2025-07-15 14:43:00
Recently, the "Shenzhen Entrepreneurs Charity Spark Lecture" was held at Deqing Grandsun Electronic Company. Wu Haiquan, Vice President of the Shenzhen Entrepreneurs Association, founder and Chairman of Shenzhen Grandsun Electronic Co., Ltd., and a well-known entrepreneur in China's smart audio field, shared his insights under the theme "Old Brand New Engine: Cleer Unlocks New Opportunities with AI Technology". When he said at the venue of Deqing Grandsun Digital Fashion Electronic Industrial Park, "Every crisis is an upgrade," the audience could sense from his calm tone the resilience of a company that has weathered 28 years of challenges. From its humble beginnings as an OEM brand, to becoming a leader in the global smart audio field, Grandsun Electronic' growth trajectory is etched with the struggle of "near-death experiences" and infused with the determination of "phoenix rising from the ashes" - four potentially fatal crises that ultimately became the fulcrum for upgrading, while AI technology is the sharpest breakthrough weapon forged in this transformation.
Field of Life and Death: The escalating cracks torn open by four crises
The growth of a company is never a linear and smooth journey. Every leap forward of Grandsun Electronic is made on the debris of crises. The four "life-and-death crises" revealed by Wu Haiquan in his sharing are precisely the transformation code for this company to move from "survival" to "excellence".
The surge in copper prices from 2002 to 2004 hit the steadily growing Grandsun Electronic like a punch in the face. At that time, the cost of copper accounted for a very high proportion, and the copper price soared from 16,000 yuan/ton to 80,000 yuan/ton, directly squeezing the profit margin to negative territory. "At that time, everyone was discussing whether to raise prices, but Wu Haiquan was thinking about another core issue: why should we tie our fate to primary materials?" This crisis forced the company to break away from its dependence on traditional materials and turn to the research and development of diversified alternative materials. This not only resolved the cost crisis but also marked the first revolution in business philosophy - a leap from "passively responding to costs" to "actively defining products," laying the groundwork for subsequent technological innovation.
The impact of the 2008 financial crisis was even more severe. Just as Grandsun Electronic' Shenzhen industrial park was about to commence production, global orders vanished overnight, leaving us without a single deal for half a year. "The factory was empty, the workers were waiting, and the banks were pressing for repayment," Wu Haiquan recalls with a sigh. But it was precisely this desperate situation that shattered the company's illusions about relying on "big customers." He made a firm decision to invest core resources in building the independent brand Cleer, proclaiming the slogan of "high-end and internationalization," and recruiting talents from 42 countries and regions. This bold gamble may have seemed risky, but it allowed Grandsun Electronic to break free from the shackles of being an "OEM factory" and stand at the global market table for the first time.
The bankruptcy crisis of an overseas client in 2012 unexpectedly opened the door to deepening technological exploration. The sudden collapse of a New Zealand client engaged in intelligent noise reduction caused Grandsun Electronic' capital chain to tighten instantly, but Wu Haiquan keenly captured the patents and core team value left behind by the other party. He decisively decided to reorganize the business around the passively acquired intelligent noise reduction technology IP, transforming the crisis into an opportunity for "technical catch-up", ultimately precipitating the world's top intelligent noise reduction and leading audio technology. "At that moment, we realized that clients may leave, but technological capabilities always belong to ourselves." This "forced technological innovation awareness" became a key turning point for Grandsun Electronic to transition from "brand operation" to "technology-driven".
The pandemic-induced market crisis in 2020 once again tested the response speed of enterprises. When domestic offline channels were frozen, Grandsun Electronic did not panic, but quickly assembled a live streaming e-commerce team of hundreds of people and delved deeply into new media platforms such as Tiktok. The data speaks for itself: since 2021, its own brand Cleer has consistently ranked first in the headphones category priced over 1,000 yuan on Tiktok. At the same time, the company has laid out plans to build a production base in the Philippines and a manufacturing base in Deqing, China, enabling it to expand despite the turbulence in the global supply chain. This crisis taught Grandsun Electronic to evolve from "relying on traditional channels" to "mastering the digital wave" and acquiring international capabilities.
Four crises, four turnarounds. Wu Haiquan's "survival rules" remain clear to this day: focus on the main business (over 20 years of deep cultivation in headphones and audio, without touching real estate or finance), take technological innovation as the core, and deeply cultivate our own brand. These three ironclad rules have enabled Grandsun Electronic to maintain its foundation in every crisis while accurately finding breakthroughs for upgrading.
Nirvana realm: From a technology follower to a rule maker
The struggle in the crisis ultimately condenses into the "anti-fragile" ability of the enterprise; and what truly enabled Grandsun Electronic to undergo a "phoenix涅槃" transformation was its "breakthrough" in the fields of brand and technology. The Cleer brand, founded in 2012, is the best footnote to this transformation.
In order to shape the DNA of a "luxury-grade Cleer audio brand," Grandsun Electronic has invested almost obsessively. The naming of the Cleer brand cost tens of millions to acquire trademark rights globally. The Chinese name "可麗爾" is derived from the meaning of "clear and natural," incorporating the imagery of the "water" element to convey the concept of "Clear" sound quality. At the same time, Cleer focuses on honing core technologies, with its products equipped with a 6-nanometer chip (ahead of the commonly used 7-nanometer chip technology in mobile phones) and a six-core neural network processor to achieve self-learning capabilities. Cleer has launched its self-developed AI agent "Tao of Listening," which supports mainstream AI large models such as Baidu ERNIE Bot, deepseek, and Doubao, transforming headphones from "audio listening devices" into "new productivity tools at your ear." As of now, Cleer has achieved 29 internationally leading technological achievements, and its new products Cleer ARC 5 and Clip Star Arc released in April this year include more than 20 world-first technologies.
