In the era when Nokia and Motorola were raging, Jinli suddenly emerged. At its peak, Gionee mobile phones had Andy Lau and Feng Xiaogang as endorsements, and the slogan "golden quality, set the world" spread throughout the streets.

But in November 2018, a video of Liu Lirong admitting to losing more than one billion in gambling went viral. Later, it was revealed online that Liu Lirong was on the list of scammers and his whereabouts became a mystery.

Gionee has since fallen from the altar and officially declared bankruptcy in December.

Liu Lirong was born into an ordinary rural family in Taojiang County, Hunan Province in November 1972. His parents are both out-and-out farmers.

When Liu Lirong was a student, he was smart and had very good academic performance. He was among the best in almost every grade. In 1990, 18-year-old Liu Lirong took the college entrance examination and was admitted to Central South University with excellent results.

During his college days, Liu Lirong became obsessed with Go. Not only does he like to play chess, but he is also a master of Go. His Go level has reached Level 6, and he has few opponents among his classmates. Unless you meet a professional Go player, it will be difficult for ordinary Go enthusiasts to defeat him.

Liu Lirong enjoyed the feeling of winning the game, especially the sense of accomplishment of turning defeat into victory, but this also paved the way for his future failures.

In the 1990s, jobs were assigned after college graduation. After Liu Lirong graduated from university, he was assigned to the Tianjin Nonferrous Metals Research Institute, with a monthly salary of about 500.

Stable income, coupled with a working background in a state-owned enterprise, was an iron rice bowl that many people envied at that time.

But Liu Lirong did not intend to do this. He did not like this kind of boring and samey job. The life Liu Lirong wants is as challenging and ever-changing as a chess game.

A year later, Liu Lirong resolutely quit his job amid opposition from his family and went to Guangdong to seek a new development direction.

Not long after arriving in Guangzhou, Liu Lirong entered the Japanese factory YKK, "the originator of the zipper industry". The monthly salary was about 3,000 yuan, which was much higher than the income from working in the research institute.

After working at YKK for a few months, Liu Lirong had the idea of ????resigning because he found that almost all the company's leaders and senior executives were Japanese or Hong Kong people, and he had no chance of success here.

While Liu Lirong was working at YKK, Xiaobawang Electronic Technology Company, which was popular all over the country, fell into a moment of crisis. Because Duan Yongping, the company's core figure, resigned and took away several core managers.

It is said that Duan Yongping took 6 people with him when he left, including Chen Mingyong of OPPO, Shen Wei of VIVO and Jin Zhijiang of BBK. In order to maintain the market of Xiaobawang, Yang Minggui was appointed as the general manager of Xiaobawang and announced the talent recruitment news.

After learning about the incident in Little Overlord, Liu Lirong thought that this might be his chance. He believed that with his talents, he would be able to make some achievements in Little Overlord.

So Liu Lirong decisively quit his job at YKK and successfully joined Xiaobawang Company through the interview.

With his intelligence, hard work and hard work, Liu Lirong quickly distinguished himself in Little Overlord. General Manager Yang Minggui admires this motivated young man and intends to promote him. Liu Lirong was promoted to the director of production management within less than half a year of working at Xiaobawang.

In 1997, Yang Minggui believed that his accumulation was enough, so he resigned as the general manager of Xiaobawang, taking Liu Lirong with him when he left.

Yang Minggui founded Jinzheng Technology Company in Dongguan, and Liu Lirong was placed in the position of executive vice president. He was just 25 years old at this time.

It must be said that Liu Lirong made a very bold move from Tianjin to Guangdong, but it was also very successful.

Liu Lirong, who is in his twenties, has an extremely rich work resume. His transformation from general worker to management director to vice president has also enabled him to grow rapidly.

Jinzheng Technology positioned its main focus on the DVD and VCD industries. Yang Minggui followed Duan Yongping's management style and successively developed Jinzheng's core product "H Series" VCD. Jinzheng Technology quickly occupied the market and developed rapidly.

In 1998, "H Series" VCD won the title of "China's Most Competitive National Brand".

In 1999, Jinzheng took the lead in launching a new generation of high-quality DVDs and created a new craze in the domestic DVD industry through the "Golden Apple Project".

