Chapter 900 Win-Win
The birth of the VCR was actually very early. In the early 1950s, the British Broadcasting Corporation invented the VCR, but the first generation of VCRs had poor practicality and was not promoted. By 1956, the American Ampex company launched an experimental VCR. This VCR was extremely large, as big as a car, and the price was extremely high, as high as 75,000 US dollars.
Subsequently, technology continued to update, and companies in Germany and Japan invented spiral scanning technology, which made the size of VCRs begin to shrink. By 1974, VCRs that could actually be used in homes were born.
From the late 1970s to the present, Japan has been in the leading position in the international VCR market, especially Toshiba, which has mastered the spiral scanning technology. Later, Sony, Hitachi, Panasonic, JVC, Sanyo and other companies also began to produce home VCRs. Driven by these companies, home VCRs have become more and more sophisticated, the technology has become more and more advanced, and their products have occupied a large share of the global VCR market.
In the early 1980s, Japanese video recorders began to enter China. In the early days, they could only be purchased at the Friendship Store with foreign exchange coupons. Or they were brought back directly from abroad by people who went abroad, becoming a veritable "large household appliance."
Just like when Lin Yuhang and Luo Lin got married, Song Yuanchao specially asked Qin Zhengguo to prepare imported home appliances for them from Hong Kong, including a VCR imported from Japan.
When Song Yuanchao and Lin Yan got married, they also prepared a Toshiba VCR, which is still in Song Yuanchao's home.
In fact, by the mid-1980s, home video recorder technology had been perfected and there was no possibility of further development. However, over the years, Japanese video recorder manufacturers have continued to research video recorders, and from time to time they have launched a new product to replace the previous model.
However, these new products have no changes in basic functions. The only changes are some flashy little functions, such as the manual rotation forward or backward function after the picture stops, the digital clock display and alarm function, and the ability to add channels to old TVs through technology.
In this era, the Japanese are simply never tired of such trivial tricks. Every day they study how to add new functions to existing product functions, which leads to more and more functions of VCRs, and more and more complex and cumbersome designs. The remote control of a VCR is densely packed with buttons, so many buttons that even many Japanese themselves cannot figure out how to use them.
Because of these companies' actions, many Japanese people cursed them in the newspapers, saying that these companies were simply obsessed.
A company does not study new technologies, but only focuses on details to make flashy gadgets. These broken functions may sound good, but in reality, they are completely useless. Who would use these gadgets when they have nothing better to do? Isn't the basic function of a video recorder to play videos? At best, the fast forward, rewind, and timed recording functions are somewhat useful, but the other functions are useless.
However, these Japanese companies just don’t listen to criticism and continue to do their own thing. Moreover, every time a new function appears, they will inevitably publicize it, and then introduce new models to replace old ones, intending to earn a IQ tax from consumers.
In the past decade, Japanese companies have basically been doing this and have been doing it with great enthusiasm. In addition, due to their technological monopoly and patents, the global VCR market has been firmly occupied by these companies, and the price of their products has always been maintained at a fairly high profit level.
From this point of view, the profit of Shenghua's VCD products in the current market is the same. The cost profit of Japanese companies' VCR products is not even as high as that of VCD, but the product price is only slightly lower than VCD. It is easy to imagine how much profit they will make.
But now, with the emergence of VCD products, the wolf has finally come.
The Japanese were good at playing tricks but ignored technological updates. When they found that VCD had the potential to replace the VCR market, they couldn't help but panic.
In order to continue to control this market, these companies quickly contacted American companies and requested technical cooperation or technology licensing.
Before this, American companies had privately contacted several companies as requested by Song Yuanchao, asking for technical cooperation and exchanging VCD technology for several key patents for future DVDs, but they were rejected by the arrogant Japanese.
But now the priorities have been reversed, because the emergence of VCD has made them feel a crisis, and the attitude of American companies has also changed greatly. According to Song Yuanchao's instructions, American companies have put up a fight and directly offered higher chips than before.
The Japanese side was not surprised by this result. Although they were very angry about the attitude of the American company, they did not dare to offend the American company. They could only continue to haggle with the American company, intending to obtain VCD technology at a lower cost.
Unexpectedly, during the negotiations between the Japanese and American companies, the American company suddenly announced that it had reached a technology exchange with Philips and licensed the VCD technology to Philips for free. When the news was announced, several Japanese companies immediately panicked.
You have to know that although Japan has advantages in home appliances and a very high market share in the world, these Japanese companies are not without competitors, and Philips is one of their biggest competitors.
Many of Philips' products overlap with those of these Japanese companies, and Philips also has very strong technical capabilities and holds some indispensable patents. In the production and research and development of some electrical products, Japanese companies sometimes need to cooperate with Philips. From this point of view, the two parties are both competitors and collaborators.
Now that the American company has reached a cooperation intention with Philips and licensed the technology to Philips, it means that Philips has obtained an access ticket to the VCD market.
