When the VR hardware industry reshuffle is underway, 70% of startups close down or switch to content

Industry insiders predict that this year is the first year of the explosion of China's VR industry, and in the next four years, the market size will increase 36 times to 55 billion yuan.

Capital always keeps up with hot spots. Since Facebook acquired Oculus for US$2 billion in 2014, cases of domestic and foreign listed companies investing in this field have been common.

According to incomplete statistics from relevant information, in the first quarter of 2016, China's VR investment reached 1.8 billion yuan. Industry insiders predict that this year is the first year of the explosion of China's VR industry, and in the next four years, the market size will increase 36 times to 55 billion yuan.

But investment is investment. As long as the investment is subdivided, you will find that capital pays much less attention to domestic hardware research and development than content. The shift in investment focus, coupled with the dissatisfaction of the Chinese people themselves, has caused the relevant value of the entire hardware field to be underestimated, and it is believed that good hardware products cannot be produced. To the bottom line, what are the reasons for this phenomenon?

China's copycat culture is deeply rooted, and the quality of product hardware is unconvincing.

China is a major manufacturing country and is also known as the "copycat country." Because of the lack of patent protection, even a "copycat culture" has formed in China.

Over the years, most domestic enterprises themselves lack independent innovation capabilities, and the domestic protection of intellectual property rights has not been adequate, making the country a social atmosphere that does not attach importance to independent development.

I always think that if I have money, I can buy technology or even products. I am accustomed to using gimmicks to create momentum. It is common for companies to exchange funds for technology and markets for technology. However, in exchange, products are eventually copied and pasted. In the form of market-oriented. As a result, in the eyes of the whole world, people feel that manufacturing in China cannot work, and it is often this opportunistic evil nature that makes its hardware manufacturing in every industry unconvincing.

In the domestic VR industry, there are more gimmicks than actual technological progress

. It has only been in the past two years that VR has really become popular. However, after two years of rapid development, the entire industry has shown a blowout trend. Then, from being unique at the beginning to being mixed with others, it can be said that a qualitative leap has been achieved. And as capital grows stronger, more and more companies regard VR as a tool to accumulate wealth.

Among these enterprises, they can also be subdivided into two categories. One is entrepreneurial enterprises, and the other is enterprises with strong strength.

Entrepreneurial companies are basically technology-oriented. In the initial stage, in addition to developing products, they also need to spend most of their time on crowdfunding and large-scale publicity for the company through various publicity methods.

In the long run, the focus of work will be seriously shifted, resulting in the R & D of products remaining in the shell stage without any substantial progress. It may even be said that the products actually put on the market are contrary to the original idea and are completely untechnical.

Another type of enterprise with strong strength, first of all, its capital turnover is much more relaxed than the difficulties of entrepreneurial enterprises, because it itself has the ability to raise funds in the capital market. Moreover, in terms of brand communication, it is not necessary to spend too much time promoting it. For VR, the latest hot spot, of course, these companies will not let go.

In addition to independently developing some VR products, existing companies are more likely to acquire VR companies at a high premium in the form of cash or stock issuance to complete the layout of their own company's ecological chain in the fastest way. However, there has been a lot of noise and rain. So far, no company has truly achieved impressive results in the VR field.

While the VR hardware industry was reshuffle, 70% of startups closed down, some of which switched to content.

2016 was called the "first year of the industry" of virtual reality. It is now halfway through the first year of the year. Although some VR companies have obtained financing one after another, many of them have declined in this trend.

I still remember Lei Jun saying: "Along the wind outlet, even pigs can fly." But even in the wind, not all companies can fly, especially for hardware startups. Life is difficult.

Liu Yun, founder of VRZINC, said in an interview that in the past year, 70% of VR hardware startups have closed down. In 2014, there were more than 200 companies making VR helmets in China, and in 2015, only more than 60 remained. Many people in the industry still agree with this view, because based on the previous rolling entrepreneurial craze, it is possible to proceed with the cooling of capital.

Lou Chi, CEO of Fireworks Workshop, also said: "A number of VR headset companies will also die this year, and hardware startups and some mobile game teams that are not profitable will all switch to VR content."

Because in the eyes of industry insiders, the biggest reason for converting hardware to content is cost. Compared with making hardware, the cost of making content is lower and capital is more popular.

The even more cruel reality facing everyone now is that during this period of time, a small number of startups in the hardware field received financing and were able to continue to survive, and quite a few startups fell before they could get the money. This is an industry reshuffle process, just like the decline of traditional mobile phone giant Amoi & Bird. I believe that a batch will be washed out in the second half of the year.

Moreover, to a certain extent, domestic capital ignores the research and development of VR hardware, and resources are seriously tilted to the field of R & D content. As capital moves, people's focus will also shift from hardware to content research and development. When people's attention shifts, they will subconsciously think that the products independently developed by China are not good, which will lead to people not buying them when they actually enter the market.

Mobile phone manufacturers have followed suit to make hardware, but they have difficulty supporting China's hardware. Recently

, in addition to some traditional mobile phone giants in China launching their own VR devices, some Internet mobile phone manufacturers have also organized groups to enter the VR market. The crazy influx of manufacturers has injected new blood into the virtual reality field, but also brought everyone a cold thought-what are the intentions of domestic mobile phone manufacturers deploying VR one after another?

The capital market is booming. AiMedia Consulting data shows that the market size of China's VR industry in 2015 was 1.54 billion yuan, and it is expected to reach 5.66 billion yuan this year. With such a large market attraction, how can mobile phone manufacturers miss this good season?

The market is becoming saturated. It is an indisputable fact that domestic mobile phone manufacturers have difficulty in developing innovative and disruptive products. They all hope to VR, just to use this momentum to save the deteriorating domestic mobile phones.

Follow the trend and test the water. For example, Huawei, which ranks among the best in the country, has also released a product similar to Samsung Gear VR, but has not announced the launch time and price of the product. On the surface, it does not seem to be very optimistic about VR's contribution to the company's profits, but it does not want to let go of the current market hotspots. This belongs to the category of smart terminals. Although it is at a stage of immature technology, as long as it is possible to become the next A technological explosion, it is impossible not to do it.

At present, most VR products released by domestic mobile phone manufacturers are basically vassals of mobile phones, and there are no real VR standards, content specifications, and large-scale commercial application scenarios. But in the future, there will be thousands of companies doing VR and seizing the underlying technology market. Standing at the top of the ecological chain as soon as possible is the king's way.

Many domestic mobile phone manufacturers have nothing more than taken a fancy to this. The VR products on the market today are all like smartphones, adopting a low-cost strategy that is friendly to the people. However, technical flaws are likely to become a brand's fatal worry and even affect the market sales of smartphones.

Although there are many problems in the country, they are not useless in terms of hardware technology. Looking

at the overall situation, although there are many problems in the country, they are not useless in terms of hardware technical issues.

For example, Huawei, as a well-known company in the world, aside from other things, has accumulated this technology. Even if it is now in the stage of following the trend, once it focuses on research and development, it is possible to create a hit model. The sex is still very high.

Moreover, China's technical level is at the forefront of the world in terms of VR all-in-one technology. However, domestic funds are now seriously diverted to research and development in the content field, resulting in the value of the entire hardware industry being underestimated.

Editor: yvonne