20 years of restarting life

Chapter 3796 The Possibility of Cooperation with Ericsson

The main purpose of this chartered flight was for Ericsson's team to visit the YiNan Zhengzhou mobile phone factory and to finalize the scope of cooperation between the two parties.

This collaboration is not limited to discussions on using Ericsson's baseband chips and 3G technology licensing. Zhao Chang'an hopes that Ericsson and Siemens can invest in the Pro project through technology and other means.

During his trip to Seoul and Japan, Zhao Chang'an also expressed his hope that LG and Sharp would invest in the Pro phone project with funds or technology, but he did not receive a warm response from either company.

Under immense pressure from Samsung phones, LG is preparing to ramp up its global mobile phone business this year, especially targeting the Chinese market. Back in the year 2000, they established a joint venture with Inspur Group called 'Inspur LG Digital Mobile Communications Co., Ltd.', but due to underestimating the Chinese market, this joint venture was just an empty shell.

Last autumn, Inspur LG Digital Mobile Communications Co., Ltd. began building a mobile phone factory in South China. Last month, the legal registration process was officially completed. The total investment from both parties was US$4500 million, with LG holding 49% of the shares and Inspur Group holding 51%. They are preparing to produce CDMA mobile phones.

The Pro phone proposed by Zhao Chang'an is not currently planned to be sold in China, but will be purely exported. Originally, one of them was closely watching the Chinese market, and the other did not intend to delve into the mobile phone business. Both LG and Sharp found this decision unacceptable.

On the contrary, Ericsson, having already established two joint venture factories in China, produced 311 million mobile phones last year (01), of which 280 million were Ericsson phones and 400 million were produced by the Yanjing factory, for a total output of 680 million units.

Ericsson sold 2695 million mobile phones in 2001, accounting for 6.7% of the global market share.

Motorola sold 6515 million units, accounting for 15.7% of the global market share.

SAMSUNG sold 2823 million units, representing a global market share of approximately 7.1%.

Nokia sold 1.42 million units, capturing approximately 35.6% of the global market share, far ahead of the competition.

These four companies account for approximately 65% ​​of the global mobile phone market share. In the year 2000, Ericsson's global market share was only 10%, ranking third after Nokia and Motorola.

This is why Ericsson chose to form a joint venture with Sony last year, hoping to leverage Dongyang Industries, which he believes is even more powerful than Seoul, to curb and surpass Samsung, and return to the top three in the global mobile phone industry this year.

Currently, the Chinese market accounts for 25% of Ericsson's global mobile phone sales, making it its most important market. Ericsson certainly doesn't want to establish another mobile phone company, competing with its own core business and engaging in foolish internal strife.

However, if they invest a little money, more importantly in the technology of a one-nanometer Zhengzhou Pro phone factory, and then let the Pro phones compete with Nokia, Motorola, and Samsung in overseas markets, from Ericsson's perspective, they wouldn't lose out no matter how you look at it.

Back in China, and even now, Zhao Chang'an has always insisted on holding 100% of the shares in OneNano. However, for his subordinate companies and industrial clusters, he actively introduces new partners when the time is right.

For the Pro phone, Zhao Chang'an believes that more parties need to be involved.

This kind of involvement is unlike the previous Tianyue mobile phone project, where they brought in Tianyue Group, a heavy chemical group, and Nortel Networks, who had never made mobile phones before and had no experience in similar industries, and then brought in RIM to hold a small stake and do OEM manufacturing.

Unlike his approach with Excellence Technology, which involved importing Alcatel's entire production line and models and then selling a majority stake to Imagination Technologies, a computer company, Zhao Chang'an didn't care about the other party's financial resources or investment amount when considering participating in the Pro project. He didn't need money; he valued their technological and research capabilities in the mobile phone field.

Zhao Chang'an led his team out of the terminal. Although there was no warm reception or welcoming ceremony from local leaders, there were a lot of reporters. There was a large group of reporters from Chinese television, radio, newspapers and magazines, as well as some foreign media reporters. Zhao Chang'an even saw a few familiar faces among them. One of them was a thin, pretty and delicate female reporter, who was the same female reporter from Jiangcheng TV who had interviewed Mills in the staff canteen of the Jiangcheng Nanotechnology R&D Center.

"Mr. Zhao, may I interview you about whether your trip to Zhengzhou was for the Pro project or the acquisition of Luanchuan Molybdenum?"

"Mr. Zhao, does this trip to Zhengzhou indicate that Zhengzhou will also be one of the locations to be considered for a 12-inch wafer fab?"

"Mr. Zhao, there were rumors that OneNanometer was going to acquire Chundu Foods. Is that true?"

"Mr. Zhao, as far as I know, the Siemens delegation also returned to China today. Does this mean that the 12-inch wafer fab in Jiangcheng has been confirmed, or has there been any change?"

A large group of reporters rushed over, but fortunately Wen Ye had brought several security guards with him beforehand, and the airport also arranged for personnel to maintain order, thus isolating the group of reporters who were like wolves.

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Tonight's hotel is the airport's own aviation hotel. It's not a high-star hotel; it mainly serves as a temporary accommodation for airport staff and domestic and international flight attendants. The advantage is its proximity; it's just a few steps from the terminal.

The hotel security guards were also very diligent in keeping the reporters out of the elevator in the lobby. This was thanks to Wen Ye's good secrecy work. He had Chu Guangying arrange for the hotel to only receive one guest who booked a dozen or so rooms, and they had no idea that it was Zhao Chang'an and Ericsson's team staying there. Otherwise, if these reporters had sensed something, they would have come and booked rooms for tonight in advance.

The rooms are fully booked now, so they can certainly go to the lobby to reserve rooms for later, but they can't go upstairs to stake out and harass the guests.

So these persistent reporters occupied the lobby, talking amongst themselves, clearly intending to stake out the area.

Zhao Chang'an stayed in a standard room. Obviously, he and Wen Ye slept in the same room at night. The two brothers had spent a lot of time sleeping together, so this was a good opportunity to have a good chat.

"Xiao Xuecheng, Zou Huanan, and Yao Song all called me, jokingly complaining that I didn't tell them about this sooner. They said that if I had told them earlier, I would have insisted on winning the project. They also said that I hope to communicate with them in advance in the future, so that they can help me if they feel that we are not doing a good job in any aspect or that we do not have an advantage in any aspect."

Wen Ye sat on the sofa and sighed, "Do you think I was accidentally hurt by you?"

"Did Chang Yingdong have any complaints?"

Zhao Chang'an asked with a smile.

"As the big boss, he wouldn't say that to me even if he had something to say. Xiao Xuecheng is a straightforward person by nature. Zou Huanan is involved because of you and his son Zou Xiaojun, as well as Liang Qian and Ke Yaqing. However, Li Mingjing did call me once and asked if it was possible to build a chip packaging plant nearby in the airport area. I said that wafer fabs and chip plants are definitely bound together and it is basically impossible to separate them."