Under such circumstances, once Philips enters the VCD industry, it will be a fatal blow to Japanese companies. You should know that Philips is not a small company, but a large international company comparable to Toshiba and Sony, and its technical capabilities and production capacity are not comparable to Shenghua Electronics.
Shenghua Electronics is now the leader in the Chinese mainland market, but due to production problems, VCD products have not completely replaced traditional video recorders . But if Philips were to produce VCDs at full capacity and find Chinese mainland companies to do OEM, the result would be completely different.
By then, Philips ' products will be able to easily defeat the current VCR market, while conquering overseas markets and even directly entering the Japanese market to replace it.
Japanese companies did not want to see this result, so when the American company announced its cooperation with Philips, Philips also held a press conference, stating that the cooperation between the two parties was a disruptive innovation in home film and television. The Japanese could no longer sit still. The Japanese, who had been gritting their teeth and holding on, finally found the American company again and restarted the previously stalemate negotiations.
After several meetings, Shenghua finally obtained the key technology license for the subsequent development of DVD through the American company, and also gave appropriate returns in VCD technology. In addition, the Japanese side also proposed that the American company could bring Philips and Xiangjiang Shenghua together to formulate an industry agreement, that is, to share VCD technology within the industry, but absolutely not allow other companies to be authorized, and determine a price range that everyone can accept to ensure that the profits of the product market are shared equally.
This suggestion was exactly what Song Yuanchao wanted. According to Song Yuanchao's idea, even if the Japanese did not propose this idea, he would let the American company propose this idea appropriately. Now that the Japanese company proposed it first, it couldn't be better. Let the Japanese take the lead, and then it won't be him who will be scolded.
After the information was passed on to Philips, Philips responded quickly, saying that it basically agreed to this operation, but the division in the international market still needed to be discussed.
Philips is not stupid either. The VCR market has been basically monopolized by Japanese companies in recent years. Philips has finally managed to turn the tables by obtaining the VCD technology license. How could it continue to be suppressed by Japanese companies as before?
Since everyone wants to form an alliance, then the alliance should have appropriate market divisions, which is good for Philips. As for Shenghua, it originally had the same boss as the American company. Song Yuanchao instructed Xu Hui to fly to the United States to negotiate on behalf of Shenghua. Before going to the United States, Xu Hui met with Song Yuanchao and the two talked for a whole afternoon before rushing to the airport.
In the second month after VCD was launched on the market, the VCD industry alliance was initially formed. After difficult negotiations, all parties finally achieved results and got what they needed in the VCD market.
Among them, Philips took advantage. Not only did it retain its original traditional market, but it also took this opportunity to intervene in the market of these Japanese companies. This is already a huge success for Philips.
As for Shenghua , it is the ultimate winner. All parties acknowledged that Shenghua is the company that has obtained authorization to produce VCDs in the Chinese mainland market and has current market influence. Although the Chinese mainland market does not block Japanese companies and Philips, and it is impossible to block it, both Japanese companies and Philips have stated that they will never leak technology in the Chinese market. Everyone will work together to develop the VCD market and ensure the market's profits and scale.
In addition, Shenghua also obtained overseas sales commitments. All parties stated that they would not commercially suppress Shenghua's VCD products in overseas markets. Shenghua also guaranteed that the sales price in overseas markets would not be too low and would maintain a certain price range. In other words, it would prevent Shenghua from dumping in overseas markets. However, whether Shenghua's products can be accepted by overseas markets depends on Shenghua's own capabilities.
In this way, Japan seems to have suffered the most, because Japan had no choice but to give up part of the market, which led to a huge change in the original monopoly of VCRs. But there is nothing that can be done about it, the situation is stronger than people, at least this result is acceptable to Japan, it is better than the original market being completely destroyed by VCDs, right?
When the message arrived at Song Yuanchao's place after traveling a long distance across the ocean, Song Yuanchao finally breathed a sigh of relief and a smile appeared on his face.
These days, although Song Chaoyuan seemed confident, he was actually worried that the Japanese would really turn against him and directly disregard the patents of American companies to make trouble in the domestic market. Once this happened, the situation of the VCD market in the previous life would repeat itself, and the VCD product would fall from the top to the abyss in a very short time, which would be a disaster for Shenghua.
This result is final. Shenghua not only obtained the key technology of subsequent DVDs, but also took the initiative to produce better products to replace VCDs in the future. In addition, in this way, the market and product profits were ensured. Although in the next few years, as VCDs from various manufacturers and brands continue to appear, the cost and price of VCDs will inevitably fall, but they will never fall to the level of being everywhere in the past.
As long as high profits can be maintained, it is worth it even if the final profit drops from the current 4-5 times to about 3 times. With high profits maintained, there is no need for endless production to make up for it, which is also quite beneficial to the overall development of the entire market.