This year, the smuggled goods of Ye Xiaofan, a major smuggler, were seized by the police. The goods contained the disc player decoding chip used by Jin Zheng.

Because of this incident, Kim Jong’s principals Yang Minggui and Liu Lirong were questioned by the customs for 48 hours.

Two years later, Ye Xiaofan was arrested and Jin Zheng was implicated again. However, the founder Yang Minggui was missing, and the relevant departments had to take away Liu Lirong, who was the vice president.

This time Liu Lirong was repeatedly examined for half a year, and he was not released until April 2002. When he returned to Jinzheng, he found that the company was already in chaos. The electronics industry is updating at an extremely fast pace. After half a year of being leaderless, Jinzheng Technology's products have not kept up with the times.

Liu Lirong once again had the idea of ????resigning. This time he was not going to work. He wanted to start his own business. The past few years of working experience made him understand that working in other people's companies, no matter how high the position, is just a chess piece. If you want to grasp sovereignty, you must step out of the identity of a chess piece and become a chess player.

In 2002, Liu Lirong founded Gionee Communications in Shenzhen, with its main focus still on the electronics industry. During his several years working at "Little Overlord" and "Jin Zheng", Liu Lirong saw the infinite possibilities in the electronics industry.

Although he decided to develop in the electronics industry, Liu Lirong hesitated for a long time as to what product to make. Finally, he looked at his mobile phone and pondered for a long time.

At this time, the mainstream brands in the mobile phone market are Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola. These companies are all foreign companies, and no Chinese mobile phone brand can compete with these three brands.

In 2002, OPPO and VIVO had not yet separated from Bubu High School, Huawei’s mobile phone business department had not yet been established, and Lei Jun was still serving as the president of Kingsoft.

Liu Lirong decided to enter the mobile phone industry and compete with three established companies for the Chinese mobile phone market. This is a difficult challenge, but the 30-year-old Liu Lirong is in his prime.

The successful experiences of "Little Overlord" and "Jin Zheng" made Liu Lirong understand that electronic products must have their own core technology in order to be competitive. He found that although foreign companies such as Nokia have mature technologies, their text input methods are not friendly to Chinese people, and it is extremely inconvenient to use English-based languages.

Taking language as a breakthrough, Liu Lirong developed the Gionee GN303, which features a handwriting input method and ultra-large battery capacity.

Once the phone was released, it successfully helped Gionee open up the market and achieved great success.

In 2003, one year after Gionee was founded, sales of mobile phones exceeded one million units, and annual sales reached 800 million yuan.

It only took Liu Lirong one year to successfully capture a lot of market share from foreign companies such as Nokia and Samsung. In 2004, the sales volume of Gionee mobile phones reached about 1.7 million units, which was higher than that in 2003. Nearly doubled year on year.

Sales are booming, but Liu Lirong is not satisfied because the current Gionee is manufactured under the Tianshida brand, and Gionee itself does not have a brand or related qualifications. According to the agreement, every time Gionee sells a mobile phone, it will pay Tianshida dozens of yuan in OEM fees.

Liu Lirong understands that if Gionee wants to go long term, it must develop its own brand and master more core technologies.

On March 25, 2004, Liu Lirong invested in the establishment of Gionee Mobile Communications Design Institute.

In 2005, Gionee successfully obtained a mobile phone production license, and Liu Lirong decided to make a big deal.

In December 2004, "A World Without Thieves" directed by Feng Xiaogang and starring Andy Lau and Rene Liu was a great success, and the popularity of Andy Lau and Feng Xiaogang remained high. Liu Lirong also watched the movie and even had a bold idea: What effect would be achieved if Feng Xiaogang and Andy Lau were invited to advertise for Gionee at the same time.

Soon after, Gionee's first advertising endorsement was born, and the slogan "Golden Quality, Set the World" spread throughout the streets. That year, Feng Xiaogang and Andy Lau's star effect helped Gionee's monthly sales exceed 400,000 units in December.

Liu Lirong enjoyed the success brought by advertising, and he continued to increase investment in advertising while the iron was hot.

Gionee has successively placed advertisements on CCTV, Hunan Satellite TV and many other TV stations, and sponsored the phenomenon-level talent show "Super Girl" launched by Hunan Satellite TV.

