is never quiet. With Xiaomi NOTE2 in front, Nut and Hammer in the back, and iPhone on the pedestal, it is not easy for ZUK, a new mobile phone brand, to survive. "Many of our users are direct iPhone users, and we did not dare to get such users in the first place. In addition, most of the users who care about Z1 on JD.com are from Huawei."

Judging from the current situation, the achievements of the ZUK team are gratifying, but one thing cannot be ignored, that is, the Lenovo gene behind the Magic Factory. For example, when expanding its international market, ZUK also utilized some of Lenovo's channels in the international market.

How to make ZUKZ1 more high-profile without quarreling?

People who are familiar with Chang Cheng will find him very approachable, so approachable that he doesn't seem like a CEO. For example, he will take the initiative to shake hands with every reporter at the communication meeting, patiently answer every question, interact with fans online every day, and lend money to students to buy mobile phones, etc. This makes the mobile phones he makes have the same temperament. Frankly speaking, facing the new round of hardware wars among major mobile phone manufacturers, the configuration of ZUK Z1 is not "high-end", but it can definitely be called rational. With a large 4100mAh battery, a USB Type-C interface that supports both forward and reverse insertion, a versatile U-Touch fingerprint recognition, and even the most basic 64GB storage capacity, ZUK Z1, as the brand's first show, is not in a hurry to attract attention in terms of parameters and indicators, and puts the hardware stacking in a more practical place.

ZUK is too low-key, even though it held a press conference at the Bird's Nest, advertised in Times Square, invited popular young stars to endorse it, and sold well, and is about to go abroad. Because it is not good at verbal battles, ZUK is still a low-key niche brand for most consumers. "We are very similar to OnePlus in this respect. We put all our energy into making mobile phones," said Chang Cheng.

How to let users experience the product in a real way? "Seeing is believing, and sometimes users need to touch our phones ." This is a major problem currently faced by Internet manufacturers with a single sales channel. For this reason, ZUK chose to cooperate with D Phone, the largest mobile phone chain retailer in China, to deploy O2O offline and develop diversified channels.

When talking about the strategic cooperation with D Phone, Chang Cheng said: "Just like our cooperation with JD.com for the first launch online, ZUK only chooses D Phone for strategic cooperation offline, and explores the online-to-offline model at the same time. We hope that through cooperation with D Phone, users will have brand awareness and can see the products when they go to the store. Many mobile phones sell well online, but there is not so much premium space offline. How to make an online mobile phone sell well offline is a proposition for the industry, and we and D Phone are also trying to find a solution."

At the same time, ZUK has recently launched a "1,000-person free trial" campaign, where users can choose to terminate the trial at any time without reason and get their deposits back. In Chang Cheng's words, "We hope to lower the threshold for everyone to use Z1 to the lowest level." In addition, ZUK will also launch smile trains in four major cities, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, and Nanjing, and carry out creative activities in more than 300 universities across the country.

By laying out offline channels and expanding overseas markets, ZUK has been methodical in its approach to market segmentation and its philosophy towards products as the mobile phone market is approaching saturation and may enter a stage of industry reshuffle ahead of schedule.

"I am not on a path designated by anyone, but I am always moving towards the goal in my heart." I think this sentence aptly describes the current status of Chang Cheng and Magic Factory.

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.