Title image from: Visual China
"Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river", this analogy between Hong Kong and Shenzhen can not be more apt. more than 30 years ago, and Hong Kong across the river in Shenzhen is still a population of no more than a million people of small fishing villages, and Hong Kong is already a globally renowned metropolis, financial center, the most open free trade port, container port cargo throughput of the world's top.
Today, more than 30 years later, Shenzhen's GDP has reached 2.2 trillion yuan, and taking into account the sharp rise in the yuan exchange rate, Shenzhen has surpassed Guangzhou, and surpassing Hong Kong is a probable event. The former small fishing village has grown into China's Silicon Valley, a capital of innovation, a base for high-precision processing and manufacturing, a financial heavyweight, a cluster of listed companies, the world's third-largest container port, and a population of more than 20 million.
Hong Kong is bound by the pan-politicization of the hands and feet of Hong Kong, to promote the reform of the difficulties, facing the plight of the hollowing out of industry, the traditional service industry and the financial industry's advantage is being diluted, the lack of new engines of economic growth. Li Ka-shing's complete withdrawal from the Hong Kong market has become a symbol of Hong Kong's hollowing out predicament. And Shenzhen's development to today, not only a steady pace, full of vitality, in bio-engineering, artificial intelligence, mobile Internet, the Internet of Things and many other areas began to have the right to speak in the global market.
Today's Shenzhen is still far from the peak state of this young city, and under the top-level design of the 13th Five-Year Plan, it shoulders more missions. From the establishment of the modern financial services experimental zone in Qianhai, which is in line with the world, the landing of the free trade zone, the new generation of information technology industry, the new materials industry, new energy industry, bio-industry is gradually taking shape, to the drones, robots as the representative of the artificial intelligence industry blossomed in many ways, Shenzhen in the next ten years, we have to play the role of the core engine for the development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and to promote the interactive development of neighboring cities in the Pearl River Delta region.
In the process of China's sprint to become the world's top economic power, Shenzhen will play the role of a new super-connector between the mainland and the global economy. To describe the future pattern of cities in the Pearl River Delta, a popular "joke" in speculative circles is that "the cities around Shenzhen, including Hong Kong, will be called the circum-Shenzhen region."
From "doing hard labor" to the "cage for birds" nirvana
No one living in Shenzhen, the spectator is the speed of Shenzhen, the atmosphere of tolerance, the beautiful environment of the city of the seaside, full of young people in the street speeding, "time is money". "The time is money" pragmatic and efficient. Everyone working in Shenzhen, but all the time is not facing fierce competition for survival, uncertainty about the future of the line of anxiety, in order to adapt to the rapid iteration of the business model and exhausted. Every person who comes to Shenzhen feels no sense of belonging at first, and once adapted to the rhythm of Shenzhen, it is difficult to leave again.
Thirty years ago, when Shenzhen was upgraded from Bao'an County to the city of Shenzhen, the city was in a state of flux. With Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, these have a long history, the city function has been basically perfect, a strong humanistic atmosphere compared to the city, Shenzhen's biggest advantage is that there is no historical baggage, there is no burden of decision-making, and the biggest disadvantage is also a penniless, penniless.
Beginning with processing of incoming materials, assembly of electronic products and processing of garments, Shenzhen has gradually become a manufacturing center and supply chain center for large enterprises from Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign capital in the tide of foreign investment. Especially with Hong Kong to form a strong complementary development of the relationship, and gradually undertake the transfer of most of the processing industry in Hong Kong.
In the 1980s and 1990s, China's demographic dividend was most fully realized in Shenzhen. Made in Shenzhen was behind Made in China. At that time, Shenzhen Foxconn node role in the global production and manufacturing industry chain, it is the rapid digestion of foreign investment in Shenzhen, with the help of processing manufacturing industry to build the development of the chassis of the model.
To the beginning of this century, Shenzhen electronics processing manufacturing cluster advantage, the global rapid development of the cell phone industry chain to form a siphon effect. At the peak of the cell phone upstream and downstream of the various types of enterprises totaled 10,000, of which nearly 3,000 machine assembly and manufacturing enterprises, more than 300 registered brands, more than 100 into the scale of the enterprise, cell phone program designers more than 100, more than 3,000 parts and accessories providers, the national underwriters of the hundreds of agents at the provincial level, nearly a thousand. A lot of transformation from the factory to the cell phone brand in the public mold products on the fierce fight, but also let Shenzhen once on the back of the "cottage phone capital" nickname.
