Top of the Great Era

Chapter 3186 Coping Strategies
In the past year, Asda's mobile phone shipments reached 3.6 million units, ranking first in the world.

Samsung ranked second with only 2.8 million units.

However, when it comes to revenue and profit, Esda is definitely not doing well. Although there is no exact financial data yet, we can basically draw this conclusion by summarizing Samsung's financial reports for the first three quarters.

The main reason for this is product positioning.

Samsung mobile phones have a wide audience, with high, medium and low-end models, and they adopt the strategy of launching a large number of models.

However, the lowest-end model of Samsung is priced at nearly 200 US dollars, and the domestic price is 1500 yuan. In the general classification of mobile phones in the industry, 1000 yuan to 2000 yuan are low-end models, 2000 to 4000 yuan are mid-range models, and 4000 yuan or more are high-end models.

Such classification is a bit harsh for domestic mobile phones.

Because different countries have different consumption capacities.

For example, in the African market, a $200 mobile phone is considered a high-end phone, but in many European and American countries, it is the lowest-end phone.

Domestic standards have also been lowered.

In the past year, domestic smartphone sales reached 4 million units.

Among them, models priced below 1000 yuan reached 2.4 million units!

Of the 2.4 million units, about 5000 million are contract phones sold by operators. Users only need to spend 300 or 500 yuan to own a good smartphone, but there is a minimum monthly bill standard.

The actual selling price of these mobile phones may be 3000 yuan, 4000 yuan, or 5000 yuan, but they are counted as “thousand-yuan phones” and not counted.

If you remove this part, there are still about 2 million units left!

This means that half of the smartphones sold in China are priced at 1,000 yuan, and are dominated by Xiaomi, Motorola, Huawei, ZTE, Lenovo, Meizu, etc. Not only is Samsung absent from this market, it can be said that there is no pure foreign brand.

Motorola was acquired by Asda, and the business of low-end phones priced below $200 was transferred to China, making it a domestic manufacturer in foreign clothes. Motorola's overseas companies only operate models priced above $200.

Only domestic mobile phone manufacturers can afford to play in this super-inclusive market for thousand-yuan phones.

While waiting for Li Zairong, Zhou Buqi had been looking at various reports of Estar.

In the past year, Astar sold 3.6 million mobile phones, half of which were models priced below $200. Of these 1.8 million low-end models, which are priced between 800 yuan and 1500 yuan, half were sold in the domestic market.

This is a blank market for foreign mobile phone manufacturers.

They are not able to participate.

Domestic mobile phone manufacturers are in fierce competition.

This will inevitably lead to high sales, low revenue and small profits.

This part of the market is also the main space for Asda to promote MediaTek chips and self-developed chip mobile phones in the future.

The current plan is to use self-developed chips for models below 1000 yuan. For models between 1000 yuan and 1500 yuan, you can try using MediaTek chips. When self-developed chips become more mature, more stable and more powerful, they will definitely gradually replace MediaTek.

It will be like Samsung now.

High-end phones use Qualcomm chips, while mid- and low-end models have self-developed chips.

So here comes a new ranking list.

In terms of sales, Asda ranks first, Samsung ranks second, and Apple ranks third.

However, in terms of real strength, there is still a big gap between Astar and them, which inevitably leads to a gap in revenue and profits, mainly in technology, that is, chips.

Apple's self-developed chips are all used in high-end models, and the effect is very good, even better than Qualcomm's chips;

Samsung's high-end chips have been cut in half by its mobile phone business. High-end chips can be used, but their performance is much worse than Qualcomm's. Therefore, Samsung's self-developed chips are mainly used in mid- and low-end models, and the core high-end Galaxy series are all using Qualcomm chips;
Asda is the worst. Its self-developed chips can only be used in the lowest-end models. For slightly better models, it has to buy MediaTek chips. All mid-to-high-end models have to rely on Qualcomm for supply.

Once Asda's self-developed chip is really successful and can be used in models priced above $200, then mobile phones with self-developed chips can be sold to the European and American markets, just like Samsung phones.

This means that we must reach an agreement with Ericsson on intellectual property rights. Before that, there is no need to settle!

The general logic is that Astar will only pay patent fees to developed markets if its self-developed chips can make a lot of money in those developed markets. Otherwise, its self-developed chips cannot even reach the threshold of developed markets, and it has to pay standard patent fees to patent holders in developed markets, which is a big loss.

I will only give you commission if you let me make money; how can I give you commission if I don’t even go to your place to make money?
With all these considerations, Zhou Buqi now has a strategy for dealing with Li Zairong.

At lunch time, Lao Yan's plane arrived first.

He returned to the capital from the south.

He went straight to the restaurant and gave Zhou Buqi a big hug as soon as he saw him.

Seeing his fat body, Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Old Yan, you've gained so much weight! People who start businesses all endure hardships and keep losing weight, but what's wrong with you? You've gained weight instead?"

Yan Guangming was a little embarrassed. "I went to the south, and the food has changed. I'm not used to it."

Zhou Buqi joked, "I thought those two nurses you hired were doing a great job, taking good care of you, and that you were living a very satisfying life."

"Hehe, not bad." Yan Guangming didn't care about Zhou Shaoning's presence, and proudly shook two fingers, "Two!"

Zhou Buqi said bluntly, "At your age, can you handle it?"

Yan Guangming said: "It's OK."

Zhou Buqi didn't believe it, "Did you take the medicine?"

"How is that possible?" This was related to a man's dignity, and Lao Yan could not admit it no matter what. "Just wait and see, in a few months, I will give you another nephew!"

Zhou Buqi cleared his throat and said, "As long as it's not my eldest niece."

Yan Guangming burst into laughter.

Zhou Shaoning had no idea what was going on, so he asked, "What's wrong with my niece? Old Zhou, you are favoring boys over girls!"

Zhou Buqi waved his hands repeatedly and didn't want to continue the topic. "Come on, let's eat! I'm hungry!"

Yan Guangming did not continue the topic. He could not talk about his intention to match the girl with Zhou Buqi. It was not that he cared about his reputation, he did not care about these things, he was mainly afraid of affecting the personal image of Boss Zhou.

Yan Guangming changed the subject and asked, "Didn't you say Li Zairong was coming? Why didn't he come?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "It's two o'clock in the afternoon!"

Yan Guangming was very straightforward, "Okay, I'll pick him up at the airport after dinner. Koreans love to save face, so we have to do a good job of welcoming and seeing off guests."

Zhou Shaoning nodded, "Okay."

Yan Guangming then asked: "How is the batch of goods I want? Don't delay me!"

He was referring to the 750 million self-developed chips ordered from Asda.

Zhou Shaoning said angrily: "Don't you know it yourself?"

Yan Guangming shook his head and said, "I am no longer the vice president of Astar, and I have let go of Astar's supply chain business. I am now the chairman of Feige Group. These are two companies, and we need to sort out the accounts and personnel relationships."

Zhou Shaoning said angrily: "Don't give me that! I don't know the specific situation. If you want to know, go ask SMIC yourself!"

Zhou Buqi was curious when he heard this. "Is the self-developed chip manufactured by SMIC?"

"Correct."

“Is the level up?”

"Yes, our self-developed chips are made using a 32-nanometer process, which SMIC was able to do last year." Zhou Shaoning further explained, "SMIC can now manufacture 28-nanometer mobile phone chips, and has even received orders from Qualcomm. There is absolutely no problem with the quality! And it is much cheaper than TSMC, UMC and the like."

Zhou Buqi was very happy, "That's great!"