The slogan of Bird mobile phone is

The lack of mobile phone shape design and chip research and development ability has always been considered as two insurmountable obstacles for domestic mobile phones, and it is also the gap between domestic mobile phones and foreign brands. Domestic mobile phone manufacturers are secretly acting, hoping to "overcome" these two major problems. A few days ago in a famous coffee shop in Beijing, Pu Jie, deputy general manager of Bird Company, inadvertently revealed a major secret: domestic mobile phones are secretly cooperating with foreign chip manufacturers to develop mobile phone chips. Once the research and development of mobile phone chips is completed, foreign brands will completely lose their technological advantages, and the mobile phone industry will be like the color TV industry, with Chinese and foreign brands on the same starting line. It is no longer an "imitation show". In March, the top management of Ningbo Bird Co., Ltd., the domestic mobile phone boss, was extremely active. First, I flirted with a French mobile phone manufacturer, and then I frequently contacted Hangzhou Huali Group, the only mobile phone chip developer in China. Hangzhou is not far from Fenghua, Ningbo, where Bird headquarters is located, and there is an expressway, so you can go back and forth by car on the same day. However, a high-level important person of Bird always stays in Hangzhou for a few days, claiming to form Bird in Hangzhou with a new joint venture. This move has attracted the attention of the industry. Another domestic mobile phone manufacturer judged in its "reconnaissance report" on Bird: "Bird is uniting with Lian Heng and attacking everywhere. It seems that there is a big move." Sure enough, Pu Jie, deputy general manager of Bird who just returned from Ningbo, inadvertently revealed that Bird is cooperating with two companies to develop mobile phone chips. He said: "We really want to make our own mobile phone chip, and we are already developing it this year. These chips will cooperate with foreign design companies, and we are working with two companies. " Hangzhou Huali, after acquiring the Philips chip design department in the Netherlands last year, is eager to try the R&D and manufacturing of domestic mobile phone chips. Pu Jie did not disclose whether Bird cooperated with Huali to develop chips, nor did he disclose the future use of mobile phone chips developed by Bird. The reporter turned to a man in the bird. He said that when Bird first made a mobile phone, it did have a very close technical cooperation relationship with a famous French mobile phone manufacturer named Sachim. The original waveguide mobile phone production line and mobile phone shape were all made in Sachim. Even Bird's advertising slogan "fighter in mobile phone" is derived from the brand name "fighter" of Sahim in France, but he also said that he didn't know. For domestic mobile phone manufacturers, although the market share of domestic mobile phones soared to 15% last year, it is generally believed that domestic mobile phones have actually been "working" for foreign chip companies before the development technology of mobile phone chips in China took shape. A domestic mobile phone manufacturer once complained: "At least13 of the cost of our mobile phone is related to Qualcomm (the owner of CDM A technology patent and the provider of CDM A mobile phone chips)." However, most domestic GSM mobile phone manufacturers pay "working fees" to Korean and Japanese manufacturers, that is, they buy chips and related design technologies from Korean and Japanese companies, and even a small flip phone of Samsung has appeared many "imitation shows" in China. Obviously, if we can develop domestic mobile phone chips, the significance is undoubtedly very significant. The reporter asked another domestic mobile phone manufacturer. He said that the development of mobile phone chips is good for the whole domestic mobile phone manufacturers. As long as Bird dares to use his own mobile phone chip, we will buy it. After all, domestic chips are definitely much cheaper than foreign chips. A "tuition fee" of 30 million yuan was paid for domestic mobile phone manufacturers to develop their own chips. Relevant people believe that this shows that the gap between domestic mobile phones and foreign brands has reached the final level. 1999, when domestic mobile phone manufacturers just got the GSM mobile phone license, the gap between domestic mobile phones and foreign brands was so great that even domestic mobile phones had no bottom. But two years later, according to the statistics of the Ministry of Information Industry, the first group of domestic mobile phones such as Bird, Kejian, Haier and TCL has gradually caught up with the second echelon of foreign brands. In terms of quantity, Bird, which ranks first in domestic mobile phone sales, has surpassed Alcatel, which ranks fifth among foreign brands, second only to Motorola, Nokia, Siemens and Ericsson. Obviously, domestic mobile phones have caught up in marketing. It was once thought that the annual production and sales volume of one million sets of domestic mobile phones was the "ghost gate", but so far, the production and sales volume of Bird has reached more than 2 million sets, and it is estimated that Kejian and TCL will exceed 6.5438+0 million sets this year. The gap between domestic mobile phones and foreign brands lies in four parts: brand, sales channel, shape design and chip supply. But of these four gaps, the first two have disappeared. At present, the differences between Chinese and foreign mobile phones are actually more and more concentrated in the latter two parts, namely the design ability of mobile phones and chips. What is the cost of chip and shape design? Domestic mobile phone manufacturers have been unclear. A mobile phone manufacturer said, "It is undoubtedly passive for people not to tell us the price. But at least Qualcomm's expensive charging method is understood by China people. Relevant national authorities and mobile phone manufacturers are also unwilling to be pushed around by anyone on the chip. With the support of the Ministry of Information Industry, interested domestic mobile phone manufacturers began to March into high-end technology. Pu Jie said that in June, 2000, when Bird first went on the market, it was decided to master the peripheral design technology first, and then conquer the mobile phone chip technology. The former, the waveguide arrived last year, and even Sachim is now buying the flip model S2000 with waveguide design, because Sachim has no flip phone model, and the mobile phone can be designed into various shapes at will. However, Pu Jie also said that the process of mastering mobile phone design technology was also "bitter" and "paid a lot of tuition fees". At the beginning of 200 1, Bird signed a joint development agreement with a mobile phone development company in Cambridge, England. The company helped Bird design a mobile phone, but later dared not push it to the market, because the design cost was high and it might not be cost-effective. But this alone, Bird paid almost 30 million yuan in "tuition". The advantage is that Bird sent many engineers to study in Britain, and initially mastered the design technology of mobile phones. Therefore, "last year we were able to design any kind of mobile phone. "Long-term and stable solution Obviously, mobile phone chips are the key to turning over domestic mobile phones. It is said that the Ministry of Information Industry has long been anxious about the current situation of domestic mobile phones. According to its data, domestic mobile phones accounted for about 15% of the China market last year. The Ministry of Information Industry hopes to raise it to 30% this year. If mobile phone chips can be developed and produced by domestic mobile phone manufacturers themselves, the price of chips will drop greatly, and the cost will undoubtedly drop greatly, so they are more qualified to compete with foreign brands. Therefore, the relevant departments are full of expectations for domestic mobile phone chips. The problem is that everyone is talking about making chips, but they don't know who is really developing them. It is estimated that there is no shortage of hype. It has long been questioned whether domestic enterprises have the ability to develop domestic mobile phone chips, and whether domestic mobile phones need additional equipment and huge investment to produce chips even if they can develop chips. How to solve this problem? Pu Jie said that Bird has cooperated with foreign companies for many years, and mastering mobile phone chip technology is the set goal in the future. As for making chips, you can do OEM work. In fact, Qualcomm, the monopolist of CDMA technology, also commissioned a Japanese company to produce mobile phone chips. Pu Jie said, "Bird doesn't expect to master the chip design in a few months. Bird may take a year or several years, just like Bird has mastered the design technology of mobile phones, and has taken many detours. To tell the truth, we are going to pay tuition for the design of mobile phone chips. After all, this is a problem of "long-term stability" of domestic mobile phones. "