"Due to the dominant market share of Pangu computers, Pangu Co., Ltd., each generation of computers has increased its price compared with the previous generation. In particular, the 9th generation of Pangu is priced at more than 1598 US dollars, and in today's era when the average price of computers is decreasing, Pangu computers are rising against the trend. Now, it's IBM's turn to pour cold water on Pangu computers, and we'...... A better configuration than yours, only selling for $799! Moreover, the Pangu computer is very unfriendly to the American market, in fact, we learned that the Pangu 9th generation, which is also configured in the Chinese market, is actually sold more than 30% cheaper than the United States! Although American gamers have given Pangu computers huge support and consumed more genuine game software, they ...... But they can only enjoy this kind of discrimination! Just because, relying on their monopoly advantage, they use the United States and other overseas markets as ATMs!" On a certain TV program, an IBM executive mocked Pangu Computer's continuous price increase in a cynical tone, "We IBM are American companies, and we are multinational enterprises, and we will treat global consumers equally, and American consumers will not buy more expensive products than overseas...... At the same time, we will cooperate with IBM to subsidize the developers of exclusive games on the PC platform, and we will give developers a subsidy of $1 for each sale of more than 5,000 copies of exclusive PC games! Therefore, soon there will be more high-quality games on the PC platform, and gamers can play a large number of high-quality PC platform games without Pangu computers, and many games on the PC platform will be exclusive in the future, and there will be no PC exclusive games on the Pangu platform. ”

After IBM was the first to release the Pentium 2 chip-based computer, orders skyrocketed.

In particular, the entry-level version of $799 quickly became the new darling of the market with its excellent cost performance, and it was only on the market for less than 3 days, and it received more than 500,000 orders worldwide. As for the $2,999 flagship version, due to its high pricing, it only received orders for a few thousand units at the beginning of its launch.

However, IBM and Intel are not concerned, because the production capacity of this flagship version of the CPU is already insufficient. The reason why Intel announced this CPU in advance is mainly to demonstrate Intel's power in high-end chips.

IBM has priced its flagship products expensively, on the one hand, it wants to widen the price gap with low-end products, and on the other hand, it also wants to avoid the shortage of products by high prices in advance.

In fact, what Intel and IBM want to promote is the low-frequency version of the Pentium 2 generation. The Pentium 2 low-frequency version for $99 a piece, to be honest, Intel does not make money, it just earns the operating expenses and depreciation costs of the production line. If Intel's chip market share is still as dominant as in the past, it will naturally not be sold so cheaply.

However, starting in October '94, Intel can be said to have entered the darkest hour. Because, the main Pentium chip market orders were frustrated, and revenue fell by 35%. In the financial statements of the fourth quarter of last year, a single-quarter loss of $170 million was exposed. In the first quarter of '95, it continued to lose $230 million.

Intel and AMD are also reversed again in terms of market capitalization. Originally, Intel's market value has exceeded $30 billion, and it will run for 30 billion, 100 billion, and even in 1999, at the peak of the global technology stock bubble, Intel hit a huge bubble with a market value of $500 billion. Investors who bought Intel in 99 may be trapped for a lifetime, because the market value of Intel in later generations has remained between more than 100 billion and more than 200 billion US dollars for a long time. Even if dividends are included, it is difficult to bring investors a return of more than $500 billion in market capitalization.

Of course, Intel in this era would never have dreamed that it would be so beautiful.

Because, the Intel of the world, starting from the fourth quarter of 94, has suffered the darkest moment for two consecutive quarters, and Intel's has even plummeted by 50% to $16 billion.

At the same time, AMD, Intel's old rival, has continued to soar in market value from $10 billion since October last year, and has even reached a new high of $35 billion.

Basically, the investment banks on Wall Street are bullish on Intel and optimistic about AMD.

Because, Intel's market share has plummeted, while AMD has continued to skyrocket in recent years as the computer shipments of the Pangu camp have continued to grow. In the first quarter of this year, the scale of revenue has even surpassed Intel. While Intel lost $230 million, AMD's single-quarter profit hit a new high, reaching a single-quarter profit of $180 million.

The reason why Intel is losing money is that it has invested billions of dollars in 0.35-micron chip production capacity in the past two years. Fewer orders lead to idle capacity, but depreciation expense does not follow.