This series of publicity has brought Gionee unprecedented attention, and its sales have also increased by leaps and bounds. In 2006, the annual sales of Gionee mobile phones exceeded 4 million units.

While increasing publicity, Liu Lirong did not relax the research and development of core technologies. In 2006, Gionee launched a new GSM/GPRS color screen candy bar phone named Gionee H6.

This mobile phone became one of Gionee's classic works of the year and won the title of "Top Ten Mobile Phones of 2006" at the 40th International Consumer Electronics Show.

In the following two years, Gionee's development soared. In 2007, sales doubled again, exceeding 8 million units. By 2008, Gionee's mobile phone market share ranked first among domestic mobile phones. Ranked fifth in the entire mobile phone industry.

It is hard to imagine that this is an achievement made by a company that has only been established for 6 years.

In 2010, Gionee continued to carry out two-way efforts in advertising and performance, bringing the phenomenon-level mobile phone "Voice King" Gionee A350 mobile phone. The black and gold color business model and the curved appearance design made the entire mobile phone It is stylish and calm, and coupled with the long advertisements that are played repeatedly on the TV, it is difficult not to pay attention to this phone.

In 2011, Gionee was awarded the title of the only “China Well-known Trademark” in the mobile phone industry.

But this year, the iPhone is here, and so is Xiaomi.

In August 2011, Xiaomi released its first smartphone, Xiaomi m1. This mobile phone successfully opened a new era of Chinese smartphones in pre-sale mode. At this time, Gionee was still immersed in the achievements brought by the "Voice King" and failed to carry out technical updates in time.

In October 2011, Apple swept the Chinese market with its new IPhone 4S. Its built-in Siri intelligent voice system brought mobile phones into a truly intelligent era.

At the same time, OPPO, VIVO, and Huawei have successively launched their own smartphones, and even Luo Yonghao has launched Smartisan Technology.

In 2014, Jinli woke up and began to change direction and develop smartphones, but it was too late. Although Gionee launched the Gionee S5.1 mobile phone that year, which broke the Guinness record for the thinnest mobile phone in the world with a 5.11mm body, the smartphone market has already been divided up.

In 2011, the sales volume of Gionee mobile phones was 21 million units. By 2016, the sales volume of Gionee mobile phones barely exceeded 40 million units. It is hard to imagine that it took five years for a mobile phone company that once ranked first Achievements made.

In the past five years, what has Liu Lirong, the founder of Gionee, been busy with? The answer is real estate.

As early as 2010, when Gionee Voice King was a great success, Liu Lirong felt that the mobile phone industry was no longer challenging, so he turned to the real estate industry and handed over Gionee to Lu Weibing.

Obviously, Lu Weibing failed to defend Gionee.

In 2017, Liu Lirong returned with the Gionee M2017 mobile phone king. The ultra-large-capacity battery design (7000mAh), ultra-large-capacity storage combination (6+256GB) and even the 2K ultra-high-definition AMOLED display made it popular at the time One of the reasons for its unparalleled popularity.

Liu Lirong also invited Feng Xiaogang and his wife to endorse this mobile phone, hoping to recreate the glory of the year. However, the price of this phone is as high as 17,000 yuan, which discourages many consumers. In contrast, Xiaomi phones priced under 2,000 yuan are not very popular.

In order to cater to consumers at all levels, Liu Lirong took a new approach and launched 8 mobile phones at different price points in November 2017.

It also invested a total of nearly 6 billion in advertising fees for promotion, and also sponsored the popular program "The Strongest Brain" at the time.

However, times have long since changed. Mobile phone consumer groups, mainly young people, pay more attention to product performance and experience. Liu Lirong's series of operations failed to change Gionee's declining situation. In 2017, Gionee's mobile phone sales were around 30 million units, a drop of 10 million units from 2016.

This year, OPPO and Huawei were far ahead with sales of nearly 60 million units, VIVO also sold nearly 50 million units, and the sales of Iphone and Xiaomi also exceeded 30 million units.

The contrast between high marketing investment and low sales has caused Gionee's profits to begin to show a negative growth trend. At this time, compared with Xiaomi, Iphone and other mobile phones, Gionee mobile phones have no other advantages except for their large battery capacity.

