Video Game Empire

ICON Computer's financial statements for the second quarter of 1982 have been released, with a profit after tax of £28.5m, up 14% from £25m in the first quarter, but lower than the 15% to 20% forecast by analysts earlier. It also caused Aikang's stock price to drop in recent times.

In fact, the sales performance of Aikang has been maintaining rapid growth. In the first half of 1982, the total sales volume of the series computers reached 477,000 units, and the sales volume of the CW-8203 workstation computer reached 12,000 units. 100 million pounds, and the global market share of similar products has reached 50%.

However, Aikang invested a lot of marketing funds for the listing of the CW-8203 workstation, as well as the company's previous expenditures on technology research and development, marketing channel construction, etc., which reduced the company's net profit. In fact, the decline in Aikang's stock price can be regarded as a rational callback to the previous surge. Since its listing last year, the company's share price has continued to climb, with a total market value of 2.7 billion pounds at one point.

The average price-earnings ratio of the London Stock Exchange is 12.5 times, while the price-earnings ratio of Ikon is as high as 25 times. It can be said that the share price is somewhat inflated. Therefore, the decline of the stock price is not all bad for the company. It can squeeze out some of the bubbles caused by the enthusiasm of investors in the early stage, and make the value of the company return to rationality.

Although Aikon's share price has experienced a wave of decline, the current total market value is still as high as 2.35 billion pounds. However, some of Aikang's management, with the support of some minority shareholders, asked the company to carry out reforms to improve performance.

In fact, this can be completely unreasonable. Aikang is in a period of rapid development, and there is no big problem at all. Taking sales performance as an example, the company sold 620,000 PCs in total last year. In the first half of this year, the sales volume has reached 477,000 units, and the annual sales volume is expected to hit the 1 million unit mark, with an annual sales growth rate of more than 50%.

"Li Sheng!" Albert Hawke has also put a lot of effort into Cantonese, at least the word "Li Sheng" is well-spoken, but he can only say one or two words like this. Afterwards, he continued to say in English, "Now there are some differences among the management of the company on the next development strategy. If such contradictions and disputes continue, it will not be conducive to the next development. Therefore, I hope that some positions can be adjusted. !"

Oriental Group's core holding company, Oriental Technology, holds 60% of Aikang's shares. Hawke only needs Li Xuan's consent to have enough voting rights for the board to reshuffle the management.

"I hope to replace Mr. Currie's CTO position and replace it with Evan Kwong (CTO)!" Hawke continued to say to Li Xuan.

Chris Currie is one of the three founders of the original Icon Company. Before Hawke joined Elken, he served as chief executive of Elken. But after Hawke joined, Currie gave up his position and changed his position to become the company's. As the founder of Aikang, he still has a certain influence in the company. Currie is also one of the representatives who advocates to break away from the influence of Hong Kong Oriental Group and seek independent development within the company.

When Li Xuan acquired Aikang at that time. The entire company was completely bought out with £2.15 million in cash, and the three founders, including Currie, did not retain any original shares in the new company. After Aikang went public, in just one year, the total market value has soared to more than 2 billion pounds.

As one of the founders of the company, Curry did not gain much benefit from this wealth-making movement, except for a small amount of options when he implemented the equity incentive plan. The British "Sun" also deliberately listed him as the sad thing of missing the billionaire. Under such public opinion, Currie naturally felt a little unbalanced, so he made the wrong choice.

Evan Kuang, nominated by Hawke to replace Curry as the new chief technology officer, is actually called Kuang Jinliang in Chinese. Kwong Jinliang joined Dongfang Electronics as early as 1980, when he was in charge of leading the company's computer research and development team. After Li Xuan merged the computer R&D department within Dongfang Electronics with Aikang, Kwong Jinliang became the head of Aikang's Hong Kong R&D center.

Hawke's preparation for Kwong Jinliang's new appointment is naturally to show his goodwill to his big boss Li Xuan. Compared with most of the current management of Aikang, Kwong Jinliang, who has been working in Hong Kong, has a much closer relationship with Li Xuan.

At the beginning, Li Xuan opened a lot of golden fingers during the development of the series of computers, and these golden fingers were realized by directing Kwong Jinliang. If someone is careful to search for the early patents on the series of computers, including the key-102 keyboard patent, etc., the co-developers of many patents have Evan Kwong's name on them.

Li Xuan nodded. He approved of Hawke's proposal. Chris Currie has not made much contribution to the development of the company except for the name of the founder of the company. It will not be much loss to sweep him out.

