Originally, mobile phone production required a mobile phone license, which set a threshold for companies that wanted to enter the mobile phone manufacturing field. They must have a registered capital of more than 200 million yuan, have R&D capabilities, environmental protection licenses, and have been operating continuously for more than two years.
This is just a threshold. Passing the threshold does not mean that the Ministry of Information Industry will issue you a mobile phone license. The mobile phone production license system that began in 1996 is extremely strict on the management of licensed companies. Not only private companies cannot get it, but some joint ventures can also get it. Less than.
Originally, this system would end in 2004, but now because of the mobile phone integrated chip launched by Xinxin Technology, mobile phone licenses have been suspended early.
This dates back to 2002. There were originally a group of companies that wanted to enter the mobile phone industry, because this is an industry with rapid growth and huge profits, and everyone is greedy for this piece of cake.
Blocked by the threshold of mobile phone licenses, more than 20 domestic and foreign companies such as Digital China, Skyworth, BenQ, Yangcheng Jinpeng, and BOE once coveted the mobile phone industry but were disappointed.
Everyone is greedy for cake, but it is not that easy to eat the cake. There is still a threshold for making mobile phones. Xinxin Technology’s integrated chips directly help everyone eliminate the threshold. Now even if there are license restrictions, it cannot stop companies from trying to divide it. Cake determination.
One of the very big incidents was that Oaks sent its mobile phone to the Ministry of Information Industry to apply for a network access license and network access test without a mobile phone production license. Oaks Group obviously did not have a license and was ruthlessly rejected.
Oaks also knew that he would be rejected if he did not have a license. They sent the case to trial to find a reason, which was to sue. Oaks publicly sued the Ministry of Information Industry for violating the administrative licensing law in its mobile phone license system.
This decision quickly caused an uproar in the industry. To put it bluntly, everyone is unhappy with the mobile phone license system, and it is completely different to publicly come out to oppose the ministry. But there are always people who want to have their cake and eat it without fear of death, and a large number of companies have publicly stated that this system is unreasonable.
"Currently, the country has issued a total of 48 mobile phone licenses, but there are more than 100 manufacturers. I don't know if these more than 100 are considered duplication of construction and waste of investment. If so, it only shows that controlling mobile phone licenses cannot avoid duplication of construction and waste. ; This is essentially an act of monopoly protection.
Due to the shortage of license resources, most mobile phone manufacturers can only obtain indirect licenses for production and sales by renting licenses. However, some companies with licenses can make huge profits every year by renting licenses. This is undoubtedly a seriously unfair market. Competitive behavior can only hurt consumers in the end.
Since the implementation of the "Administrative Licensing Law", the document has clearly stipulated that "mobile communication products" do not belong to the administrative and non-administrative licensing approval items that really need to be retained. This has actually eliminated the Ministry of Information Industry’s authority to approve mobile phone licenses. "
Oaks is not afraid of death, and Dopod is not afraid of death either: “Since we don’t have a license, we can only borrow the GSM license from China Electronics to produce mobile phones every year, and then the products must be branded with the dual brands of China Electronics and Dopod.
We have to pay a large amount of license rental fees every year, and this cost will be indirectly passed on to consumers. Our country's stringent license control is no longer in line with the rapid development of the mobile phone market.
Smartphones are already being developed abroad, but we are still struggling with licenses. In China, even Zhou Xin has to find a licensed company to be affiliated with before launching Mphone.
Because Matrix was established less than two years ago when Mphone1 was launched. "
The Ministry of Information Industry has issued a total of 48 licenses, including 29 GSM mobile phone licenses and 19 CDMA mobile phone licenses. GSM is a mobile communication standard developed in Europe, and CDMA is the world's mainstream mobile communication standard. Qualcomm introduced cellular communication technology into the CDMA standard After the introduction of the framework, CDMA is much superior to GSM.
Among the 19 CDMA mobile phone production licenses, except for Motorola, a foreign-funded company, the rest were all awarded to domestic companies.
Companies such as Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Siemens, and LG have only obtained GSM licenses. Motorola has invested a lot of real money in the country.
Of course, these mobile phone giants without CDMA licenses will not sit still and wait for death. Nokia borrowed a CDMA license from Capcom, and Samsung and Kejian jointly established Samsung Kejian to obtain a CDMA license.