In particular, the depreciation rate of equipment in the semiconductor industry is very fast, and it depreciates rapidly with technological progress, and cannot be depreciated according to the valuation of traditional industrial equipment. In traditional industries, equipment depreciation costs can be amortized over a period of 10, 20 or even longer years. However, in the semiconductor industry, the depreciation period is generally less than 5 years. After all, even if the equipment can still be used normally after 5 years, the process is no longer advanced, and the benefits are greatly depreciated. A $5 billion production capacity of 0.35 microns, and a year of equipment depreciation alone, will cost Intel $1 billion. In addition to depreciation, there are also financial expenses and operating costs for bank loans. If the equipment is shut down in a year, it can bring more than $2 billion in losses. Even if a portion of the capacity is not fully utilized, it may also cause a significant drop in revenue and even a loss in the financial statements.

It is precisely for this reason that Intel's management has made up its mind to use most of the 0.35-micron process capacity for the production of the $99 Pentium 2nd generation low-frequency version, as long as the depreciation cost can be earned, it is qualified.

Of course, the products produced by the 0.35 micron process are sold at low prices across the board, and orders and production capacity are saturated at low prices. However, Intel is aiming for mass production on 0.25 micron process, as well as pre-research 0.15 micron and 0.1 micron!

It can be said that the darkest moments of the past six months have made Intel show far more efficiency than normal at a critical juncture. This is also in line with common sense, without encountering a life-and-death situation, technology companies can rely on some non-leading products to make huge profits, why reduce prices, or take out advanced products so quickly?

Advanced products, generally technology companies press the box, wait until the old products are saturated or even downhill, before they begin to stimulate the market's buying passion with new products.

As for the launch of cost-effective products that allow consumers to call the real fragrance, it is also a crisis for enterprises to use low-price dumping to avoid a decline in market share.

Essentially, Intel is also a businessman, thinking about profit maximization. However, the market share has declined sharply, and survival ranks first, Intel will change its style and hold high the banner of cost performance.

……

I have to say that IBM's $799 Pentium 2 entry-level computer can be called a killer feature. It also proves that cost performance is always an effective means of promotion, if the main cost performance is not easy to sell, it can only be said that it does not have the real cost performance. If you really want to sell a configuration that can sell for $3,000 in the first half of last year at a price of $799, then, don't think about it, it will definitely be a hit!

Even if it is a product of a small company that is not well-known, it will become a hit! Not to mention the practice of such a world-famous large enterprise like IBM.

Not long after IBM's products were launched, employees of the new American start-up company had already bought several samples and shipped them to Hong Kong by air.

On May 10, Pangu Computer Co., Ltd.

After experiencing IBM's newly released PC for $799, Gao Tian decisively announced: "Price reduction! Pangu 9th generation is too expensive! Channel manufacturers will drop $400 per unit, and the retail price in the market will be reduced by $300." Network channels, in addition to subsidies! Manufacturers who have purchased in the last three months, inventory products, 400 US dollars per unit, refunds can not be reflected, can only be used for purchases!

It can be said that the Pangu 9th generation computer is the one with the highest gross profit margin ever. The cost of material production is only $650. The purchase price of the main global sales channel is $1,300, while the market retail price is $1,598.

Whether it is Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. or dealers around the world, they can earn a gross profit margin far exceeding that of previous generations of Pangu Computers, and it is precisely because of this that more than 30 million units have been sold in 7 months after being listed, and the global dealers have 10 million units in stock.

Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., the previous good business was the same as Moutai. It is the dealer who first deposits the money in the designated account of Pangu Computer Co., Ltd., and then arranges the supply to the manufacturer in the order of advance payment.

And now, just refunding the dealer is a $4 billion refund!

With a $4 billion refund and a follow-up purchase price reduction of $400 per unit, while the market retail price was only reduced by $300, the gross profit margin of dealers was expanded to stimulate the sales of Pangu 9.

Because, at present, Pangu Computer Co., Ltd. is still focusing on Pangu 9 for the time being. The new generation of products still needs to wait for the advent of Luban's 4th generation chip before it can be put into production.

The Luban 4th generation requires the chip factory's process to be upgraded to 0.35 microns before mass production. The fastest speed will be released before the Double 11 in 95.

In other words, for at least half a year, the flagship of the Pangu camp can only be the 9th generation of Pangu. The performance of the CPU can not be improved, at most it can be improved in other configurations, such as graphics card, memory, solid state, HDD, etc. However, in terms of cost performance, it can't beat the current low-profile version of the Pentium 2, and in terms of performance, it is even more backward than the high-end version of the Pentium 2.

For the time being, Gaotian can only stabilize its global partners by giving profits to distribution channels. Of course, consumers also need to be constantly appeased and price cuts.

But you can't drop too much, otherwise, users who bought it before may be resentful because of the rapid depreciation of the computer bought at a high price.