The only way for Gionee to gain a foothold in the field of smartphones is to carry out thorough technological changes and once again build the core technology of Gionee mobile phones.

But Liu Lirong did not realize this. He believed that the reason for the decline in Gionee's sales was simply insufficient publicity. He believes that as long as the advertising is widely enough and the spokespersons invited are famous enough, Gionee can rise again.

The 6 billion marketing expenses did not stop Liu Lirong. When he was about to increase advertising investment again, he found that Gionee had little liquidity on its books.

In order to raise funds, Liu Lirong made a bold decision. At the end of 2017, Liu Lirong got on a flight to Saipan. He wanted to save the declining Gionee through gambling.

However, Liu Lirong did not receive any funds from this trip. Instead, he lost the 2 billion yuan he brought out.

At this time, if Liu Lirong turns around and uses Gionee's remaining liquidity to develop technology, Gionee may have a chance to be reborn, but this "business chess king" is just not willing to gamble for the first time. After the failure, he began to prepare for his second gamble, and Liu Lirong once again embarked on a flight to Saipan.

Several close personal friends with Liu Lirong went to Saipan to find Liu Lirong and tried to persuade him to turn back. But Liu Lirong said: "This is the last time, I want to give it a try."

However, this time, Liu Lirong lost 700 million US dollars.

Liu Lirong’s two gambles completely put Jinli on the road to destruction. News about Gionee's capital shortage and debt of 20 billion appeared on the Internet, which became more and more intense.

As public opinion continues to ferment, it is also reported that Jin will go bankrupt immediately and founder Liu Lirong will run away.

At this point, Liu Lirong had to stand up and explain: "I will not leave Gionee, and I didn't lose that much in gambling, probably more than a billion."

"I think now The best thing is to give up. I don’t want to respond to these rumors. It’s better for me to become an invisible person.” Liu Lirong said in the interview.

Regarding whether the money lost was Gionee’s public funds, Liu Lirong said: “It has been nearly 16 years since I founded Gionee. I personally have no other source of income except Gionee, so it may not be possible financially. There will be acts of borrowing company funds regardless of public and private matters.”

In December 2018, when a senior Gionee employee came to work as usual, he saw several police cars suddenly arriving at Gionee’s factory. Several factories were sealed.

Gionee has also publicly admitted that the company is indeed in a debt crisis, and that the company will carry out layoffs to reduce operating costs, but in order to maintain stable production, it will retain about 50% of its employees.

At this time, some top management of Gionee saw that the company was about to close down, and they also switched jobs to look for new companies. Among them, Lu Weibing, the former president of Gionee, joined Lei Jun's Xiaomi as the vice president of Xiaomi.

On December 10, 2018, the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court of Guangdong Province made a ruling that Shenzhen Huaxing Bank Shenzhen Branch accepted the bankruptcy liquidation application submitted by Gionee.

Subsequently, Gionee’s assets entered the auction process. In May 2019, a Gionee Mercedes-Benz sedan was auctioned for about 2.1 million; in November 2020, a Gionee developed More than 3,000 domestic patents and more than 70 foreign patents were packaged and auctioned. The starting price was 1.7197 million, and the final transaction price was 1.717 million.

As Gionee's assets were gradually auctioned, Liu Lirong was personally listed as a person subject to enforcement for breach of trust. There were hundreds of rulings on Gionee and Liu Lirong.

Just when people wanted to know what Liu Lirong was doing now, they found that they could not find his whereabouts. Some people said that Liu Lirong went to Hong Kong, while others said that Liu Lirong went to the United States. The truth about gambling , some people say this is just a means for Liu Lirong to transfer assets.

No matter what Liu Lirong is doing now, Gionee has indeed disappeared into history, or the "Voice King" advertisements circulating on the Internet are still telling the story of its glory back then.

1. China Research Network: "The latest news of Gionee Group in 2019: Gionee becomes the person subject to execution again. Why did Gionee fall into bankruptcy?" ”

2. Economic Observer Network: “Economic Liu Lirong’s equity is frozen: How far is Gionee from a “beautiful ending”? 》