After Oaks fired the first shot, everyone had great opinions. After arguing for about a quarter, the Ministry of Information Industry began to relax the restrictions appropriately and changed the mobile phone license to an approval system. You can send your mobile phone for approval even if you don’t have a license. It’s just approval. Time will be slower.
Then after entering 2003, the restrictions were officially relaxed. If the restrictions were not relaxed, Huang Zhang could also launch Meizu, but the price would definitely be controlled at less than 1,000 yuan.
Because the general price in the market is that if you borrow someone else's license plate, you will be charged 100 yuan for each mobile phone. For a small mobile phone like Meizu, it is estimated to be more than 100 yuan.
Manager Zhao said: "Mr. Huang, after you just explained, it has begun to be feasible in terms of path. After breaking down the production of smartphones, the goal has become more specific.
But it’s still hard for me to believe that Meizu can do it, because I found a mobile phone you launched to try out before I came here. Your design is more about the appearance and shell material.
On the mobile phone system, you haven't done much innovation. After my experience, I speculate that your software development strength should be limited, so even if the threshold is lowered, it will still be difficult for Meizu to do it. "
Manager Zhao is very optimistic about the field of smart phones. After the launch of Mphone2, the concept became very popular abroad, and domestic mobile phone manufacturers also began to say that they would develop smart phones.
Manager Zhao felt that Huang Zhang summed it up best in terms of what aspects should be considered when developing a smartphone.
It's just that Huang Zhang really lacks the temperament to deceive. If it were Jack Ma Lai, he could deceive Manager Zhao into being stunned and bowing down. But Huang Zhang could only dryly say what to do.
At present, no domestic company in China is doing a good job in making smartphones. Most of them make certain modifications on the basis of traditional mobile phones.
If there are sufficiently good domestic smartphones on the market, they will definitely attract a lot of attention and attract eyeballs. It would be better if it also has technical content, so that it is easy to go public.
The domestic financing market itself has special preferential treatment for technology-based companies.
Datang Telecom was established in 1998 and went public the same year. Konka, Kejian, and Bird were all successfully listed on Big A without exception.
It is far less difficult for these technological companies related to technology to go public in Big A than for companies in other industries. For investment, nothing can make money faster than a company going public.
To put it bluntly, for most entrepreneurs, going public is the way to make the most money.
Manager Zhao believes that companies that can take the lead in the smartphone market will have a greater chance of going public, so he plans to visit a large number of companies like Meizu.
After hearing this, Huang Zhang said: “It was difficult for us to do this before because Meizu only had 100,000 yuan on its books when it was first established.
We did not have the funds to hire too many software developers, and traditional mobile phones did not have high requirements for software. What we wanted at the time was to make the interface look good, so that the mobile phone interface and the shell should be consistent.
With the official launch of our products, we have slowly begun to get on track. If we really get financing in the future and start making smartphones, we will definitely expand the number of engineers. "
Huang Zhang knew that compared with emerging investments, Meizu was too small. He believed that he could only rely on sincerity and understanding of the consumer electronics industry to impress the other party.
Even if you can't impress Xinxing, after getting familiar with the other party, as a person in the investment circle, the other party must know other venture capital institutions.
"Manager Zhao, in my opinion, any consumer electronics product always has a general concept of what needs consumers want to meet, and what is the difference between it and competing products on the market.
From the beginning of design, cost estimation, market estimation, proofing, adjustments, etc., this series of processes can be regarded as a large-scale project, and in the early stages, the entrepreneur himself is the project manager of this project.
He needs to control every aspect. I think my advantage is that I understand what consumers want. Whether I was making music players before or now Meizu mobile phones, I understand what consumers want and how to cater to them. Meizu’s audience.
I am Meizu’s biggest advantage. "
This coincides with Manager Zhao’s philosophy that investing is investing in people. At this time, the concept of investing is investing in people has not yet been defined.
Manager Zhao said: "In this way, we will invest three million first, you polish the sample first, and we will talk about the rest. Three million, accounting for 15% of the shares."
Three million is just a small amount of money in emerging investments, and Manager Zhao can make the decision himself.
Huang Zhang said: "There is no problem, but I want to adopt the model of different rights for the same shares, and I can make concessions on the shares.
For example, three million, 20% of the shares, but the voting rights of the shares you obtain are one-tenth of the voting rights of the shares in my hand. "
Huang Zhang is a person who has a strong desire to control the enterprise. Even if the investment is right in front of him, he will have his own persistence.
