Smartisan Retrospective Revisits Nut Pro 2 and R1 as Products Outpaced Company Fortunes

The retrospective starts with 2016, when Smartisan’s finances were exposed. According to the article, citing a September 2016 央广网 report based on Chengdu Nibiru’s prospectus, Smartisan lost 462 million yuan in 2015 and 192 million yuan in the first half of 2016, with cumulative losses exceeding 650 million yuan in 18 months. Total assets fell from 825 million yuan at the end of 2015 to 296 million yuan on June 30, 2016; net assets dropped from 193 million yuan to 209,800 yuan, and media reports at the time put the debt-to-asset ratio at 99%. Sales of the T1, T2 and Nut series totaled about 2 million units by 2016, the article says, and an authorized seller said daily sales fell from 60 units to one or two; a Suning flagship store did not sell a single T2 in a month.

Smartisan held two launches in 2017 and released the Nut Pro and Nut Pro 2. The Pro 2, its first full-screen phone, used a Snapdragon 660 processor, started at 1,799 yuan and reached a 99.9% positive rating on JD.com, according to data Smartisan shared at the C21 forum and cited by the article. The retrospective says the phone became a hot seller in the 2,000-yuan segment and helped Smartisan ship about 3.4 million phones in 2017, according to then media reports.

The article lists the Pro 2’s 5.99-inch 18:9 display at 2160 by 1080 pixels with an 81.9% screen-to-body ratio, a rear Smartisan logo that doubled as a fingerprint sensor, 4GB or 6GB RAM, 18W charging and a 3,500mAh battery. It also reviews Smartisan OS 4.1, including One Step for drag-and-drop sharing, Idea Pills for voice notes and reminders, and Big Bang for text extraction. The author writes that these features were distinctive at the time but have since become common in Chinese phone systems, with similar functions built into notification, wallet and text-recognition tools.

For the R1, the retrospective turns to May 15, 2018, when Smartisan held a launch at Beijing’s Bird’s Nest. The R1 used a Snapdragon 845 processor, offered 6GB or 8GB RAM and was among the first phones with 1TB storage, the article says. It had a 6.17-inch 2242 by 1080 display and the same logo-fingerprint design as the Pro 2. Smartisan marketed it as a “next-generation flagship” with a “computer from the future,” a reference to TNT.

TNT, short for Touch and Talk, let users connect the phone to a monitor through a dock and switch to a desktop interface, with USB ports for a wired keyboard and mouse; a wireless mode worked over the same local network and let the phone act as a remote mouse. The author argues that TNT was not a conventional PC but a way to lower the cost of desktop computing by turning one phone into both phone and host.

The commercial record was less favorable. The retrospective says the R1’s price fell repeatedly and was nicknamed the “diving champion” online. OFweek reported in January 2019 that the 1TB R1 launched at 8,848 yuan and fell to 6,999 yuan on third-party channels, a drop of more than 1,800 yuan. The TNT workstation, which had been presented as a major part of the launch, received too few orders and contract manufacturers were unwilling to take them, so it never reached mass production, according to media reports cited in the article; the retrospective calls it a symbolic event in the company’s decline.

In early 2019, ByteDance acquired part of Smartisan’s patent use rights and the original Nut phone team joined ByteDance’s New Stone Lab, with former Smartisan COO Wu Dezou as president, according to a Caixin report cited in the article. Luo Yonghao did not join the team and stayed to bear debt, the article says; he resigned as legal representative of several Smartisan-affiliated companies and said in September 2019 that new Smartisan phones had nothing to do with him, according to public reports at the time. The piece represents the author’s views, and 少数派 said it edited only the title and layout.

Editor’s Summary: The retrospective uses the Nut Pro 2 and R1 to contrast Smartisan’s product recognition with its financial and commercial troubles. It documents the 2016 losses, the Pro 2’s 2017 sales success, the R1 and TNT launch in 2018, and the 2019 ByteDance deal that took over the phone team. The account relies on 少数派’s feature and cited media reports, including figures on losses, pricing and shipments.