Temat: Chińczycy o kopiach markowych telefonów - Global Times

Chińczycy o kopiach markowych telefonów - Global Times

Temat chińskich kopi markowych telefonów jest obecny w branży telekomunikacyjnej od zawsze. W chińskim Global Times ukazał się interesujący artykuł, o tym jak na chińskie kopie markowych telefonów patrzą chińscy konsumenci.

Marcin Nowak Shenzhen, Chiny http://MOQChina.com

Copycat phone makers look to overseas market

Source: Global Times By Sun Zhe

http://business.globaltimes.cn/comment/2010-03/509887....

The best time Wang Jianhua's business has ever seen was around the 2008 Olympic Games, when foreigners swarmed into Beijing and visited his counter in west Beijing's Zhongguancun, an electronics distribution center.

"Some managed to bargain (my phones) down to 1,500 yuan ($219.73) from my quotation of 3,000 yuan ($439.46), about the price for a genuine iPhone," Wang said.

These foreign Apple fans did not know what they bought were copycat handsets, Wang said.

The average price of the best copycat iPhone, for Chinese buyers, is around 1,000 yuan ($146.49) in Zhongguancun, which "only real professionals can distinguish from genuine ones," said Wang, a phone dealer in his mid 20s.

Super phones

In the Huaqiangbei Electronics Market, a national counterfeit mobile hub in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, there are hundreds of iPhone copycats, under names meant to sound close to the original: Orange, MiPhone, lPhone, ChinaiPhone, ciPhone and so on.

Some of these brands even have pop stars endorse their products.

Besides the iPhone, almost all well-known mobile models have knockoffs in the market, sold at a much lower price. Some copycat phones are even marketed earlier than their genuine counterparts, according to Wang.

A genuine E71, a popular smart phone model with a full qwerty keyboard introduced in November 2008 by Nokia, is priced at more than 2,000 yuan ($292.98), while a knockoff version of the model is offered for less than 500 yuan ($73.24).

Copycat handsets offer everything legitimate models do – large screens, high-definition camera lenses, huge memory, Bluetooth, GPS and mp4 players.

Some of these handsets even have functions one would not expect on a mobile phone.

One model is equipped with a cigarette lighter, another with an electric shaver. Almost all the copycat phones have two SIM-card slots, and some even accommodate both GSM and CDMA networks.

The industry chain of handset counterfeiting is pretty complete, said Lian Xiaodong, a Beijing-based industry insider.

"There are design companies and manufacturers of all sorts of handset components in Shenzhen, where most copycat phones are produced," Lian said.

As for the chip, the core component of a mobile phone, more than 80 percent are produced by Mediatek (MTK), a top chip designer based in Taiwan, according to iSuppli, a Shanghai-based industry research firm.

MTK chips are integrated with software, which makes mobile production easy.

The only other things needed are a battery and a cover to make a phone. That explains why there are hundreds of phone manufacturers of all sizes in Shenzhen, Lian said.

He said that it is no secret that subcontractors of top mobile brands also provide components to copycat phone makers, and thus the knockoff phones can be equipped with just the same hardware.

Poor user experience

Xiao Bing used a copycat phone last year. The number 4 key on its dial pad sometimes didn't work.

"Luckily the phone has a touch panel, so it is still usable," said Xiao, a 27-year-old Beijing-based human resources staffer with P&G China.

"The phone needs to be manipulated with great care, as it seems so fragile, but you know you cannot ask too much from a 300-yuan ($43.95) handset," Xiao said.

The phone's receiver broke after half a year of use, and she had to dump it as no after-sales service was offered for that model.

She has no plan to buy another copycat phone.

However, some copycat phone makers are starting to offer maintenance services.

A copycat phone seller in Zhongguancun offers a three-month warranty.

Another dealer offers 12 months, though it is not certain he will still be in business after 12 months, as the provider of the three-month warranty grumbled.

Overseas-bound

The country's copycat phone producers are mostly turning their focus from home to the overseas markets, said Kevin Wang, a senior industry analyst with iSuppli.

"The home market is mostly saturated, while the overseas market is still seeing fast growth, as the cheap phones meet the demands of the developing world," Wang told the Global Times.

China exported about 100 million copycat phones in 2009, up twofold from the previous year, mostly to the Middle East, Africa and India, according to iSuppli.

About 15 Shenzhen-based copycat phone manufacturers are about to build joint venture assembly lines in India, the largest overseas market for China-made knockoff phones, according to a February report by Hong Kong-based newspaper Wen Wei Po.

Only about 40 percent of the population in India has a mobile phone, according to Strategy Analytics, a top global consulting.

In China, 56.3 percent of people had a cell phone by the end of 2009, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Large copycat phone makers are building their own brands and products based on their own designs, said Wang with iSuppli, as the overseas market is gradually raising the threshold of entry for China's knockoff phones.

What's more, the profit margin is thinning for these phone makers, as there are too many producers.

"We can earn about only 5 yuan ($0.73) from each copycat handset exported," said Huang Wei, a Shenzhen-based international trade agent.

Source: http://business.globaltimes.cn/comment/2010-03/509887....