Shenzhen this bone "love money" of the city, is not possible at the end of the industrial chain in the processing and manufacturing of the meager profits in the long term to do asceticism. Through the manufacturing industry to establish the advantage, and in the global industrial chain division of labor occupies an indispensable place, fully involved in the international market competition in Shenzhen, a number of enterprises according to the map, the use of geography, information, policy, talent and other advantages of the buried hard work, began to magpie.
Huawei, ZTE in the field of communications equipment began to have international competitiveness, a number of Shenzhen cell phone brands blossomed on both sides of the domestic and foreign markets, the sales volume squeezed into the global top ten, breaking the situation of foreign brands dominate the world. Konka, Skyworth as the representative of the home appliance enterprises in the domestic market is booming, to Tencent as the representative of the Internet companies are also gradually growing into a pole of China's Internet.
Excessive reliance on low value-added industries such as manufacturing had once plunged Shenzhen into the "Special Administrative Region is not special" confusion. The key to ushering in a comprehensive qualitative change in Shenzhen's economic growth is a wave of self-transformation "to change birds for cages". Low-value-added manufacturing industries were shunted to neighboring provinces and cities, once brilliant Foxconn Shenzhen in the face of rising costs, the main production capacity to move to inland provinces. Huawei and other terminal manufacturing enterprises have also been forced to centralize the production chain moved to Songshan Lake, Dongguan.
Synchronized with this is the adjustment of the industrial structure to LCD panels, laser processing equipment, medical equipment, bio-engineering and other representatives of high value-added modern manufacturing industry has completed the initial layout to become the core force driving the quality of economic growth.
Talent structure adjustment also for the rapid development of financial and Internet and other modern service industries in Shenzhen to provide a steady stream of power, Shenzhen has been firmly in the first echelon of China's financial industry. The concentration of high-end talents at home and abroad is also an important support for the concept of "China's Silicon Valley".
Today's Shenzhen, much like Hong Kong 30 years ago, has begun to gradually reveal its role as a super-connector between the global economy and the mainland economy. But compared to Hong Kong, Shenzhen has a more natural integration and complementarity with the mainland. Given the division of labor with Hong Kong, and Hong Kong's role as a firewall in the global financial arena, the proper neutering of some of Shenzhen's functions does not mean that Shenzhen does not have the capacity to fully develop a global financial services market.
Behind the $2.2 trillion GDP are more than 350 listed companies and world-class enterprises like Huawei and Tencent in Shenzhen itself. And the total market capitalization of listed companies in Shenzhen has surpassed that of Shanghai, second only to Beijing. Behind this is the quality and potential of economic development.
Incremental space in the next decade to look at new unicorns
Vertically, 37 years ago, Hong Kong's total economic output was equivalent to 600 Shenzhen. Shenzhen started from processing manufacturing and shipping trade, and its rapid development in the past 30 years has been a process of imitation, learning and even surpassing. There is Hong Kong around the example of continuous blood transfusion, a large influx of foreign capital brought about by the capital, technology, management experience and business models, as well as participation in the global market competition experience, and ultimately the achievements of the rise of Shenzhen's local enterprises, to cultivate the basis for industrial upgrading.
In a side-by-side comparison, behind Shenzhen's GDP, which narrowly surpassed that of Hong Kong, Singapore and Guangzhou, is Tencent, whose latest market capitalization surpassed 500 billion U.S. dollars, surpassing Facebook to become the world's fifth-largest company by market value. Huawei has grown to become the world's largest telecom equipment maker and the world's third-largest smartphone terminal company. The total market capitalization of listed companies in Shenzhen exceeds 10 trillion yuan. Tencent's market capitalization alone is equivalent to the combined GDP of Taiwan.
Having a huge volume and entering the developed economy mode signals that the corresponding market opportunities and mature business models are fully developed. Like most developed economies, Shenzhen will likely enter a slow growth cycle in the future.
In the context of globalized overcapacity, growth in the consumer market has been sluggish. Asset bubbles caused by over-reliance on financial leverage for economic growth, the prevalence of speculation, and economic de-emphasis have become challenges for mainstream economies***. China's economy is also entering a structural adjustment cycle in an L-shaped trend.