Zhou Xin is so famous in China, and his deeds have been repeatedly reported by the media. For example, NewPay adopts the same share with different rights model for financing. New Core Technology also adopts the same share with different rights model when cooperating with state-owned capital in China. model.
After these reports were widely reported by the media, more and more Internet companies in Zhongguancun hoped to adopt the model of same shares but different rights when negotiating with foreign investors. However, some succeeded and some did not.
After Huang Zhang finished speaking, he actually felt a little uneasy. He was also afraid that he would be rejected after making such a request.
After listening, Manager Zhao said: "Xinxin Investment has so many years of history in China. You must have never heard that Xinxin Investment has been involved in the specific operations of any of our invested companies.
But I can promise you, I don’t need more shares, 15% is enough, but joint and several liability for debts needs to be written into the contract. "
To put it bluntly, joint and several liability for debts means that after the company goes bankrupt, the debts can continue to be pursued against you personally. If the joint and several liability is clearly bound in the contract, the debts will be borne by the subject of the specific business behavior, which means that Huang Zhang will bear most of the liability. responsibility.
Huang Zhang had been an executive before, so he naturally knew what this meant. He gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, no problem."
Manager Zhao continued: "I will give you another suggestion, that is, move the company to Shenhai. Emerging Investment is unlikely to help you provide all the investment you need.
In the process of making smartphones, you will definitely need investment from different investment institutions. Currently, there are two most active venture capital institutions in China, Shenhai and Yanjing.
However, Yanjing is slightly weak in the electronics industry, and it is difficult to find enough suppliers. This is different in the Yangtze River Delta region where Shenhai is located. The electronics industry is not weaker than that of the Pearl River Delta region. "
Just when Manager Zhao and Huang Zhang were recommending Shen Hai, Hu Zhengming was chatting with a venture capital investor with the same surname Zhao in Shen Hai.
"Mr. Zhao, Xiaomi is actually not short of money. Although Xiaomi's electronic products are priced very low, we can still achieve normal operation of the company by relying on small profits but quick turnover." Hu Zhengming said.
The identity of this venture investor is unusual. He is Zhao Weimin, the former general manager of Shenhai Science and Technology Investment Company and current director of Shenhai Municipal Science and Technology Commission.
During his tenure as director of the Science and Technology Commission, Shen Hai received 1.35 billion in science and technology innovation funds from China. Among the 12 major science and technology projects released by China, Shen Hai led or participated in 11 of them.
Zhao Weimin’s performance in science and technology investment is also quite good. During his three years in office, the investment return rate of science and technology investment projects reached 19%, 18% and 31% respectively.
Although Zhao Weimin is no longer with Ketou, he still hopes to help Ketou get Xiaomi through:
"I understand that when we invest in Xiaomi, we also want to help Shenhai-wide technology companies to the best of our ability from the perspective of Shenhai City.
Xiaomi has done well in personal computers and traditional mobile phones. It has developed very well by relying on cost-effectiveness and making the supply chain as local as possible.
But we can also see that the market is transforming. In the future, more and more companies will begin to transform in the direction of smartphones. Shenhai hopes that Xiaomi will also develop in this direction.
We also considered that if Xiaomi wanted to enter the smartphone field, Xiaomi might be short of money, so we thought about investing in Xiaomi.
Including if Xiaomi wants to be listed on the Shanghai main board in the future, it will be smoother with the participation of science and technology investment. "
As director of the Science and Technology Committee, Zhao Weimin sees the development prospects of smartphones. He also knows how much Mphone has driven the development of the upstream and downstream supply chains, so he hopes that Shenhai will also have its own smartphone brand.
Before Xiaomi, Shenhai only had Dopod as a viable mobile phone brand, but now it has Xiaomi. Xiaomi is undoubtedly much more powerful than Dopod.
Not to mention that behind Dopod is the Jiangcheng branch of Huaguo Electronics Group, which has nothing to do with Shen Hai, and Shen Hai can't benefit from it.
The cooperation between Shen Hai and Zhou Xin is very pleasant most of the time, except for the Hanxin incident, which was a slap in the face. Therefore, from the perspective of Shen Hai, it is better to continue to be deeply tied to Zhou Xin's companies.
I was out all day today and came back at night. This is to make up for this morning's work. There will be more tomorrow morning. However, tomorrow morning's work may have to wait until the crows sleep and wake up naturally.
(End of chapter)
