Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3185 Dumping the Market
Delay the case.

Ericsson has not received the money for a long time.

The longer the delay, the more anxious Ericsson becomes.

In order to reduce the loss of their own interests, they can only make appropriate compromises and concessions. It is better to gain less benefits than to gain nothing. By then, Ziweixing's self-developed chips can be exported legitimately and take over the Indian subcontinent.

Doing this is actually a bit against business ethics.

But the commercial market is the law of the jungle, and morality is a disguise of the victor after the law of the jungle.

Apple and Samsung have also been sued by Ericsson.

Same infringement.

It’s just that Apple and Samsung have different strategies and are in different regional environments.

Apple does not make mid- to low-end phones.

The Korean market is too small to support Samsung's self-developed chip business, and Samsung's self-developed chips are not much worse than Qualcomm's, ranging from low-end chips to high-end chips. If Samsung wants to keep its chip business, it must go overseas and compromise with Ericsson.

The biggest advantage of Astar is that the domestic market is large enough!

Even if the overseas market is restricted by Ericsson, at least there is still room for self-developed chips to survive in the domestic market. Whether it can succeed or not has nothing to do with the outside world, but mainly depends on oneself, and depends on how effective the self-developed chips are and whether they can be put into practice.

So far, the effect is pretty good.

There is no big problem when using it on low-end phones priced below 1000 yuan. Compared with other low-end chips on the market, the disadvantages of Astar's self-developed chips are higher heat generation and power consumption, but the advantage is that it has stronger computing power and can provide a smoother user experience for mobile phones.

Zhou Shaoning said: "Strategically speaking, we are more diversified than Samsung. We also have the copycat phone business. Of course, this is all related to your layout. This gives us more options and more countermeasures when facing external pressure."

"Copycat phone?" Zhou Buqi didn't really care about this matter. "How is it going?"

Zhou Shaoning smiled and said, "It's good. It has opened up the daily life in Nigeria. The first smartphone launched is equipped with Astar's self-developed chip. It costs $99 and is very popular locally. It can be said that it has had a huge impact on the local mobile phone market."

"99 dollars?" Zhou Buqi couldn't help but wonder, "Is this the cheapest smartphone in the world?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "That's true, so the local market exploded as soon as it was launched. The cheapest smartphone in the local area costs more than 180 US dollars, and the prices of many products are higher than in China. To the extent that the most popular smartphones there are actually second-hand smartphones."

"It really is."

Zhou Buqi nodded.

Not only mobile phones are second-hand, but Africa is in a state of extreme poverty, and many aspects of food, clothing, housing and transportation are second-hand. However, locals may not know that, for example, many second-hand clothes, after simple ironing and washing, are not much different from new clothes. Collect them for free in China or buy them for a few dollars, and then ship them to Africa to sell at low prices, such as 2 or 3 dollars per piece, which is a profitable business with several times the profit.

Zhou Shaoning said: "There are many people doing second-hand mobile phone business in China, but the domestic market is not big. There is no second-hand space for Android phones, and a small number of users will buy second-hand Apple products. The vast majority of second-hand recycling is basically shipped to Africa. For the African market, smartphones are generally too expensive, so they can only buy second-hand."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "At $99, it should be very lethal."

"Absolutely. This price is cheaper than second-hand phones and is the same price as feature phones. If we sell smartphones at a price lower than second-hand smartphones and the same price as feature phones, we will soon be able to expand the market. After being sued by Ericsson, our chip business was restricted. Lao Yan was very aggressive and said that he would purchase another 750 million self-produced chips, so I don't have to worry."

Zhou Shaoning was very happy about this, which could be said to provide him with strong support. The road to self-developed chips is very difficult.

It is not enough to just develop something. No matter how successful the product is in the laboratory, it is not convincing. It must be put into practice and have a market. Only after being tested in the market can we discover more subtle problems and make greater improvements in technology.

Even other markets are failing.

The domestic market and the African market for knockoff phones are enough to support the survival of self-developed chips. No matter how powerful Ericsson is, it is impossible to send the indictment to Africa, where it is difficult to survive, let alone protect intellectual property rights.

The most important thing is that African users are very poor and have rarely used good mobile phones.

Even though self-produced chips have many shortcomings.

It's enough to sell it to those black brothers who haven't seen it much! They are not that picky!
What's more, the price is so affordable!
“There’s no profit from this $99 price, right?”

Zhou Buqi was able to predict that in the early stages of development the main focus would be on building the brand and expanding the market.

"There shouldn't be much profit margin. I've seen their purchase orders, and the material cost should be more than $60." Zhou Shaoning laughed. "It's % domestically made. All spare parts, development, design, assembly, and production are all made in China. If it works well, there might be some profit margin. After all, there's not much competition in the African market, so there's no need to spend a lot of money on marketing like in China."

"60 US dollars... Isn't this just 400 Chinese yuan? You can put together a mobile phone with just this little money?"

Zhou Buqi was somewhat surprised.

Maybe we can make money once we enter the African market!
The material cost is $60, and the rest is employee salary expenses, transportation costs, taxes, marketing fees... At least by increasing the volume to reduce the marginal cost, it might actually be profitable!
"Almost. The outer shell and other things are all made of plastic, and they buy some leftovers from various warehouses. I think they are doing very well. Old Yan looks like he is ten years younger. He has two young secretaries around him. They are about the same age as his daughter. He found them from the medical school."

Zhou Shaoning shook his head, thinking that Lao Yan’s lifestyle was really bad.

I'm old but still can't calm down.

Zhou Buqi was a little embarrassed about this. Old Yan's daughter was now working as a secretary in his office. Although he had never done anything to her and still treated her as his niece, the little girl was very crazy and seemed to have decided to take advantage of Uncle Zhou.

This made him very troubled.

Lao Yan kept calling out, wanting to become his relative.

Out of personal relationship, Zhou Buqi couldn't bear to banish his daughter to the cold palace for a long time.

never mind!

Take one step at a time!

Zhou Buqi said seriously, "Old Yan's health is not very good. After all, he is old and has high blood pressure and diabetes. He probably didn't hire a secretary, but two nurses to take care of his health. Sometimes when he is working, he may forget to take medicine or something. It is not a bad thing to have two careful people taking care of him."

"Uh, that's right."

Zhou Shaoning laughed. The big boss had no objection, so he naturally had nothing to say. After all, these were all small matters. As long as Lao Yan could make the copycat phone business in Africa and develop a large dumping market for domestic low-end phones, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he was a national hero.

Zhou Buqi sighed and said, "Li Zairong is coming over now, how can we talk about this?"

Zhou Shaoning smiled and said, "Maybe there is a chance to join forces to counter Ericsson, and maybe we can stop Ericsson from causing trouble in Latin American countries next time."