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Even if the monopoly penalty is imposed and Qualcomm cancels a series of unreasonable bundling terms and makes rectifications, Qualcomm's chip prices are still too expensive. It’s okay to put it on some mid-to-high-end and flagship models. If mid-to-low-end models want to be competitive in price, it’s best to adopt a cheaper chipset solution.

MediaTek is an option.

Self-developed chips that are not too high-level are also an option.

After all, our own 4G chip has been developed and is considered the only one in the country. Domestic 4G network will be fully opened next year, and 4G mobile phones will be fully launched on the big stage. At this time, Asda will immediately launch a mobile phone equipped with a self-developed 4G chip, which is technically very capable. In terms of marketing, it seems to be very selling point.

Even if the performance of self-developed chips is relatively weak, it is cheaper.

In particular, a very important part of Asda's international strategy is to develop third world markets such as India, Latin America, and Africa. For users in these places, they have no idea who Qualcomm is. They only care about whether the mobile phone is not cheap, whether it is easy to use, and whether the portrait can be seen when taking pictures at night. Without the teeth, everything is pitch black.

If you want to develop these markets, the lower the cost, the better.

There is still a large optional market for self-developed chips.

Technical weaknesses don’t matter either.

The key is to have a market to distribute the goods. This is the most critical thing.

After confirming this idea, Zhou Shaoning's next work is very clear. Since Qualcomm will be in trouble, Asda, as Qualcomm's most important customer, will launch smartphones equipped with MediaTek and self-developed chips, which is equivalent to Qualcomm formed a threat.

At that time, it will not be Asda that bows its head, but Qualcomm.

Just like Samsung.

Why do domestic mobile phone manufacturers have to endure Qualcomm's chip bundling sales strategy in silence, but Samsung doesn't tolerate them and directly brings up the Korean Fair Trade Commission and conducts an antitrust investigation against Qualcomm?

The most important reason is that Samsung is not afraid of Qualcomm. Samsung has self-developed chips, so it is not afraid even if it falls out.

In this regard, China is far behind.

As long as the country bravely fights back, Qualcomm launches an antitrust investigation, and then MediaTek's chips are released, and Asda also launches self-developed mobile phone chips... By then, the threat from Qualcomm will come. After all, they are not doing Mobile phone.

No matter how high the technical level is, it will die without a market; no matter how poor the technical level is, it will survive if there is a market.

The market is decisive.

The mobile phone market is determined by mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Asda, Xiaomi, and HTC. The vast majority of mobile phone users do not even know what Qualcomm is.

Qualcomm can choke mobile phone manufacturers. If any mobile phone manufacturer offends Qualcomm, Qualcomm will stop selling chips, or use various reasons to delay orders and reduce shipments, which can cause the mobile phone manufacturer to fall into operating chaos. The same goes for the reverse. If mobile phone manufacturers stop purchasing Qualcomm chips, Qualcomm will just wait to die.

Qualcomm, which cannot face users directly, will have no choice but to come to China in despair to seek help. For example, it can reach a strategic agreement with Xiaomi, exchange shares, and form a strategic cooperation, thereby helping Qualcomm indirectly gain a certain market and avoid being eliminated. Directly stuck.

Today's mobile phone manufacturers have formed a "monopoly" structure.

Apple is its own system and does not count.

In fact, only domestic mobile phone manufacturers and Korean mobile phone manufacturers are the most competitive.

It just so happens that the business practices of many companies in these two countries are very evil.

It is unlikely that other countries will reach a "business alliance" that advances and retreats together. This is blatant monopoly, and the Chinese and Korean markets are not unusual at all. In Japan's TV industry, due to the wrong path of plasma screens, the market was quickly occupied by Chinese and Korean TV manufacturers. There is an "alliance" attribute behind it. "Alliance" is a strictly prohibited monopoly. Later, Korean giants such as Samsung and LG were also punished for monopoly, but it was just a small amount of money. There are no Japanese manufacturers in the TV market, and it is already dominated by China and South Korea.

China and South Korea have joined forces to fight against Japan. This is no longer the case twice.

If China and South Korea join forces to resist the United States, it will be a huge threat to Qualcomm.

