OPPO has invested billions of dollars in a project and said it would stop, but Zeku suddenly stopped developing, which is reminiscent of

According to netizens, employees of OPPO Zheku went on a business trip overseas last week to contact and cooperate. Unexpectedly, only a few days later, they received the news that all projects had been terminated on May 12th.

The sudden demise of the OPPO self-developed chip project, Zheku, not only caught Zheku employees off guard, but also surprised netizens in China who are concerned about the development of domestically produced self-developed chips. According to the disclosure, although all products are about to undergo trial production and domestic mobile phone chips are about to usher in new hope, the OPPO Zheku team suddenly announced its dissolution.

What a surprise! Surprisingly, it's a bit strange!

Currently, the official website of Zheku cannot be opened!

According to the chat records of employees in the online communication repository, there was no warning, warning, or buffer for the dissolution, and the personnel left their posts directly.

But fortunately, OPPO has provided relatively generous compensation, and some other chip companies have directly entered the Zheku employee group to start poaching, so the resulting turmoil is relatively controllable.

After all, it is an objective reality that there is a huge shortage of semiconductor talents in China. Zheku is like "a whale falls, everything grows", and most employees should not worry about finding jobs after leaving.

But for OPPO Zheku, who has already invested billions and spent several years, this scene is a lament. It should be noted that OPPO Zheku once went on an overheated search due to offering a 40W+annual salary to fresh graduates, which shows OPPO's sincerity in making chips.

As for the reason, OPPO provided that in the face of uncertainty in the global economy and mobile phone market, the company has decided to terminate the ZEKU business.

At present, it is believed that in addition to the official explanation from OPPO, other possible reasons include: market downturn, difficulty in sustaining funds; Receive a warning in advance, fearing that core making may lead to sanctions; The business model of OPPO does not allow Zheku to burn money for a long time; ARM tightening authorization increases the difficulty of self-developed chips

Compared to the various speculations above, it is evident that the reason for the difficulty in sustaining funds is more realistic. However, in addition to the decline in the mobile phone market itself, another important reason also includes the cold winter in the shipment of SoC chips for mobile phones. Not long ago, Qualcomm released its financial report for the second quarter of 2023, with a year-on-year decrease of 42% in net profit and high inventory!

Qualcomm executives expect that the customer destocking cycle will continue for two more quarters.

Qualcomm and MediaTek have both experienced inventory backlog and declining performance this year. As a novice OPPO, it is natural to treat their core making plans with caution. Survival is the most important factor in the market downturn cycle.

The news that OPPO employees had "year-end bonus discount" just a few days ago was significantly reduced compared with previous years, which triggered OPPO employees' roast on the social platform, which also reflects the pressure of OPPO today to some extent.

So far, OPPO has launched a total of two chips: Mariana X and Mariana Y. Further observation is needed to determine whether the abolition of Zheku will affect the subsequent development of OPPO's Mariana plan. However, given the current core making mode of Xiaomi and vivo, OPPO's Mariana plan should continue, but it will no longer focus on mobile SoC.