Barriers to internationalization of Chinese mobile phone companies

Absrtact: In recent time, the topic of domestic mobile phone hot again. At present, the share of domestic mobile phones accounted for more than half of the domestic market, this situation and more than 10 years ago, the Kejian, Panda, and other domestic brands, such as the international brand situation is similar, so public opinion

For some time, the topic of domestic mobile phones hot again. At present, the share of domestic mobile phones accounted for more than half of the domestic market, this situation and more than 10 years ago, such as Kejian, Panda, and other domestic brands and international brand situation is similar, so the public opinion began to predict that the Chinese mobile phone manufacturers will repeat the end of the collective killed in the scene.

Eric's data analysis of major electric dealers ' channels can be corroborated. 2013 China market sales channels, Samsung accounted for 20%, Nokia accounted for 11.2%, Huawei accounted for 9.4% third, Lenovo accounted for 8.4%, Apple accounted for 8.1% ranked fifth.

From the global market, IDC's latest market report for the first quarter of 2014 showed that Samsung accounted for 30.2% of the market, up 22% from a year earlier, and that Apple grew by 16.8% per cent over the same period last year, with a share of 15.5%, with a 47.3% per cent increase over the same period last year Lenovo rose 63.3% per cent over the same period last year, with a share of 4.6%;lg up 19.4% per cent over the same period last year, with a share of 4.4%, ranking fifth.

Comparing two data, domestic handset has limited market share in the world, and its main contribution comes from the Chinese market.

Barriers to internationalization of Chinese mobile phone companies

Domestic mobile phones to hold the Chinese market share, no longer 10 years ago, the tragedy must move to the international. And the real success can only come from the market share in the global market and the relatively high growth of several manufacturers. Compared with the global growth rate of around 28% this year, Huawei and Lenovo have grown more than the overall average in the first quarter, and the advantage of becoming an international brand is relatively obvious.

Then the domestic brand in the internationalization of the road, need to step over what kind of threshold?

The international market and the domestic market play completely different, looking back over the years, the domestic brand before the large volume of shipments but has not become the source of international brands, there are scholars of research shows that the main product, marketing and patent firewall and no substantial breakthrough, become a manufacturer of international brands, or products can only be sold in less developed areas.

In the mobile phone industry, Samsung is a marketing-driven company, and Apple is a product-driven company, its marketing behavior is completely different. Samsung 2012 global marketing costs as much as 14 billion U.S. dollars (one said to 12 billion U.S. dollars), is 4 times times more than Apple, Samsung such input is not the Chinese mobile phone companies can afford. Similarly, in the case of products, it is harder for Chinese handset makers to surpass Apple products in Android, where even Samsung cannot come up with products that can be compared to the iphone from a user experience to a manufacturing process. Therefore, from this perspective, Chinese mobile phone companies to the international market, whether from marketing and products, need to take a completely different from Apple and Samsung Road.

In the near future, Samsung and Apple patent lawsuits have been closed together, Samsung in violation of Apple's patent was awarded nearly 120 million U.S. dollars, which is enough to cause the Chinese handset manufacturers on the road to international vigilance. This also involves the Chinese mobile phone enterprise internationalization Another life door-patent firewall.

Millet Such enterprises why can not take the international road?

A while ago, there are companies to publicize the number of PCT applications in the top three, it seems that the patent strength of Chinese and Chinese enterprises have entered the enterprise level of developed countries, but the knife passengers believe that this is just an illusion, is a kind of entertainment spirit in mischief, as for why, the tolerance of the knife in

Although a group of enterprises including Millet recently announced to enter the international market, but the previous blade has said that in the international market, its seed will certainly not appear in the world after the fifth list, if anyone want to enter the word, then China's mobile phone companies have already entered the international market.

Let's talk about how far millet is from the international market.

Whether in the United States or in Europe, if you want to enter their market, if you sell small, there is no one to pay attention to you, you can play their own, not illegal on the line. But once your sales affect local companies such as Apple, litigation is unavoidable. This has two layers of meaning, one is Apple and other enterprises patent litigation, the other is the market expansion brought about by the aftermarket.

Millet This kind of enterprise, its product quality still can not let a person be at ease at home, because the product quality of the saliva battle has not stopped, to the European and American market, may one or two lawsuit must retreat. Another problem, such as millet, such as the so-called Futures model or snapping, in Europe and the United States is not involved in user fraud is not easy to say.

The patent aspect is more deadly, the early HTC sold well in the U.S. market, but because of its own patent reserves, and Apple's lawsuit down, in the first quarter of 2014 barely ranked five, the market share is only 5%, but also a downward trend.

To Millet's current patent reserves, there is no confrontation with the Apple, but also the MIUI system, its shielding the Google market and Android itself some of the applications, playing in the country is also OK, after all, Google Now can not reach into China, but once into the European and American markets, it means even Google will sue it. Ask a former Google employee to the platform, it is impossible to solve the problem. So, millet into the European and American market opportunities are basically equal to zero.

Millet is so, other companies do not have to say.

Apple likes to play patent lawsuits with handset manufacturers, whose fundamental purpose, as everyone knows, is to prohibit the sale of competitor products through proprietary firewalls to avoid impacting their products.