Hawke's nomination of Kwong Jinliang is obviously to correct the previous mistakes and re-strengthen the ties between Aikang and Hong Kong. In fact, Hawke's mind has been very clear. Icon company can have the current achievements. He and other executives didn't contribute much. In contrast, Aikang's development relies more on the support of the entire Oriental Group.

For example, of the 455,000 units sold in the first half of this year, 250,000 units were sold through Yu Computer Park's chain stores. Aikang's self-built sales channels are mainly concentrated in Europe, while the sales in the two major markets of the United States and Japan are mainly completed with the assistance of Oriental Commercial.

In addition, the series of computers, as well as the CW-8203 workstation launched this year, many of their important patents are in the hands of the Oriental Research Institute, and Aikang has only obtained the authorization to use them. Moreover, the processors and supporting application software required for the production of series computers and CW-8203 workstations are also developed and produced by other subsidiaries of Dongfang Electronics. Even those Hong Kong electronics factories that produce OEM for Aikang are inextricably linked with Dongfang Electronics.

It can be said that Li Xuan's penetration of Aikang is comprehensive, not to mention that he still holds 60% of the equity. Not long ago, Oriental Group just made a strategic investment in a Taiwanese electronics company. The Taiwanese company, Acer, previously mainly produced a personal computer called the "Little Professor One".

Of course, although "Little Professor No. 1" is also called a personal computer, it is actually just a basic single-board computer, and it is not the same as a personal computer like a computer. What is a single board computer? As the name implies, it is just a bare circuit board, which can only perform simple input and output, and it does not have a special case and monitor like a computer.

"Little Professor No. 1" sold well after its launch in Taiwan, and it was also exported to the US market with a retail price of less than $200. But Acer is clearly not content to just make this simple thing, they want to really enter the rapidly growing personal computer market. The rise of Dongfang Electronics in Hong Kong clearly made Acer see an opportunity.

The founder and president of Acer, Mr. Shi Zhengrong, personally took ten technicians from Taiwan to Hong Kong. He and the technicians deliberately rented a house in Shatin and settled down, and then in the Oriental Experimental Building of the Oriental Research Institute, they immersed themselves in the technical information of the ERM architecture all day long, preparing to understand the performance of the ERM-1 processor at the fastest speed, and then Launch your own PC early.

In order to obtain the full support of the Oriental Research Institute, Shi Zhengrong also persuaded the other six partners to agree to let the Oriental Group take a stake in Acer as a strategic investor. In line with the principle of not putting eggs in the same basket, Li Xuan is naturally willing to invest in this Taiwanese company that was once the sales champion in the personal computer industry in later generations.

Before Li Xuan's rebirth, the total output value of the entire computer industry has exceeded 200 billion US dollars, and it is impossible for Aikang to eat all of it. In another time and space, the domestic Lenovo was the latecomer, and when it ranked first in personal computer sales, its market share was only 20%. With the full support of the Oriental Group, Aikang can maintain a market share of about 30% after 30 years, and Li Xuan is satisfied.

But Li Xuan's stake in Acer Electronics is definitely a very bad signal for Hawke, which means that Aikon's status in the entire Oriental Group has declined. Now it is only a strategic shareholding, and it is likely to be a full acquisition in the future. If Aikang is not obedient, Li Xuan can turn to support this new computer company at any time.

Of course ~www.readwn.com~ This possibility is not very big, but Hawke really felt the crisis. Therefore, he decided to come to Hong Kong to communicate with Li Xuan in person. In fact, he has always hoped to play a balance between major shareholders and small shareholders, which is more conducive to him controlling the entire listed company. After all, if he fully relies on the major shareholder, Hawke also needs to worry about whether he will be slowly overridden by the executives sent by Hong Kong.

But now, he has to make a decision, and his choice will undoubtedly make you more satisfied. In addition to kicking one of Icon's founders, senior vice president and CEO Chris Currie, Hawke is also preparing to fire another senior vice president in charge of marketing.

And Li Xuan naturally has to appease Hawke's softness. In addition to serving as senior vice president, Kwong Jinliang will also replace Currie as the director of Aikang. The other vacated senior vice president position was left to Hawke to promote his cronies.

As for the next adjustment of middle-level positions, Li Xuan has not taken it too seriously, and it will be coordinated by a group of executives themselves. But what is certain is that those people who liked to see that the company was born in the East and were faintly suppressed will get a lot of opportunities this time, so as to shorten the distance between Aikang and Hong Kong. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to come to the starting point () to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets. Your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile users, please read it.)