1. Patent. Patents are the most common "stumbling block" that Chinese mobile phone manufacturers encounter in their overseas expansion. The case with the greatest impact was the patent war that broke out between HTC and Apple. After this battle, HTC's vitality was greatly damaged, and its global smartphone share fell out of the top 10.
Cheng Lixin said that the United States is a mature market, and patent wars are "commonplace." ZTE began to expand into the U.S. market in 1998. In 1999, it signed the first technology transfer and licensing agreement among domestic manufacturers with Qualcomm, and began to comprehensively expand the CDMA international market. In addition, ZTE spends 10% of its annual revenue on technology research and development, and currently accounts for about 10% of global LTE basic patents. ZTE has been repeatedly subject to patent lawsuits during its market expansion in the United States, but most of them eventually won.
2. Operator. American operators have very detailed requirements in terms of brand, quality, after-sales, components, production lines and even environmental protection, and the threshold is relatively high.
Cheng Lixin said that mobile phone sales in the United States still mainly rely on operator channels, and sales methods are divided into: postpaid (mainly), prepaid (growing rapidly), and bare-metal sales (less). Product sales and pricing require in-depth cooperation with operator packages. How to understand operators' needs, procurement policies, and learn to deal with operators are the first tasks for domestic manufacturers to enter the US market.
3. Quality. In the U.S. consumer goods market, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other companies have all suffered setbacks due to quality issues. The average mobile phone update speed of American consumers is 18-24 months, which is significantly slower than domestic mobile phone update speeds. Therefore, mobile phone quality requirements are more stringent.
For a mobile phone to be launched in the United States, it needs to pass the US National Access Certification (FCC), third-party certification, and operator online testing; Android phones also need to pass Google certification, and WP phones must pass Microsoft certification
< p> Certification, every product version change requires going through the process again. ZTE Mobile also suffered setbacks in the early stages of market expansion. It was later listed as a "Chairman's Project" to be solved one by one. Now it has become a mainstream supplier to AT&T and other US operators.4. Price war does not work. Price war was once a "sharp weapon" in the domestic mobile phone market, but the effect is not obvious in the US market. American operators hope to establish long-term and stable cooperative relationships with mobile phone companies, and they will not keep prices very low during the twice-yearly centralized purchases. Everyone can make money. This is why the United States is the most profitable market for mobile phones in the world. One of the reasons.
5. Localization. Compared with the domestic market, smartphones sold in the US market will cooperate with local Internet companies such as Facebook, Google+, WhatsApp, etc., rather than simply being built-in.
Domestic mobile phones currently lack targeted application optimization and in-depth integration with UI. At the hardware level, the domestic version is more modified, which is not suitable for American users.
6. 4G. The United States is the region with the best 4G network coverage in the world. The actual downlink speed can reach 20M, and 45% of mobile phones on sale support LTE. However, the domestic 4G mobile phone market has just begun.
Cheng Lixin said that 45% of mobile phones currently on sale in the US market support 4G networks. ZTE currently has 8 LTE mobile phones on sale in the US market, and 10 more will be launched within the year. When domestic brands enter the U.S. market, 4G has become “standard.”
7. "International" communication.
1), successfully communicate with mainstream society and operators in the United States, communicate in a way that customers can understand, and learn and utilize the "rules of the game";
2), communicate with local Employee communication, ZTE currently accounts for more than 80% of its employees in the United States;
3) Communicate smoothly with the Chinese headquarters, and try its best to obtain support to ensure the smooth implementation of market strategies.
8. Brand. The United States is a postpaid mobile phone market dominated by traditional operators. Users use more "OEM" mobile phones from operators. However, this situation is changing. With the promotion of high-end products such as Apple's iPhone, the prepaid market has risen rapidly in recent years. The US market We are in a period of transformation, and the importance of mobile phone brands is rapidly increasing.
In order to strengthen brand marketing, ZTE has just announced that it will invest hundreds of millions of yuan in the next three years to reach a strategic cooperation with the NBA and signed a contract with the Rockets to become its only strategic mobile phone partner.
According to the agreement, electronic advertisements for ZTE mobile phones will be played at the Rockets' home games. Rockets player Parsons will serve as a player representative to endorse the image of ZTE mobile phones. ZTE will also work with the Rockets to sponsor street products off the court. Community activities such as 3x3 basketball.
ZTE also launched two flagship mobile phones, Grand S and Nubia Z5, in the US market, mainly targeting the open channel market, priced at US$349.99 and US$449.99 respectively, with more NBA built-in into the two mobile phones. and rocket elements.