What is the level of patent reserves of Chinese handset manufacturers?

When it comes to patents, you may be a bit dizzy by the PCT of the previous media hype.

In fact, PCT is a shorthand for the Patent Cooperation Treaty (Patent Cooperation Treaty), according to the PCT, the patent applicant can submit an international patent application through the PCT way and apply for a patent to several countries. To put it bluntly, if a business or an individual is required to apply for an international patent, a national application is now available through the PCT, but the International Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) applies to each State party uniformly, and the true authority is still the relevant institution of the State, For a country to grant a grant is entirely another matter. Therefore, the PCT application quantity does not represent an enterprise patent strength at all.

And the real international impact on the evaluation of patent power is the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) issued by the Global enterprise in the United States the latest patent strength rating. In the 2012 rankings of global corporate patent power, only Huawei entered the list of the top 20 in communications and Internet equipment, ranking 17, while Lenovo entered the top 20 list of computer software, ranking seventh. Taiwan companies enter the list of more enterprises than the mainland, which also indirectly illustrates the position of Taiwan enterprises in the international market is much stronger than the reasons for the mainland. Therefore, the Chinese enterprises in the patent power, and the gap between the European and American enterprises is still very large, not a day or two days can be narrowed, nor to take a patent application volume can defeat European and American enterprises.

In fact, the ranking of this patent power corresponds to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's annual patent authorization list. This year, the U.S. Patent Office published the 2013 list of patents, ranked first is still the top 21 consecutive years, the United States Patent Office has authorized a total of 277835 patents, the top 50 U.S. Patent licensing enterprises in 80% for IT companies. ibm,2013 In TOP50, we can still see Hon Hai (Foxconn), TSMC, such as Taiwan, but do not see mainland China's companies, Huawei ranked 52 on the list, which is the strongest patent power of mainland enterprises.

In this sense, the Chinese companies ' patent power into the world's first three pure entertainment, and this also reflects why Cisco and other U.S. companies so hostile to Huawei, the market reason is second, the future of Huawei in the patent strength of their threat too much.

Who will take the lead in the international market?

Anyway, in the current mobile phone market situation, Chinese mobile phone companies who will be the first to break through the international market?

In the view of the knife, whether it is from the existing market share, growth rate and patent reserves to measure, can be selected too few seeds, currently only Huawei and Lenovo can become international brands.

However, when we carefully analyze the actual situation of two, two companies of the genes determine the two future internationalization of the road is not the same.

Lenovo has always been the strategy of trade and technology, marketing ability is a strong feature. In the PC direction products relatively mature patent reserves are also relatively adequate, so the Lenovo PC in the past few years to the internationalization of a good move. However, when this approach is placed in the mobile phone field, the situation has changed.

In the domestic market, Lenovo's mobile phone products mainly rely on operators to promote the channel, the product in the Android system has no characteristics. Of course, Lenovo's channel ability and marketing ability is very strong, the use of similar promotional means with Samsung, is not impossible to become an international mobile phone brand. But Lenovo has little patent reserves in the telecoms sector, which will be the biggest obstacle to Lenovo's entry into international markets.

Lenovo recently acquired Motorola, which includes 2000 of Motorola's patents, although it is unclear whether the 2000 patents involve some of the core patents in the communications industry, but it is better than none. At the same time in the acquisition process, Lenovo's access to 17000 of Motorola's other patents is a temporary defence to the internationalization of Lenovo's handsets, but they may help Lenovo enter the European and American markets in the early days of the market, but Lenovo still needs to prepare for a patent in the long term.

Another seeded seed is Huawei. Huawei Mobile phone internationalization pace is constantly speeding up, nearly two years, even the main model of Huawei has been placed abroad, its internationalization of the intention to highlight, brought about by its market growth rate also exceed the industry average level, which has become an international brand laid the foundation.

In terms of products, Huawei has made great progress in the design and technological level of its products since the introduction of the original BMW design team. The Huawei P6 last year, at least for now, is close to Apple's level in a certain procedure. Just released P7, should say at least in the design and manufacturing process, objectively speaking, not less than Samsung's flagship products, which for its internationalization process prepared enough.

Huawei and the major operators in Europe and the United States Channel relations, may be stronger than Samsung, which to some extent for Huawei's mobile phone internationalization provides a wide range of imagination and the possibility of rapid amplification. At this point, even now Japanese and Korean enterprises can only hope and sigh.

Finally, and most crucially, Huawei's patent power is not yet fully flat with American companies, but at least it can be countered. There are news that Huawei's patent contribution to LTE has reached a sufficiently high level, according to people close to Huawei, the current Huawei's core of LTE patents accounted for nearly 25%, this is unique in Chinese companies, which also gives Huawei in the future mobile phone industry to provide a guarantee of competitiveness, That is the moral of the global umbrella of intellectual property that Ren spoke about in his speech to Huawei's Terminal business unit recently. This means that in the future in the international market, Huawei's mobile phone based on LTE is difficult for other companies to form a product outside the effective sniper. As for the telecom industry's patent reserves, the cutter has already explained that Huawei is the most powerful one in China's mobile phone industry.

So, in terms of the strength of the current manufacturers and international market conditions, can truly enter the international market of domestic mobile phone brands, but also only Huawei and Lenovo.