Chapter 2823 Forced Binding

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 playing at low prices? Who wouldn’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 bundler 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 down.

Does the IT industry dare to do this?

This is a key target!

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

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 have a word."

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 them is that if mobile phone manufacturers use Qualcomm's chips, they must reverse license their own patents to Qualcomm for free."

"What?"

Zhou Buqi was shocked.

Lei Jundao: "That's it, but the impact on Xiaomi is not big. After all, Xiaomi is a start-up company and has no intellectual property rights. But Asda, ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, including foreign Sony, Samsung, LG, Sharp’s mobile phones are different, these companies have many patents.”

This is indeed a strategic decision.

Once the patents of these mobile phone manufacturers are reverse-licensed to Qualcomm for free, Qualcomm's chips can develop in the market more unscrupulously, and Qualcomm's competitors will have no chance.

However, is this strategy too much?

"Is this legal?" Zhou Buqi thought he heard wrongly, "Is this not a monopoly?"

Lei Jun said: "If that's all, it's nothing to Xiaomi. But there are two more, which are very fatal. To buy Qualcomm's baseband chip, in addition to the cost of purchasing the chip, you also have to pay additional patent fees. This can also Accepting it is nothing more than the difference between selling it in a package or selling it separately. However, mobile phone manufacturers cannot only buy the baseband chip patents alone, but also bundle them with a set of expired patents, which they bundle and then sell for money; There are also some non-wireless communication patents that are not needed by mobile phones at all, and they are bundled in. One is an expired patent, and they are forced to collect money; the other is a patent that mobile phone manufacturers do not need, and they are forced to bundle it. "

Zhou Buqi opened his eyes wide.

Qualcomm people, what is this operation? This is not a side-step of bundled sales like that of Hollywood companies. Isn't this a blatant monopoly?

How stupid is this to make such a decision?

Seeing his reaction, Lei Jun saw that he really didn't know anything about it before. From this, he could analyze that this boss Zhou was not very concerned about the mobile phone industry. He said: "These three binding conditions give mobile phones The development of manufacturers has created huge obstacles. Especially the bundling of invalid patents has put great operational pressure on Xiaomi. If MediaTek’s 4G chips are good, then they can only choose MediaTek.”

Zhou Buqi now understood the fundamental reason why Boss Lei invited him to Xiaomi this time.

Not Xiaomi TV, not Radio and Television, not Hynix.

But Qualcomm!

If this is the case, then Qualcomm is really guilty.

I'll go back to Zhou Shaoning and ask him what's going on.

Are everyone at Qualcomm crazy?

Blatantly playing monopoly?