The richest man starts with a blind box

Chapter 689 (Free) Unserviceable Cell Phones

[PS: I saw everyone talking about water in the last chapter. Although I don’t agree with it, everyone said so, so it should be, so this chapter is free, it can be regarded as making up for the dissatisfaction of the previous chapter]

The contract phone was born very early in the United States. The initial reason was to reduce the cost of purchasing mobile phones and increase the choice of user needs.

During the initial period of the birth of mobile phones, telecom operators in the United States suffered from a serious shortage of users, which led to serious deficits.

Because telecom operators can't make money just by building base stations, they also need a sufficient number of mobile phone users to pay for them.But the price of mobile phones at that time was extremely expensive, and the price was tens of thousands of dollars. Even the middle class could not afford it, and only the top bourgeoisie could consume it.

But how much of the bourgeoisie at the top?
Besides, telecom operators don't dare to control the high communication fees charged by these top bourgeoisie. After all, many bourgeoisie themselves are the bosses of communication companies.

After thinking about it, the only way to lower the price of mobile phones is to allow more middle-class people to be able to buy mobile phones, thereby expanding the number of users. This coincides with mobile phone companies.

Because it is the operator and the mobile phone, they decided to unite together and launch a contract model. As long as you sign a package agreement with the communication operator for a fixed amount of consumption per month, and then pay about half of the pre-deposit, you can use it at a relatively cheap price. Buying a mobile phone can also save a lot of monthly communication fees.

Through this method, the popularity of mobile phones in the United States has completely begun.

However, this has also caused many Americans to only buy contract phones when buying mobile phones, because contract phones are cheaper than bare phones, and they can also enjoy relatively cheaper packages from operators. This is a very cost-effective thing. Completely formed a consumption habit.

As a result, 90% of the mobile phones in the United States are contract phones. At the same time, all companies that want to enter the mobile phone industry must reach a cooperation with at least one telecom operator and launch a contract phone with this telecom operator. , and finally entered the US market.

The problem with the Skystar 5 mobile phone is here, because the Skystar 5 entered the market as a prize in a blind box. At the same time, Boss Huang’s attitude of not actively promoting the Skystar 5 and letting it develop naturally led to the fact that the Skystar 5 entered the United States. After the market, there is no cooperation agreement signed with any operator at all, so there is no problem of contracting the phone.

This is not a problem at all, the big deal is to sell it as a bare phone. After the user buys a mobile phone, he can sign a contract with the operator he needs and purchase the services provided by the operator, but there is no such discount as a contract phone.

Anyway, these are all obvious things, users are willing to buy, and no one can stop them.

But the problem is, now the United States Telecommunications Association jumped out, saying that you can't do this with Skystar 5, you have to sign a cooperation agreement with a telecom operator to sell the contract machine.

Boss Huang really couldn't understand this sudden change. If I sell bare phones, your telecommunication union won't suffer a loss. Why do you have to make a contract with a telecom operator? It's worse than buying and selling. Buy strong and sell strong.

Fortunately, Boss Huang quickly figured out the reason through his strength in the United States. It was mainly because of an unspoken rule in the telecommunications industry in the United States.

As I said before, 90% of mobile phones in the United States are contract phones, and the sales price of contract phones will be slightly cheaper than bare phones under normal circumstances, which is the main reason why contract phones are rampant.

When the contract phone first appeared, the cheap price of the contract phone was shared by telecom operators and mobile phone manufacturers.For example, for a mobile phone with an original price of 1 US dollars, you only need to pre-deposit 6000 US dollars to get the mobile phone.

But telecom operators need to pay $8000 to mobile phone manufacturers.

In other words, the telecom operator needs to pay a real fee of US$2000 to the mobile phone developer, and on the other hand, the mobile phone developer also loses a profit of US$2000.

But the former can earn that $2000 back through ongoing phone usage charges, and then charge more dollars.As for mobile phone dealers, the ghost knows how much it costs. Even if the price is 2000 dollars cheaper, maybe they can earn another 2000 dollars, but the sales of mobile phones have increased, and overall they can earn more.

So this forms a win-win model of mutual benefit, but as time goes by, the manufacturing cost of mobile phones is getting lower and lower, and the profits of mobile phone manufacturers are getting richer and richer.

On the other hand, telecom operators feel that they have lost a lot, because mobile phone developers only received a small sum of money, but the profits are still there.But I need to pay real extra money to mobile phone developers, and as there are more and more contract phones, the amount of money that needs to be paid is also increasing.

In 95, a famous Sieve fraud broke out. There was a businessman named Sieve. After learning about the system of the contract machine, he turned around and found an empty company. The mobile phone company came out and signed contracts with various telecom operators in the United States.

Immediately afterwards, he did not make his own mobile phones, but imported a batch of cheaper old Nokia mobile phones, and then secretly obtained the technology and means to change the serial number of the motherboard.