This "hard technology" prowess has swiftly earned Cleer international recognition. Participating in the Geneva International Invention Exhibition, one of the world's top three invention exhibitions, for two consecutive years from 2024 to 2025, Cleer secured 3 gold and 6 silver medals. From entering over 1,000 Apple national channels in July 2024 to expanding to over 10,000 in 2025, becoming a key partner of Apple in China - these achievements are attributed to Grandsun Electronic' transformation from a "technology follower" to a "rule maker".
Green development represents another dimension of its "rebirth". The Shenzhen campus of Grandsun Electronic has achieved 100% renewable energy usage by establishing an energy carbon management platform, introducing photovoltaic energy storage systems, and fully switching to green electricity. The green coverage rate of the campus exceeds 65%. It has been awarded national-level green factory, zero-carbon factory, zero-landfill waste certification, and its products have obtained zero-carbon (carbon neutral) and carbon footprint certification. Additionally, it was honored as one of the top ten low-carbon cases in the China Pavilion at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28 in Dubai. The Deqing Grandsun Electronic Campus has been awarded Zhaoqing municipal-level green factory, green and beautiful factory, and zero-carbon factory certification, as well as product carbon footprint certification. It has also initiated applications for provincial and national-level green factory certifications.
On July 1, 2025, Deqing Grandsun Electronic solidly promoted the ecological construction work of "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" and received a notice of commendation from the General Office of the CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and the General Office of the Guangdong Provincial People's Government, responding to the construction of "Green and Beautiful Guangdong" with practical actions. The concept of "hard technology + soft ecology" has enabled Grandsun Electronic to grow without the label of "high energy consumption" associated with traditional manufacturing, and has also earned it a voice in sustainable development in the global market.
The deep penetration of AI technology lends this transformation a futuristic feel. On April 22nd this year, the 56th World Earth Day, the launch of the new generation of open-type AI headphones, ARC5, and the world's first open-type head-worn AI headphones, CLIP, which has been in development for 10 years, not only feature AI functions such as AI noise reduction, head-nodging to answer calls, and body-sensing control, but also rely on the Snapdragon S7 Pro platform and ultra-low-power WiFi chip to achieve industry-leading anti-interference capabilities. Cleer products tailored to different scenarios such as food delivery, cycling (supporting speeds of up to 35km/h), gaming, meditation, yoga, hearing aid, and learning demonstrate AI's precise capture of user needs. The world's first open-type AI headphones with Class II medical device certification combine medical devices with open-type AI headphones for the first time, pioneering a new milestone in AI headphones + health and charting a new path against "internal competition". Within the enterprise, a dual-driven model of "product AI + management AI" has taken shape - with over half of the annual meetings focusing on AI applications, allowing technological innovation to penetrate every aspect of research and development, production, and marketing.
New Journey: From "Century-old Enterprise" to "Eco-co-builder"
Today, Grandsun Electronic stands at a new starting point. The completion and commissioning of the first phase of the Deqing Grandsun Digital Fashion Electronic Industrial Park signifies not just the completion of a physical space, but also embodies Wu Haiquan's ambition to "build a century-old building and become a century-old enterprise". Located in the new industrial city of Deqing, this park is positioned as an important platform for capacity expansion. The "policy and location advantages", "process innovation and green development", "hundred, thousand, and million projects", and "rural revitalization" emphasized by Guangdong leaders at various levels during their multiple investigations are resonating with Grandsun Electronic' strategic layout.
What is even more groundbreaking is the industrial integration and development between Grandsun Electronic and Deqing. The planned "AI+ Agriculture" laboratory will apply intelligent noise reduction technology to the sorting of mandarin oranges - by identifying subtle sound differences caused by fruit collisions, it will enhance sorting efficiency and accuracy. Relying on the Deqing Cleer New Media Sales Center established by Deqing Yashi College, it attempts to replicate Grandsun Electronic' successful experience on Tiktok, with the promotion of "adopting a mandarin orange tree and receiving a Cleer headset" to help sell Deqing agricultural products. "Deqing's green waters and lush mountains attract Cleer, which pursues pure and natural wonderful sounds," said Wu Haiquan, revealing the evolution of the enterprise's role from "self-development" to "ecological co-construction".
From OEM and ODM to the global Cleer smart audio brand, from being surrounded by crises to being empowered by AI, the story of Grandsun Electronic is a microcosm of the "nine-death-and-one-life" experience of China's manufacturing industry. Those crises that once brought the company to the brink of extinction have ultimately been transformed into a ladder for upgrading; those concepts that have been precipitated through struggle - focusing on the main business, embracing change, and revering technology - have become a compass for navigating through cycles.
As Wu Haiquan said at the end of the sharing session, "The breakthrough of time-honored brands has never been about returning to the past, but about unlocking new possibilities with new technologies." For Grandsun Electronic, the four trials of life and death have not only forged a stronger enterprise, but also cultivated an ability to seek certainty in uncertainty. This ongoing "phoenix rebirth" may be a harbinger of more possibilities for China's intelligent manufacturing.
