Chapter 633 New Force

"No matter what, Apple can't monopolize the smartphone market..."

As Barron spoke, Jobs also looked thoughtful.

Just as he said, although the sales of touch-screen smartphones of Apple and Honor Electronics have exceeded 10 million units each this year, the mainstream of the market is still traditional feature phone brands such as Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung.

For example, the current mobile phone "dominant" Nokia announced sales of nearly 120 million units in the third quarter, and annual sales of more than 460 million units, accounting for nearly 40% of the global mobile phone market share. The sales of Apple and Honor Electronics are not comparable to Nokia, let alone Samsung - Samsung is the world's second largest mobile phone manufacturer at this time, with a market share of more than 16%.

Apple and Android are the future, but the future has not yet arrived. Therefore, at present, facing the more powerful traditional mobile phone manufacturers, Apple, Android and even Honor Electronics are all considered part of the "new forces" of mobile phones. Barron's meaning is that he does not want to see infighting among the "new forces" at this time - if they want to compete with each other, they will have to wait until Nokia, Motorola, Samsung and other "antiques" are driven into history...

For the IPhone, when it becomes a "street machine", it will have to wait until the launch of the IPhone 4.

Of course, the effect is also significant. The growth of YouTube users is very satisfactory, and there is also a good synergy between it and Woaw.com.

Sage Byrne shrugged and said helplessly:

"Compared to large companies, it is more difficult for start-ups, because large companies like Woaw, although subject to many restrictions, at least have some financing channels, but those start-ups, unless they are very optimistic and have the potential to become unicorns, it is difficult to get money from venture capital pockets..."

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

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

Although Apple and Android did not reach any specific cooperation agreement in the end, they also reached a tacit understanding afterwards that they would carry out some "cooperation" in the field of touch-screen smartphones, and that patents in certain areas would be cross-licensed on an equal basis.

...

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.

"How is Woaw?"

At this time, they had already entered the building. Barron, Ivanta, and Woaw's North American CEO Sage Byrne, along with a bodyguard, took the same elevator. This time, Barron's question was directed at Sage Byrne.

"The impact of the crisis also involves many aspects. The most important one is that our advertisers have become more cautious. Starting from the first quarter today, our advertising revenue has shown a trend of slowing 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 increase the enthusiasm of advertisers, but..."

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

After all, in terms of patents, Honor Electronics, which has purchased patent licenses from Philips at a high price, has not been "attacked" much by traditional mobile phone manufacturers, but Apple has been involved in many patent lawsuits so far.

Moreover, even among the "new forces" of smartphones, Apple and Android are not the only ones - whether it is Microsoft, which is more powerful but has a lower market share than the two in the field of mobile operating systems, or Google, which is about to join the chaos of mobile operating systems, they are probably more threatening to Apple than the "newcomer" Android.

Baron said to Saiqi:

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

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 make profits.

"Again, crisis, not only faces danger, but also opportunities..."

Downstairs in the building, Baron looked around. Silicon Valley was still prosperous, but it could be clearly seen that the expressions on the faces of people passing by in a hurry were much more solemn than a year or two ago.

"The general market environment is like this. 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."

"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..."

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...

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

In his previous life, after Google acquired YouTube, it also continued to inject blood into it. This continued for many years before it started to make profits...

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 capital.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

As for funds, Barron will solve this matter when he comes here this time.