Chapter 568 Dopod Smart 1

On October 15, Dopod, a subsidiary of Honor Electronics, launched their first Android smartphone Smart 1. This phone only has an 8GB version, which is made of all engineering plastics and is only available in black. It is priced at only $349.

You should know that before October, Apple reduced the price of iPhone phones by $100, so their 4GB version of IPhone 1 is priced at $399 and the 8GB version is priced at $499.

The Smart 1 launched by Dopod is only available in an 8GB version, which is even $50 cheaper than the 4GB version of IPhone 1 at this time, which can be said to be very cost-effective.

And although the public price of Smart 1 is $349, the contract phones launched by operators such as O2 Telecom and T-Mobile are only priced at $299 because they need to be bound to a package for at least two years - the operators have reached an agreed price with Dopod and will compensate them for part of the amount.

The reason why the price of Dopod Smart 1 can be compressed to such a low level and still have considerable profits is that, in addition to the fact that the material of its body is engineering plastic, which is relatively low in cost, the internal parts of Smart 1 use a large number of products from domestic Chinese manufacturers, which greatly reduces the cost compared with the two models of mobile phones, IPhone and Mate.

As we all know, at this time in 2007, China was centered on Shenzhen, and it can be said that the supply chain of copycat mobile phones was very complete.

Well, the reason why it is called "copycat mobile phone" is that after the mass production of MediaTek mobile phone chips, the era of copycat mobile phones in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen, began to come. At that time, MediaTek chips integrated camera, video, and MP3. The factory only needed to make the shell and battery to sell it. Therefore, many factories did not put the factory name on the mobile phone, but mostly used SZ letters instead, indicating that it was produced in Shenzhen, and later it was read as "copycat".

However, even though it started to rise in 2003, by 2007, the manufacturers of these accessories were still mixed.

After HTC was acquired and renamed Honor Electronics, they set aside a portion of funds to screen some mobile phone accessories manufacturers near Shenzhen, and selected those with more standardized and better quality control, provided financial support, listed them as their partners, and helped them improve their technology - after all, the Philips-related patented technology purchased by Honor Electronics is relatively advanced.

Currently, Dopod's Smart 1 has begun to use accessories from these manufacturers to reduce the cost of the product. When its quality can be further improved, Honor's subsequent mobile phone models will gradually increase the proportion of accessories used in this process chain.

Of course, for mobile phone touch screens, domestic products in China are still not up to standard. The mainstream suppliers in the market are still Sharp, Samsung and LG. Dopod Smart 1 can only choose LG's touch screen, which is slightly more cost-effective, instead of Mate 1's Sharp screen.

It is also worth mentioning that after the iPhone price cut, hundreds of consumers who bought iPhone 1 at the original price sent emails to Apple to express their dissatisfaction, which forced Jobs to hold a press conference to apologize to these consumers and compensate them with $100 Apple Store vouchers.

In response, Honor Electronics went a step further and announced that its Mate 1 would also be reduced by $100, and users who had already purchased it before could go directly to the experience store or operator where they bought it at the time to get a $100 refund, which directly boosted its user favorability.

At the same time, Honor Electronics announced that it would release the latest Mate 1S mobile phone on December 20, before Christmas.

Compared with Mate 1, Mate 1S mobile phone will only have a 16GB version, adding support for 3G network.

And Mate 1S mobile phone will be equipped with a front camera for the first time. They will provide a 500,000-pixel front camera and a 2-megapixel rear camera.

Yes, both the previously launched IPhone 1 and Mate 1 only have a 2-megapixel rear camera, not the popular front + rear dual cameras.

The price of Mate 1S is set at $599, and the price of their contract phones with mobile operators will be lower - after all, 3G packages are not cheap.

But even at $599, compared with the 8GB version of IPhone 1 released at the time, one is that their memory has been expanded to 16GB, 3G network has been added, and there is also a front camera, which can be said to be very attractive.

After Honor Electronics announced this news, I am afraid that it is not just Apple that wants to curse, including Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and other mobile phone manufacturers, looking at the configuration of their upcoming Android mobile phone models and the pricing they are preparing...

By then, I am afraid that it will be completely uncompetitive against Mate 1S...

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On the operating system side, after Apple launched the Apple Store, Android also announced the launch of their Android Store, and cooperated with Klarna to provide online payment functions in the Android Store.

Users can use the Klarna Pay built into the new version of Android to purchase apps and related paid items in the Android Store, such as the payment of props for some games.

Prior to this, Android had invested in Klarna and acquired a 15% stake in the company.

Klarna also launched their mobile version of Klarna pay in early October, providing users with mobile payment functions on their mobile phones, which in itself achieved the purpose of making it easier for users to place orders on their mobile phones after Argos Retail Group launched the Argos app.

However, the previous IPhone and Mate phones did not support 3G network functions, so users shopping on Argos through mobile APPs had poor network performance, and their images loaded too slowly. As we all know, for a scale like Argos.com, the number of images that users need to view when browsing is very large.

Therefore, at present, there are not many users of Argos APP. This situation will not improve until the mobile phone models that support 3G network are launched.

Amazon currently has business in the UK, France and Germany, which are also the largest markets for European e-commerce.

However, because Amazon's main focus is still on North America, its market share in Europe is not high and is suppressed by Argos.com.

But Barron has always been very wary of Amazon, so he will not relax the development of Argos.com and continue to invest in the e-commerce industry of Argos Retail Group to maintain his advantage over Amazon.

Especially the heavy asset investment in logistics and warehousing, which can be said to be the biggest moat in the e-commerce field - some start-ups may be able to gain attention through special sales methods at the beginning, but in the long run, the user experience when using e-commerce shopping is the most important, and a complete logistics and distribution system is a very important part of providing users with a good shopping experience.

At present, in the UK, Ireland, France and Germany, Argos Retail Group has initially established a complete distribution network, covering most of their regions - of course, in some sparsely populated areas, the delivery time is definitely relatively longer, and it is considered fast if it can be delivered to the door within a week.

However, in large cities, it has basically reached delivery within three days, and in key cities such as London, Paris and Berlin, it is normal to deliver on the same day.

Of course, this refers to Argos's own products. It takes much longer for the merchants they open to settle in.

Because Argos's own products will be stocked in various storage centers, and the shipping locations of settled merchants are not certain...