Slashdot Mirror
Chinese Smartphone Invasion Begins
snydeq writes "Tech giants Apple, Google, and Microsoft were no-shows at CES this week in Las Vegas, which worked out just fine for Chinese vendors looking to establish a name for themselves with U.S. consumers. 'Telecom suppliers Huawei and ZTE, in particular, have set their sights on breaking into the U.S. market for smartphones and tablets. ... Whether these Chinese imports can take on the likes of Apple and Samsung remains to be seen, but as Wired quotes Jeff Lotman, the CEO of Global Icons, an agency that helps companies build and license their brands: "The thing that's amazing is these are huge companies, and they have a lot of power, but in the United States nobody has heard of them and they're having trouble gaining traction, but it's not impossible. Samsung was once known for making crappy, low-end phones and cheap TVs. Now they're seen as a top TV and smartphone brand."'"
It's sold under the Apple brand.
If I could pay $20 for a crappy low-end phone that ran Android that would last 6 months, I'd seriously consider it. At that rate, I'd spend $40/yr. which is under half the price I pay now for a cheap Virgin phone (which I buy outright).
If it was $30 and lasted a year, that'd be even better.
Sure, the prices aren't there yet, but more competition is only going to drive prices down.
I have used a LOT of china smartphones. and they all suck badly. really poor Android installs, really REALLY bad hardware. Innovative ideas, I LOVE the dual sim phones, but they either come with batteries that are garbage or the phone it self has QC issues that make it a swing and a miss.
So unless they have a dual core 1.5ghz Android 4.2 phone for $29.00 unlocked... they will not sell many.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If that was the case Apple would never have sold a single iPhone
I'll get my coat..
because they're big enough brands to have a show of their own. Why spend the money on an event where you have to fight for attention when you've established your brand enough that the media clamors to be invited to your event?
This would be great, if only the price of the phone was a significant part of the cost of owning a phone.
Unfortunately, it's almost a rounding error.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
As compared to the strange sounding Hyundai, Volkswagen, Nokia, Nissan, Lenovo, etc... They do OK in US market.
Some of us buy our hardware and our plans separately.
If you do differently, well, that's your own problem.
So what?
The bulk of the cost of owning a smart phone is the cellular service.
If your phone costs $50, $250, $450, $650, it's about 5-15% of the total cost of ownership.
In other words, if you're looking more closely at the cost of the phone rather than the functionality of the phone, you're missing the point of owning a smartphone.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Not sure about your denominator, there, but you can buy voice and data plans for about $30 a month. This is $720 over 2 years.
It you buy a "top of the line" phone, it will cost you about the same as the service for 2 years (i.e. 50% of ownership cost). If you can get a cheap smartphone, it lowers your costs substantially.
Just about all Android and Apple smart phones have roughly the same functionality.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I own a ZTE v875, which I got for around 80 euros as a carrier exclusive (TMN Smart A7). The phone is really really good for the value, in fact, I would get it again if something happens to it. It has everything what you would expect from a good Android phone. The GPS is even better, I often get more precision from the location services than my friends with higher end phones. The qwerty keyboard is awesome and the main reason why I bought this phone. There is a minor problem though, you need to use a plastic plug in the headphones jack, otherwise sand and dust comes in and stays between the touchscreen and the LCD - annoying. Other than that, the phone is very serviceable, I already opened it a couple of times to clean the sand / dust. In fact, I even managed to accidentally cut 5 of the LCD flex cable vias while trying to unplug it. Fortunately I have steady hands and a good soldering iron :)
Other than that, I'm stuck with gingerbread. The internal storage is quite small, however I have root access which allows me to move apps around to circumvent the small internal (permanent) memory. The battery autonomy is ok, with 3G on at all times I always have more than 1 day of battery.... if I dont abuse google maps.
LG used to be known as Gold Star. Gold Star was known as the "junk" brand of Sears, K-Mart, Zayre (oooh, I'm old) and other stores that targeted the low end consumer.
Gold Star had such a bad reputation that they changed their name to LG which stands for Lucky Gold Star.
Those that pooh-pooh the Chinese brands are ignoring all of the history since WWII. We used to laugh at Honda, Toyota, Kawasaki, Sony, NEC, Yamaha, and all the other Japanese brands, and now they high quality and popular (even luxury brands!). The American car and electronics manufacturers were complacent and we nearly completely lost automobile manufacturing entirely *twice* - only to be bailed out with government loans. We lost consumer electronics manufacturing entirely in the US.