The existing consumer market is fully saturated, and the global market is looking forward to the next windfall. The new wind mouth must be the replacement of the stock consumption market created by the essential change of the existing life scene, consumption products and consumption habits under the support of the leapfrog development of science and technology. The fruits of the industrial revolution are coming to an end, and the whole human society is looking forward to a disruptive information technology revolution.
As China's Silicon Valley, Shenzhen has been at the forefront of the world's most advanced technology in many areas, including financial technology, mobile Internet, smart hardware, and AI. The biggest challenge for the future is that we will no longer have an object to imitate, there is no clear path to follow, they have become the leader, to face a lot of uncertainty and the cost of trial and error.
Shenzhen's headquarters economy and a large number of listed companies facing the mature market of global competition, business operations will tend to individual closed and the pursuit of the ultimate efficiency, the real burden of Shenzhen's future economic incremental explorers are a number of difficult to move forward in the field of innovation entrepreneurs, especially products and business models have been initially tested by the market of various types of unicorn companies. In the fields of electronic information, biomedicine, new energy, new materials and artificial intelligence, unicorn companies including GMO, DJI drones, Microcrowd Bank, Cainiao Network, Tencent Cloud, Handyman, Zoetrope, and others have demonstrated strong competitiveness in just a few years.
Shenzhen, the old generation of unicorns have been born at the wrong time, through the hardships of the legendary story of entrepreneurship, Ren Zhengfei 20,000 yuan to start, do the first of their own products are facing closure, and constantly in the "winter theory" of self-warning to do the world's first. Ma Huateng 50,000 yuan to buy six computers and pull a class of students to start, the most difficult time once wanted to sell the company 3 million but hit a brick wall in all directions, had no choice but to bite the bullet and insisted on the achievement of today's Tencent.
Shenzhen's new generation of unicorns are facing huge opportunities, enjoying a favorable entrepreneurial environment and supported by a mature capital market. What they are shouldering is the heavy responsibility of guiding the global economy on behalf of Chinese companies in the new era of artificial intelligence and information technology revolution.
The "techies" of the southern school
With the mobile Internet's traffic dividend coming to an end, the wave of startups centered around mobile has basically entered a watershed. That's why this year's list of unicorns is particularly meaningful, as it essentially summarizes the results of the last wave of startups.
From an inventory of various unicorn lists at home and abroad, there is a significant difference in style between the northern and southern unicorn companies. The unicorns of the northern faction are strong in resource integration, good at marketing, and focus on business model innovation. The southern unicorns, represented by Shenzhen companies, are like "IT men of science and technology", pragmatic and low-profile, winning with technology, and have very strong qualities.
Finally, through a few of the most representative unicorn companies, we have a glimpse of the capital of Shenzhen's future takeoff:
1, genetic engineering: UW Genomics
UW Genomics, founded in 1999, has grown into the world's largest genomics research and development organization. In March 2013, UW successfully completed the acquisition of US-listed company Complete Genomics, realizing the closed loop of the upstream and downstream gene sequencing industry chain.
UWGRI is also responsible for the formation of China's first state-level comprehensive gene bank, the National Gene Bank, which will more effectively protect, develop and utilize China's valuable genetic resources, safeguard the security of the country's biological information, and elevate China's strategic high ground in the field of biotechnology.
The UW has been recognized as a "world-leading genetics research center" and a "leader in genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics analysis" by the top academic journal Nature. As of May 4, 2017, UW has published more than 2,173 papers, including 1,759 SCI-indexed papers, and 256 articles in the four top international academic journals, Nature, Science, Cell, and New England Journal of Medicine***.
2, Artificial Intelligence: DJI UAV
DJI UAV is currently the world's leading R & D and manufacturer of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control systems and drone solutions, from the initial two dozen people to the current 12,000 people; from the warehouse start-up, to 17 offices in 7 countries around the world, with sales networks in more than one hundred countries around the world, DJI in 2017 year sales reached 18 billion dollars. It occupies more than 70% of the global consumer drone market share.
As of 2016, DJI has filed more than 1,500 patent applications worldwide, and has been granted more than 400 patents, covering areas such as the structural design of various parts of drones, circuit systems, flight stabilization, wireless communication and control systems.
3. Private bank: Microcrowd Bank
Microcrowd Bank, established at the end of 2014, is the first private bank and Internet bank in China. Through the launch of online products such as the "particulate loan" to promote the popularization of financial inclusion, enhance the public participation in the financial services of the convenient experience. Founded nearly two years ago, Weizhong Bank realized a tenfold increase in revenue in 2016, with operating income reaching 2.45 billion yuan. The company is valued at $5.5 billion.
