Top of the big era

Lei Jundao: "There has been news from MediaTek that their 4G high-end chip Helio series has made a key breakthrough and is expected to be released next year."

"MediaTek?" Zhou Buqi twitched his lips, "Isn't this unreliable?"

MediaTek is really famous.

Especially in the mainland market, it is really a well-known presence in the mobile phone industry. In the past few years, Zhoubuqi launched extremely low-priced customized machines on Xiaonei.com, using MediaTek chips. However, what is more closely connected with MediaTek chips is the domestic copycat phone industry.

In the days when domestic copycat mobile phones are in full swing, the biggest backer behind them is MediaTek, which provides them with a package of technical solutions.

This also leads to MediaTek's reputation not being very good.

It is associated with low-end and copycat products.

Lei Jundao: "MediaTek's technical strength is still very strong, and it is a very competitive company in the field of mobile phone chips. However, they previously focused too much on 3G chips and had too many connections with domestic copycat phones, resulting in 4G The times are completely behind us. 4G licenses are now being launched in China, and all domestic mobile phones next year will be 4G phones. If MediaTek does not conquer 4G chips, it will completely bid farewell to the market."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "Even if we make a so-called 4G high-end chip, so what? Can it compare with Qualcomm's?"

In fact, the 4G chip of the Helio series produced by MediaTek this time has good performance and is known as the king of running scores.

After its launch, domestic LeTV mobile phones and Meizu mobile phones immediately used it.

Chip prices are low.

It can make the price of mobile phones lower, even cheaper than Xiaomi mobile phones, which really makes LeTV mobile phones and Meizu mobile phones popular.

Xiaomi took a look and realized that this was not possible!

At that stage in the previous life, Xiaomi was the most popular and famous mobile phone brand in China. How could it let its competitors steal traffic away? But Xiaomi uses Qualcomm chips, and other spare parts are also high-end, so the price cannot be reduced.

In this case, Boss Lei came up with a trick. He also purchased the HelioX10 chip from MediaTek and launched the "Redmi" series.

Isn't it just to play at low prices? Who can't?

When the whole world thought that Redmi was priced at 999 yuan, he directly quoted a price of 799 yuan.

It immediately exploded the market.

Even if there is no such thing as LeTV and Meizu in the mobile phone market.

But that will be a year or two later. MediaTek’s Helio chip is still in the technical stage. Some news has quietly leaked internally and has been released to many domestic mobile phone manufacturers so that they can be prepared to supply it. There is an alternative to chain selection.

Lei Jun sighed, "Qualcomm's chips are too expensive."

Zhou Buqi said: "Relying on MediaTek's chips to compete with Samsung and Apple? Isn't it realistic? It's expensive for a reason."

"It's outrageously expensive." Lei Jun shook his head, feeling very helpless, feeling like he was being constrained by technology. "It's just that the chips are expensive, and it's also bundled with a lot of irrelevant things."

"Irrelevant things?" Zhou Buqi was a little confused, "What do you mean?"

Lei Jundao: "Qualcomm's current smartphone chips are the best, with good performance, stability and compatibility. Many mainstream apps on the market are optimized around Qualcomm's chips. It can be said that now If you want the best smartphone experience, you must buy Qualcomm chips. As I said before, Qualcomm is almost dominating. In order to stabilize the stock price and achieve expected profits, Qualcomm could only squeeze as much profit as possible from the mobile phone business and launched a mobile phone chip. The act of series tying.”

"Bundle? Bundle sale?"

Zhou Buqi is very familiar with the business model in the United States, and the most commonly used solution is bundled sales.

For example, Disney's ESPN sports station is the most popular TV station.

Users want to subscribe to ESPN, which is not possible.

You have to subscribe to ESPN and dozens of other unrelated TV channels.

For example, after the "Avengers" movie was released, it became a hit. After the "Avengers" collector's edition disc was released, you want to buy it...Sorry, you have to buy "Captain America", "Thor" and "Iron Man" along with it. 》 disc before you can buy it.

Just play with bondage.

It's completely a crazy exploration on the edge of monopoly and non-monopoly.

Logically speaking, this is usually done by the entertainment industry, which has a whole set of mechanisms to circumvent antitrust. For example, if you sell DVDs in a bundle, the bundled seller is not a Hollywood company, but a retail outlet that has no direct relationship with the Hollywood company. If you dare to punish... the retail outlet will be closed directly.

Does the IT industry dare to do this?

This is a key target!

Lei Jun glanced at him, "You haven't heard anything?"

Zhou Buqi said: "Say it!"

Lei Jun said: "I thought you understood the situation at Aisda. The Aisda family is big and big, but Xiaomi really can't bear it. If we continue to use Qualcomm's chips, we may not be able to survive." Qualcomm’s bundled sales are really too much!”

"Tell me about it." Zhou Buqi nodded, "I'm familiar with Qualcomm. If possible, I'll see if I can say something."

Lei Jun shook his head, "I know you, Boss Zhou, have a lot of face, but this is obviously Qualcomm's strategic choice, and your words may not be useful."

"Strategy?"

"Well, for example, one of the rules is that if mobile phone manufacturers use Qualcomm chips, they must provide free reverse licensing of their own patents to Qualcomm."

"What?"

Zhou Buqi was shocked.

Lei Jun said: "That's it, but this rule doesn't have a big impact on Xiaomi. After all, Xiaomi is a startup company and doesn't have much intellectual property. But Estar, ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, including foreign Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp and other mobile phones are different. These companies have many patents."

This is indeed a strategic decision.

Once these mobile phone manufacturers' patents are free reverse licensed to Qualcomm, Qualcomm's chips can be developed more unscrupulously in the market, and Qualcomm's competitors will have even less chance.

But, isn't this strategy too much?

"Is this legal?" Zhou Buqi thought he had heard wrong, "Isn't this a monopoly?"

Lei Jun said: "If it's just this, it's nothing for Xiaomi. But there are two more points, which are fatal. Buying Qualcomm's baseband chips, in addition to the cost of purchasing the chips, you have to pay additional patent fees, which is acceptable. It's just the difference between selling in a package or selling separately. However, mobile phone manufacturers can't just buy baseband chip patents alone, there is also a set of bundled sales. Qualcomm has some expired patents, which are bundled in and then sold for money; Qualcomm also has some non-wireless communication patents, which are not needed by mobile phones at all, and are also bundled in. One is an expired patent, and they continue to force money; the other is a patent that mobile phone manufacturers don't need, and they are forcing bundled sales."

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide.

People from Qualcomm, what is this operation? This is not like Hollywood companies playing the edge ball of bundling sales, isn't this a blatant monopoly?

How stupid is it to make such a decision?

Lei Jun saw his reaction and realized that he really didn't know anything before. He could also analyze that Boss Zhou was not very concerned about the mobile phone industry. He said: "These three bundling conditions have created huge obstacles for the development of mobile phone manufacturers. Especially the bundling sales of invalid patents, which has brought great operational pressure to Xiaomi. If MediaTek's 4g chip works well, then we can only choose MediaTek." Zhou Buqi now understood the fundamental reason why Boss Lei invited him to Xiaomi this time. It's not Xiaomi TV, not Radio and Television, not Hynix. It's Qualcomm! If this is true, then Qualcomm is really unforgivable. I'll go back and ask Zhou Shaoning what the situation is. Are all the people at Qualcomm crazy? Blatantly playing monopoly?