Korean brands used to have a ridiculously bad reputation. Now we have Korean brands that people are more than willing to buy, sometimes preferring them over Japanese brands like Sharp. Hyundai used to be viewed as a disposable car (I had an Excel at one point). Now they are good quality transportation, as good as anything Japanese (but maybe not Infiniti or Acura).
And now we have idiots replying to this story saying that the Chinese will never make higher quality goods, as if the Chinese are somehow inherently inferior. This smacks of denial and racism, frankly, the same kind of denial and racism that we used against the Japanese and Koreans, before the Japanese and Koreans kicked our asses in manufacturing.
It feels good to think that you're superior to other people...but this is delusional. This is why Jared Diamond's book angered so many conservatives - he exposed the environmental, food, and natural transportation advantages people in the Middle East and Europe had over other locations on the planet. He detailed how these advantages were the real reason why European civilization became so successful, instead of some inherent quality of "white" people. And you see this every day. You see it in the denial that "those people over there" can't possibly be as good scientists and engineers as we in the US are.
It's a dumb worldview, and eventually self-defeating, because where the manufacturing goes, the science and engineering goes too. We here in the US are not special. Complacency brings down empires - political and economic both. We have been complacent for 60 years, because we thought the post WWII boom would go on forever.
--
BMO
But you can't leave your country (that's the size of the average US state) without roaming charges.
Also, US carriers suck. A lot.
But because of that, they're a good stock to own - 5-6% dividends.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
The thing that's amazing is these are huge companies, and they have a lot of power, but in the United States nobody has heard of them and they're having trouble gaining traction, but it's not impossible
Change "United States" to "China", and you've just described Google's problems when they attempted to expand several years ago. Baidu is still the number one search provider in China. There are plenty more examples of this. It's not easy to predict when a product will find traction in a foreign market.
Chinese firms like Huawei face an additional, very complicated hurdle that Japanese and Koreans firms didn't face when they worked their way into the American market, the "taint" that's left on their brands by the Chinese government. When Japanese and Korean firms first came into the US, they "only" had to deal with name brand recognition, quality, etc. While there was some hysteria around Japan Inc. and whatnot buying the US, I would suggest that Chinese concerns are probably even greater, magnified by concerns of military espionage and a messy history between the two nations from 1949 to today. It's not fair, but it's unfortunately a real thing they have to deal with. Thus, they have just that one extra headache they have to deal with, not just convincing that their products are competitive but that they're not out to steal your data and wage war with the United States as well.
I would also add that unlike Japan, they face much stiffer competition entering into the US market with a larger number of well established, well funded players who unlike blindsided American firms, much better understand how the electronics-export game works.
I think a more important question is: do I go all across Europe, ie to Spain & Slovenia?
I'd say the answer is no. At least not regularly enough that I'd base my choice of phone plan on this.
The point of having a smartphone is mostly to show off to other people as far as I can tell. That and email.
Why would I watch Netflix on the road in Europe?
It's not even available here.
Besides, I have a nice big screen at home.
I'll use that for movies instead of a tiny phone display.
Can you go all across Europe, ie to Spain & Slovenia, without incurring roaming charges? Then it's not the same as the US. 1GB/month - better not watch Netflix on the road, or get a few emails with large attachments. Also, that's not what I want for a smartphone plan. What's the point of having a smartphone?
Well I can't speak for everyone else but I mainly live in my country, sure if I went a lot abroad that might be an issue but my foreign access costs is a rounding error to my vacation costs. I care about the broadband I can get in my daily life, going on vacation is a good time to unwind from that always connected stress too. And if I did it because of work then I'd insist they pay, not me. Oh and the EU has brought the charges down to moderately unreasonable, you're not fleeced quite as bad as you used to be.
Yes, if you must stream Netflix you have a problem. But if your smart phone is topped off with apps and games and music and movies and whatever else you want from your wifi at home, then meh... I don't come close to 1 GB/month I think, and yet it's incredibly useful to me. YMMV.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Straight from this week's The Economist, http://www.economist.com/news/business/21569398-how-did-lenovo-become-worlds-biggest-computer-company-guard-shack-global-giant
Lenovo is on a roll. It is number one in five of the seven biggest PC markets, including Japan and Germany. Its mobile division is poised to leapfrog Samsung to grab the top spot in China, the world’s biggest smartphone market. This week it made a splash at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas with what PC World called “bullish bravado and a seemingly bottomless trunk” of enticing new products.
