vivo's President and CEO Wei Shen: Great products and extraordinary services are the core path to success in the Market

2022: A year of high-end breakthroughs for vivo

Despite extremely fierce competition in 2022, vivo continued with resilience to achieve its hard-earned reputation in brand recognition and technological capabilities.  Last year was the 'year of the high-end breakthrough' for us, in which the company achieved numerous milestones with its high-end products through steadily implemented long-term strategies.

The clear establishment of the underlying foundations of the brand directly supported the promotion of vivo's high-end brand image in 2022. Throughout this year, vivo fully invested in the core value of 'user orientation'. We clarified the fundamental relationship between product and brand, and believe that the product is the basis, while the brand is the result, and the driving force for product development. We enhanced our 'tech-driven' and 'design-driven' innovation, the two engines for our growth, and we enhanced our business strategy by putting equal emphasis on the 'closed-loop customer experience' as well as the 'closed-loop business model'. Our dedicated approach to building strong fundamentals for our business has allowed us to succeed in the face of fierce industry competition during unpredictable times. As a user-centric brand, we recognize that only our devotion to building great products, and pursuing the ultimate user experience will lay a foundation for vivo's growth.

We underwent several tough challenges, achieved notable results in fundamental technology innovation, and made significant breakthroughs with regard to our high-end product line, marking a monumental leap forward in creating a distinguished brand. After several years of strategic investment in fundamental research, vivo has ushered in qualitative transformation with respect to the four crucial aspects of design, imaging, system, and performance, leading to the emergence of a 'moat effect' for us. We have amassed a distinct reputation for the imaging capabilities of our phones and further bolstered it by our global partnership with ZEISS in an effort to redefine mobile imaging. The vivo V23 series, V25 series and X80 have been venerated by users – successfully achieving high levels of loyalty, satisfaction, and enthusiasm toward our products. Net promoter scores have also reached record levels, and the market results continue to improve.

Facing long-term challenges and going all-in to build strong foundations and achieve long-lasting business vitality

Despite all the success, the future still holds a myriad of challenges. The smartphone industry is in the earliest stage of a new round of technological revolution, with a potential slowdown being the primary obstacle facing the entire industry. Over the course of the next three to five years, this situation is expected to become relatively severe. We are confident of overcoming these challenges by adhering to our entrepreneurial mentality, long-term planning, and embracement of transformation and disruption.

Enterprise development is sustained with cash reserves and profitability; cash flow is everything for an enterprise's life. At vivo, we have realized the need to make the creation and health of our cash flow a priority. In a challenging market scenario like the one we are witnessing currently, we believe it is imperative to lower costs and improve efficiency, with an emphasis on capacity enhancement, constant innovation and the optimization of operational efficiency. However, it shall be ensured that cost reductions are in line with vivo's mission and vision in a non – negotiable manner. Cost reduction cannot be achieved by short-term, unsustainable means such as compromising with quality, transferring of risks, and jeopardizing the interests of related parties.

Way forward: vivo's mission is to make users, employees, partners, and shareholders happy and content

vivo's strategic opportunity rests in our high-end breakthroughs, with user-orientation being the guiding principle of our efforts, and forward-looking innovation serving as the cornerstone of impressive products. Our focus this year will be to expel low-margin misconceptions about the brand through brand premiumization, and break innovation bottlenecks with the help of core technologies. We will also try to avoid price wars and reject prevalent industry temptations of obsessing with numbers. We believe that great products and extraordinary services are the core path to success in the market, and are determined not to trade short-term gains for market size.

Our mission is to make users, employees, partners, and shareholders happy and content, with an aim to constantly develop into a more sustainable, world-class corporation. This will be facilitated by the culture of inward focus at vivo, where we all strive to hold ourselves to the highest standards. vivo is fortunate to be in an industry which has extensive room for growth. With the commencement of the next decade of smartphone development, we can see many challenges but also unlimited potential in front of us.

Every challenge is an opportunity for improvement. The greatest product of an outstanding enterprise is itself, realized through its ability to stay ahead of the curve. Throughout the nearly 28 years of vivo's history, difficulties and crises have always offered it the best opportunities for development, to press ahead onward and upward. Our user – centricity, adherence to the 'Benfen' philosophy, focus on long-term, win-win strategies, investments in strong foundations, and approach of facing challenges head-on will ensure we thrive through disruptions and market cycles to become an even greater brand.

Faith is a spring bird in winter that can foresee all the goodness to come. vivo's golden age has begun and it is here to stay!