4, new materials and intelligent hardware: Softwood Technology
Softwood Technology is one of the world's earliest teams specializing in the research and development of color flexible display technology, but also a typical "high wealth" entrepreneurial team. Its core team has hundreds of domestic and foreign high-end R & D and management personnel, including a number of Silicon Valley and the international academic and industrial sectors have a wealth of experience at home and abroad engineers, Ph.D.; a number of core management and technical personnel graduated from Stanford University, Tsinghua University, Peking University, the University of California, the United States of America, Purdue University, Cornell University, the University of Michigan, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and other domestic and foreign institutions of higher learning, Research Institutes.
At present, Zojirushi has applied for or reserved more than 700 core technology intellectual property rights (including patents and know-hows) around the world, fully covering materials, processes, devices, circuits, software, system design and other aspects. The company's valuation has reached US$3 billion.
5, modern logistics: Cainiao network
Established in Qianhai, Shenzhen, Cainiao network is composed of Alibaba Group, Yintai Group, Fosun Group, Fuchun Holdings, Shunfeng Group, three a (Shentong, Yuantong, Zhongtong, Rhyunda) House Express, Huitong, and related financial institutions *** with the composition of the "China's Intelligent Logistics Backbone Network "(CSN) project. The company is valued at $7.69 billion.
Caijiao Network plans to invest RMB 100 billion in the first phase of the project, hoping that in 5-8 years, it will strive to build an open, socialized logistics infrastructure across the country, and establish an intelligent backbone network capable of supporting a daily average of 30 billion (about 10 trillion annually) in online retail sales.
China's intelligent backbone network is not only the infrastructure for e-commerce, but also the infrastructure for China's future business. China's intelligent backbone network will apply the Internet of Things, cloud computing, network finance and other new technologies to provide an open service platform for all types of B2B, B2C and C2C enterprises, and jointly with the online credit system, online payment system *** together to build the three major infrastructures of China's future business. Rather than engaging in logistics, Cainiao Network hopes to fully utilize its strengths to support the development of domestic logistics enterprises and provide better, more efficient and intelligent services for the logistics industry.
6, cloud services: Tencent cloud
Benefiting from the infrastructure and experience of operating Tencent's series of cloud services, Tencent cloud has grown into one of the largest cloud service providers in China. From infrastructure to fine-tuned operations, from platform strength to ecological capacity building, Tencent Cloud has integrated and marketed them so that it can provide enterprises and entrepreneurs with a cloud service experience that integrates cloud computing, cloud data, and cloud operations.
Tencent Cloud is working to build the highest quality and best ecological public cloud service platform, allowing enterprises to focus more on their business. The company is currently valued at $3.3 billion.
7, financial technology: Handyman
Founded by former Kingdee Software Group executives, Handyman has grown to become the largest personal finance application service provider in China after seven years of development. With more than 300 million users, Suishouji has a market share of nearly 70% in the entire category. The user's income and expenditure flow has exceeded 5 trillion dollars, and more than 3,000 bills are generated on the platform every minute.
The Suishouji series of products is building a personal financial service chain centered on personal finance, including wealth management, loans, cards, insurance and securities. The company has fully implemented profitability in 2016.
In the global personal financial management field, the U.S. intuit and the series of products with the handbook is very similar, the two companies have the same product matrix, are close to 70% of the category user market share. The difference is that intuit's market capitalization has reached $37 billion, and the user base of the Handyman series is close to the total U.S. population.
After receiving $200 million in Series C funding led by global private equity giant KKR, Handy also became the newest unicorn company in the South in 2017.
8, Internet securities: Futura Securities
Futura Securities, which was started by Tencent employees, is currently one of the most competitive Internet brokerage companies in China. From the front-end stock speculation software, to the middle stage customer management and backstage settlement system and so on all adopt independent research and development, realize the whole chain closed loop, provide one-stop investment platform products, and hold a Hong Kong brokerage license.
It is a licensed corporation recognized by the Hong Kong SFC as a participant in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and has been awarded a Type 1/2/4/9 license by the Hong Kong SFC.In 2017, Futura Securities had a transaction volume of over 500 billion yuan and a user base of nearly 3.5 million. After completing a $145 million financing, it became a newly promoted unicorn company.
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