The most critical thing now is that Asda will launch its own chips to form a deterrent. In this way, there will be greater room for negotiation in future cooperation with Qualcomm, and it will not be a situation where people are fighting for their own benefit. .

Zhou Shaoning said: "By the way, who will manufacture our chips?"

Zhou Buqi asked: "Who is there?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "There are mainly two companies now, one is TSMC and the other is Samsung. The mainstream one is still TSMC, but Samsung is also actively expanding its market share and wants to occupy a place in the chip foundry field."

After a pause, Zhou Shaoning continued to explain: "Samsung's self-developed chips are also very powerful, not much worse than Qualcomm's. But Samsung's mobile phones have gradually begun to adopt Qualcomm's chip solutions. In addition to business reasons, there are also strategic factors. , is the influence of foundries.”

"Is this an exchange?" Zhou Buqi understood immediately, "Qualcomm hands over chip foundry orders to Samsung, and then Samsung's mobile phones use Qualcomm's chip solutions."

Zhou Shaoning smiled and said: "Yes, that's the factor. But I think Qualcomm was fooled. They lacked a market for the public, and their decision-making was a bit out of shape. Even if Qualcomm doesn't hand over OEM orders to Samsung, Samsung's mobile phones want to have To be competitive, we must buy Qualcomm chips, otherwise their Galaxy series will not be able to compete with our Aster series.”

Zhou Buqi didn’t know much about this, “Is there any difference between handing over chips to Samsung for foundry and handing over to TSMC for foundry?”

Zhou Shaoning said: "There are certain differences, mainly two factors, cost and yield rate. At present, Samsung is still worse than TSMC, with higher cost and slightly lower yield rate. However, these costs can be borne by Samsung. It won’t have much impact on the client. As for production efficiency, both companies are about the same.”

Zhou Buqi asked: "Where's China? Where's SMIC?"

"Uh..." Zhou Shaoning paused, "Don't think about it in China for the time being. The performance of our self-developed 4G chip is indeed not very good, and it lags far behind Qualcomm and Samsung. But after all, this is a 4G mobile phone chip, and it can be regarded as the best of the times. It’s cutting-edge. There are currently no more than ten manufacturers in the world making 4G mobile phone chips. SMIC’s foundry capabilities are still weak. If it were left to them, they would not agree.”

Zhou Buqi said amusedly: "If we give them the order, will they agree?"

"We can't afford it, unless we bear the loss of a low yield rate."

Zhou Shaoning briefly talked about the industry rules of chip foundry.

In the production of any product, there will be defective products.

The same goes for chip foundry. The defective rate of mobile phone chips is generally a few ten thousandths.

The higher the technical level and the more mature the process, the lower the defective rate.

Once substandard products are produced, the cost of the defects will be borne by the foundry.

For example, if Asda hands over its 4G chips to TSMC electricians, the defective rate is 2 out of 10,000, and TSMC will bear the loss of 2 out of 10,000; if it is handed over to Samsung, the defective rate is 5 out of 10,000. This part of the defective rate will also be borne by Samsung.

This is caused by competition.

If Samsung does not bear this part of the loss, then chip manufacturers will cooperate with TSMC.

However, if Asda launches a 5G chip at this time, no foundry in the world will be able to do it and hand over the order to TSMC... TSMC can reluctantly carry out OEM production, because the processes and technologies are not mature and neither If the standard is met, the unqualified rate may reach 50%. To produce one piece that is qualified, one must produce one piece that is unqualified.

This cost is too high, and TSMC cannot afford such losses of defective products.

Even if you give them an order, they don’t dare to take it.

Can't afford it.

Unless Asda wants to hire TSMC for OEM production anyway, and promises that all defects rate losses will be borne by Asda. In this way, TSMC will not be at risk of losing money and will happily accept orders.

The same is true for the current SMIC, which cannot afford such an order.

Even if domestic labor costs are low enough, they cannot afford the cost stack caused by such insufficient technology.

Unless Asda is willing to pay to subsidize their deficiencies in production technology and manufacturing processes.

But this is impossible.

The significance of self-developed chips is to harvest the market at low cost. You must choose the most favorable foundry solution. You must choose between TSMC and Samsung.