To focus on PCs, Mr Yang’s [CEO] predecessor sold Lenovo’s smartphone arm for $100m in 2008. Mr Yang bought it back for twice as much the next year. He believes that PCs and other devices will converge, so knowledge of one area will breed expertise in the other. He may be right. Smartphone sales are red hot in China, and Lenovo is now selling mobiles and tablets in several emerging markets
He also thinks Lenovo has a secret weapon. It has kept a lot of manufacturing in-house (why outsource to Foxconn when you already pay Chinese wages?). Mr Yang believes this in-house expertise gives his firm an edge in product development. But Lenovo must exploit that edge better than it has done so far if it is to compete with a technology powerhouse like Samsung and build a global brand anything like Apple’s.
Has anyone seen one of these Lenovo phone critters yet . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
"No one wants crappy, low-end phones that will break within 2 hours."
Certainly not.
On the other hand, I wanted an smartphone capable of managing two SIM cards, 4" screen (I don't want bigger), with Android and a big fat battery. No way finding something like that from any of the "big brands".
I'm a consumer and I vote with my wallet. Would you think all these capitalist-grown companies knows that?
Well, I ended buying a Chinese Jiayu G2 http://www.pandawill.com/jiayu-g2-smart-phone-40-inch-ips-screen-android-40-mtk6577-10ghz-3g-gps-black-p70479.html
which costed me 120â including air transport with a charger and an extra battery and, after about three months of heavy usage, I'd say it is a best buy.
Did I buy it because it was cheap? No -but it certainly costed me about 1/5 of a big brand -if they had something like that in catalogue, I mean. I bought it because that was what I wanted to buy.
I suppose that's capitalism in action, it's only I find funny it has to be somebody from the only big known comunist country in the world the one to teach that lesson.
You seem to be arguing with someone that doesn't exist in this thread. I've seen nobody say "China can never make quality hardware." What people are saying is that they will need to make quality hardware, before they'll gain much in the way of US marketshare. Many of us have noticed that goods developed and branded by Chinese companies tend to be cheap at the expense of all quality. That will be a problem in the smartphone market most likely.
I'm quite sure China can produce quality goods, because I own some of them. I've goods that were produced in China, to the spec of a foreign company that are quite high quality. However that does not mean that the goods their domestic companies are choosing to produce are high quality.
Also your whining about complacency and bringing down empires shows a real lack of awareness of the US and the world. For one, you can hardly call the US complacent. Lots of top notch R&D happens in the US, lots of top notch manufacturing. A simple example would be the CPU most likely in your PC: Intel. They have the most advanced fabs in the world, and ruthlessly push the technology curve ahead. And yes, they manufacture in the US dominantly (8 of 11 fabs).
What's more there's nothing to "bring down". The US is a nation, not an empire and guess what? The US doesn't have to be #1 at everything to still be a nice place to live. I've been to a number of countries, all of them by definition not #1 at all the things the US is, and they were all quite nice. Canada, Norway, the UK, all places I would be very happy to live. They don't get to claim many "#1s" but they don't have to. It isn't a situation of "Someone is the best and everyone else sucks."
There is room in the world for a successful China AND US, just as there is room for a successful UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, and so on.
They are not only cheap models, ZTE its releasing this http://www.phonearena.com/phones/ZTE-Nubia-Z5_id7609 this month. Quadcore processor at 1500 MHz, 5 inches display on 1920 x 1080 pixels and 441 ppi.
They're cheap enough.
I have a Star N8000 (AU$130) which I've had for about a year now (Galaxy Note clone), and a JiaYu G3 (AU$230) just bought.
The Star runs Android 4.03 nicely, has been very robust (in a standard supplied cover) and performs well. I bought it for it's dual SIM capability which makes staying connected while travelling much easier and cheaper, but it's become my main phone because it's so versatile (even includes an analogue TV tuner).
The G3 is new, but so far it feels nicely made. It's very fast, has a brilliant display, two SIMs and runs Jelly Bean. I bought it to test, but my GF saw it when it arrived, so I haven't been able to do much testing... It's easily the slickest phone I have (limited) access to.
I have no doubt that the Galaxy SIII and iPhone are well made, but in Australia they're triple the price of my phones and less versatile.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
We pay 19.99 here for unlimited calls to fixed and mobiles, fixed lines all over Europe plus USA and Canada, unlimited SMS and MMS, unlimited Internet for the first 3GB and reduced speeds after. As my smartphone has wifi, I can watch video all day long at home and work and not even touch my uncapped data.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Particles of dust inside the LCD and opening it up periodically is an experience most people do not want to endure, alongside an outdated OS and fragile connections. You got what you paid for, which is fine for you but not many others who want a phone that 'just works.'
If every big company outsources their production facilities to China, what do you expect to happen? Chinese manufacturers will sit on the know-how idly, without taking advantage of it? Of course they'll start manufacturing their own products after a while.
Smartphones, cars, air-conditioners, fridges, ships, armament, you name it. It's inevitable.