Chapter 1659: a task that can not be done

When the "Iridium Star" company was listed, it did cause a wave of enthusiasm. After all, Nasdaq, which prefers high-tech themes, likes such companies with a certain high-tech background, gimmicks and full of creativity, and can even tolerate such companies It will not be profitable for a short period of time after listing. As long as the company can see the prospect of profitability in the future, it can give a higher market valuation of the company and gain the favor of public investors.
Please read the content of the previous paragraph carefully again, and pay attention to one of the words: "You must be able to see the prospects of the company's future profitability."
So for a satellite communications service provider, how can we make public investors believe that the company will be profitable in the future?
The simplest, most direct and at the same time the most important method in the capital market is to prove it with the ever-increasing number of customers.
For the "Iridium" company, the largest investment for R&D technology has been executed, and the results have been achieved. The next largest investment is 66 satellites as fixed assets and attached ground facilities. The investment has been completed, and the next step is the relatively fixed annual maintenance cost of the system. Then, when the number of users reaches a certain scale, the income can cover all the expenses and generate profits. According to Motorola's calculations, the break-even point is 500,000— —In other words, as long as the "Iridium" company can find 500,000 users worldwide, it is enough to maintain the company's normal operations, and when the number of users exceeds this number, the "Iridium" company will generate profits.
In 1999, the total population of Bluestar has exceeded 6 billion. Is it impossible to find 500,000 users from these 6 billion people? The "Iridium" company has gathered 28 of the world's top wealthy shareholders, each of whom has a significant influence on their country or region. Each of them only needs to find 18,000 local users on average to make the "Iridium" company. Is it difficult to continue normal operations with the energy of these shareholders?
Facts have proved that this is really difficult, very difficult, and an impossible task.
There are two main advantages of the "Iridium" system. One is that the satellite orbit is low, the transmission speed is fast, the information loss is small, and the communication quality is much higher than that of the previous satellite phones; the other is that no special ground receiving station is required, and each satellite is mobile. Hand-held phones can be connected to satellites, which makes communication unimpeded in the inaccessible places on the earth, remote areas with backward communications, and natural disaster sites.
These two advantages are also important reasons why Motorola was able to fool 28 of the world’s top richest people to invest in projects, but that was in the 1980s, and now it is the end of the twentieth century, and the new millennium is about to enter the new millennium, and the market environment has undergone an earthshaking. The change.
When Motorola proposed the "Iridium" plan, mobile communications was still a new industry worldwide. Whether it was building a cellular wireless communication base station or purchasing a mobile phone terminal, it would cost a lot of money. Take Huaxia as an example. At that time, it took about RMB 40,000 to buy a "Big Brother". At that time, the average monthly income of employees in China was less than RMB 200. Therefore, for most people, there was no The popularization of the ability to consume this kind of commodity seems almost indefinite.
For those who can afford to consume a "Big Brother", because the construction cost of the base station is high, it is slow to be comparable to a snail; the communication range of "Big Brother" is limited to a limited area near the big city. This has caused a lot of trouble for them to obtain timely information. In this market environment, the high-priced but full-coverage communication capabilities provided by "Iridium" seem very attractive.
However, with the advancing speed of ground wireless base stations in recent years, the coverage has become wider and wider, and with the advancement of technology, the price of personal handheld terminals, that is, mobile phones, is also falling. Take the Huaxia market as an example. The average price of mobile phones has fallen to the range of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan. At this time, the average wage level of China’s current employees is close to 1,000 yuan. Mobile phones are no longer exclusive to the rich. Many middle-class families in China’s cities have the ability to buy, and they have naturally become the main consumer. The market sales have exploded. This in turn has promoted the enthusiasm of traffic service providers to set up base stations. Communication blind spots have been wiped out by large areas. The competitive advantage of "Iridium" is becoming less and less obvious-you can buy similar services for 3,000 yuan, so why spend tens of thousands?
After all, the vast majority of commercial activities in the world actually revolve around central cities, and those who need to go to inaccessible deep mountains and ridges to engage in situations are very rare.
This is the case for China, and it is similar all over the world. Therefore, after the official commercial use of "Iridium", apart from the fact that the sales in the first two months have been "storing" potential customers for more than ten years, there is a short and rapid The dazzling performance of growth, followed by a cliff-like decline, and finally even monthly sales fell into a negative number!
Yes, you read that right. In the third month after the official launch of the "Iridium" phone, the number of users reached a peak of 55,000, and then fell all the way. A large number of customers leave the network every month. The terminal purchased with huge sums of money is thrown into the corner to eat ashes, and I am unwilling to pay for renewal!
Because the cost of using this product is too high, and because the entire system was forced to speed up the pace of deployment due to huge debts, it was rushed to market for commercial use. Many technical problems have not been completely and effectively resolved. For example, This kind of phone has indeed fulfilled its original promise, and its call quality has greatly improved compared with previous satellite phones-provided that you have to stand in an open place. And when it is used in a building with a reinforced concrete structure? Because the signal will cause great loss when penetrating such materials, the user experience will become extremely poor, and its call effect is comparable to the PHS that was once popular in China, which is also nicknamed "feed, feed, slot". That thing...
Looking back at the users targeted by this phone, those who can afford the money must be regarded as "global high-end people"? But the fact remains the same-the vast majority of business activities in the world are actually carried out around central cities, and most of them are in buildings made of reinforced concrete. You let those global high-end people who have spent a lot of money use one "Hey, hey, trough", this is really...
Therefore, it is not surprising that more and more users are "turning black fans".
Nasdaq investors, who are extremely optimistic about the growth of the number of customers of the "Iridium" company, are keenly aware of this trend, and soon reflect it in their investment willingness-"Iridium" company stocks all the way On the downside, public financial statements have become more and more unbearable, and the market has begun to rumors that the company will go bankrupt and reorganize.
As a listed company, all financial information of the company must be disclosed to the public, and the huge liabilities of the "Iridium Star Company" have naturally been made public for a long time. You must know that the total interest-bearing liabilities on the company's books are as high as 4 billion US dollars. More than 40 million US dollars in interest must be repaid every month!
As a result, on August 13, 1999, several board shareholders who could not tolerate the company’s poor financial situation were forced to file an application for bankruptcy protection of the "Iridium Star" company to the court because there was an application two days later. The debt of up to 90 million U.S. dollars is due, and the company can't afford to repay this debt, and even the interest on maturity cannot be paid.
If you don't apply for bankruptcy protection at this time, I am afraid that the 100 million dollars invested at the time will be lost.
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