So he sold these mobile phones as a contract machine, so that the telecom operator would have to pay him an additional $200 for each mobile phone.

But the problem is that these sold mobile phones were actually bought by Seaver himself. These mobile phones were quickly returned to Seaver's hands, and then changed the serial number of the motherboard by means, and then packaged them directly. A brand new mobile phone continues to be sold through contracts.

In this way, this mobile phone can repeatedly earn a lot of subsidy of 200 US dollars, and Sif quickly earns a lot of money.

Until now, these operators found that the follow-up tariff of Seafer's mobile phone was almost zero, that is, after the first month, there was no new call bill consumption in the follow-up, and it was impossible for them to go back to the mobile phone to earn a penny.

Because there is no ID card in the United States, and no identity information is required to buy a mobile phone card, it is impossible for them to find the owner of the phone.

So they called the police, and it turned out that Seaver had already escaped and made a huge profit of more than $100 million.

To reduce the chance of being discovered, Seaver chose the model of spreading the net widely, that is, signed contracts with almost all telecom operators, and then slowly reduced the number of operations, so that the bad debt rate is not conspicuous in front of the overall data. So the problem was not discovered until more than a year later, but this also put all the telecom operators in the trap.

Together, these angry telecom operators feel that they are really at a disadvantage, and they have no reason to subsidize mobile phone manufacturers.It turned out that telecom operators collectively told all mobile phone operators that they would no longer subsidize the actual cost of any contracted phones.

That is, if a mobile phone with an original price of 1 US dollars is sold for 6000, then the lost 4000 US dollars will be borne by the mobile phone manufacturer, and they will not subsidize another dime.

At the beginning, the mobile phone operators naturally didn't do it, but the telecommunications business newspaper group united together, whoever doesn't do it, don't even think about engaging in contract phones with any telecommunications operators.

The mobile phone manufacturers felt that they could not be used to the telecom operators, so they launched a tit-for-tat policy that whoever does not provide them with a contract phone, their mobile phones are prohibited from using the telecom network of that company.

The telecom operators took a look, good guy, you still have the guts to fight with me, so the telecom operators directly announced a new rule, that is, if whose mobile phone does not sign a contract with any telecom operator, then whoever Don't think about the network of any communication provider under any association if you don't use your mobile phone at home.

Well, this is tantamount to directly cutting off the communication network of the mobile phone manufacturer, and the mobile phone is directly turned into scrap iron. Even a big brand like Motorola has to be turned into scrap iron.

In desperation, the mobile phone dealer gave up and agreed to the conditions of the telecom operator, but it was impossible for the contract phone to have such a huge price difference of 6% off, and the price of the contract phone was only 9% off at most.

The telecom operators also nodded in agreement. Anyway, the average price of mobile phones has also dropped at this time, and the number of their users has also increased. It is true that such super-high discounts are no longer needed to attract users.

Don't you use your mobile phone if you don't get a discount?

As a result, the customers who were watching the excitement at the same time suddenly discovered that it was us melon-eating people who were injured when the gods fought. It should not be too miserable.

This struggle established the cooperation model between American communication operators and mobile phone manufacturers, but it also left a problem left over from history, that is, the United States Communications Association has not revoked the previous ban, that is, any mobile phone must be The unspoken rule of signing a contract with at least one telecom operator.

One is that in order to maintain its own deterrence, the association warned latecomers not to try to challenge the association.

The second thing is naturally because it is profitable, because the association was surprised to find that as the competition among mobile phone manufacturers became more and more fierce, many mobile phone operators were willing to actively give money to telecom operators.

But this is conditional, that is, telecom operators must work hard to help them sell their mobile phones, and return a few points of sales commission for each mobile phone sold.

Because of the natural advantages of telecom operators, when the operator starts to actively promote a certain mobile phone, the sales effect is much stronger than the effect of hiring tens of thousands of salesmen.

Well, these mobile phone manufacturers simply use the telecom operators as their own salesmen, and the telecom operators are not dissatisfied at all. After all, they make money, but a salesman is a salesman, so it is not shabby.

In addition, these mobile phone manufacturers can also ask telecom operators to introduce more discounts for their own mobile phone contracts, so as to attract consumers, and the price required for this part of the discount is also paid by mobile phone manufacturers.

These are real benefits for telecom operators. Many telecom operators can no longer rely on their own business to make money. They have to rely entirely on various sales rebates and subsidies given by mobile phone manufacturers to make money.

Therefore, the Telecommunications Association will never accept the collapse of the current contract mechanism in the United States. They will do everything possible to maintain this contract mechanism. Any company that dares to challenge this system will be hit hard by them.

So this heavy punch fell on the head of Tianxing 5. Tianxing 5 dared not to sign a contract agreement with any telecom operator. Who is he?

So soon, all the new users of the Skystar 5 mobile phone were surprised to find that their Skystar 5 mobile phone didn't even have a telecom operator that could provide communication services.

(End of this chapter)