Chapter 2854 OEM

Even if the monopoly penalty is imposed, Qualcomm cancels a series of unreasonable bundling clauses and makes rectifications, but Qualcomm's chips are still too expensive. It's OK for some mid-to-high-end and flagship models, but if mid-to-low-end models want to be competitive in price, it's better to adopt a cheaper chipset solution.

MediaTek is an option.

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

After all, its own 4g chip has been developed, and it is unique in China. China will fully open 4g networks next year, and 4g mobile phones will be on the big stage. At this time, Asda immediately launched a mobile phone with self-developed 4g chips, which is very powerful in technology and has a good selling point in marketing.

Even if the performance of self-developed chips is relatively weak, it wins in cheapness.

In particular, an 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 don't know who Qualcomm is at all. They only care about whether the mobile phone is cheap, whether it is easy to use, and whether it can show the portrait when taking pictures at night, and it will be pitch black except for the teeth.

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

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

It doesn't matter if there are technical weaknesses.

The key is to have market distribution, which is the most important thing.

After confirming this idea, Zhou Shaoning's next work is very clear. Since Qualcomm will get into trouble, then Asda, as Qualcomm's most important customer, will launch a smartphone equipped with MediaTek and self-developed chips, which is equivalent to intimidating Qualcomm.

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 the bundled sales strategy of Qualcomm chips, but Samsung does not indulge them, and directly brought up the Korea Fair Trade Commission to conduct an antitrust investigation on 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 turns against Qualcomm.

In this regard, China is much worse.

As long as China bravely fights back and Qualcomm launches an antitrust investigation, then MediaTek releases its chips, and Asda launches its own mobile phone chips... At that time, Qualcomm's threat will come, after all, they are not making mobile phones.

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

The market is decisive.

The mobile phone market is determined by mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Asda, Xiaomi, and HTC. Most mobile phone users don't even know what Qualcomm is.

Qualcomm can block mobile phone manufacturers. If a mobile phone manufacturer offends Qualcomm, Qualcomm will not sell chips, or take various reasons to delay orders and ship less, which can make this mobile phone manufacturer fall into chaos. The same is true in reverse. If mobile phone manufacturers do not purchase Qualcomm chips, Qualcomm can only stare and wait for death.

Qualcomm, which cannot face its users directly, will have to come to China to seek help in dejection, such as reaching a strategic agreement with Xiaomi, exchanging shares, and forming strategic cooperation, so as to help Qualcomm indirectly obtain a certain market share and avoid being directly blocked.

The current mobile phone manufacturers have formed a "monopoly" structure.

Apple is a self-contained system and is not included.

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

It just so happens that many companies in these two countries have very evil business methods.

Other countries are unlikely to reach a "business alliance" of mutual advancement and retreat. This is a blatant monopoly, and the Chinese and Korean markets are not uncommon at all. The Japanese TV industry was quickly occupied by Chinese and Korean TV manufacturers because of the wrong route of plasma screens, and there is an "alliance" attribute behind it. "Alliance" is a strictly prohibited monopoly behavior. Later, Korean giants such as Samsung and LG were also punished for monopoly, but that was a small amount of money. The TV market has no place for Japanese manufacturers, and it has become the world of China and South Korea.

It is not the first or second time that China and South Korea have joined forces to fight against Japan.

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 Esda must launch its own chips to form a deterrent. In this way, there will be more room for negotiation in future cooperation with Qualcomm, and it will not be a situation where we are at the mercy of others.

Zhou Shaoning said: "By the way, who will be the foundry for our chips?"

Zhou Buqi asked: "Who are they?"

Zhou Shaoning said: "Now there are mainly two companies, one is TSMC and the other is Samsung. TSMC is still the mainstream, 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 are gradually beginning to adopt Qualcomm's chip solutions. In addition to business reasons, there are also strategic factors, that is, the influence of foundries."

"Is this an exchange?" Zhou Buqi understood it immediately, "Qualcomm gave the chip foundry order to Samsung, and then Samsung's mobile phones used Qualcomm's chip solutions."

Zhou Shaoning smiled and said, "Yes, that's the factor. But I think Qualcomm was fooled. They lack a market facing the public level, and their decision-making is a bit out of shape. Even if Qualcomm does not give the foundry order to Samsung, Samsung's mobile phones must buy Qualcomm chips if they want to be competitive. Otherwise, their Galaxy series will not be a rival to our Aster series."

Zhou Buqi didn't know much about this, "Is there any difference between giving the chip to Samsung for foundry and giving it to TSMC for foundry?"

Zhou Shaoning said, "There is a certain difference, mainly two factors, cost and yield rate. At present, Samsung is still worse than TSMC, with higher costs and slightly lower yield rates. However, these costs can be borne by Samsung. For the client, There won't be much impact. As for production efficiency, both companies are similar. "

Zhou Buqi asked: "What about China? What about SMIC?"

"Uh..." Zhou Shaoning paused, "Don't consider China for the time being. Our self-developed 4g chip is indeed not very good in performance, and is much behind Qualcomm and Samsung. But this is a 4g mobile phone chip after all, and it is also the forefront of the times. There are no more than ten manufacturers in the world that are making 4g mobile phone chips. SMIC's foundry capacity is still relatively weak. If we hand it over to them for foundry, they themselves will not agree. "

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "We give them the order, will they agree?"

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

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

There are defective products in the production of any commodity.

The same is true 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 defective products are produced, the defective cost of this part will be borne by the foundry.

For example, if Asda gives its own 4g chip to TSMC electricians, the defective rate is 0.2%, and the loss of 0.2% will be borne by TSMC; if it is given to Samsung, the defective rate is 0.5%, and 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 all chip manufacturers will cooperate with TSMC.

However, if Asda launches a 5g chip at this time, no foundry in the world can do it, and the order is given to TSMC... TSMC can only reluctantly carry out foundry production, and the process and technology are not mature and not up to standard. The defective rate may reach 50%. If one qualified piece is produced, one unqualified piece will be produced.

The cost is too high, and TSMC cannot afford such defective product losses.

Even if they are given an order, they dare not accept it.

They can't afford it.

Unless Asda wants to ask TSMC to do foundry production anyway, and promises that all the defective rate losses will be borne by Asda. In this way, TSMC will not have the risk of losing money, and will be happy to accept orders.

The current SMIC is also the same, and cannot afford such orders.

Even if the domestic labor cost is low enough, it cannot afford the cost stacking caused by such insufficient technology.

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

But this is impossible.

The significance of self-developed chips is to harvest the market at low cost, and the most favorable foundry solution must be selected, and the choice must be made between TSMC and Samsung.