The performance of Chinese mobile phone brands in the global market is obvious to all. In the top 10 of the global smartphone brand shipments, domestic mobile phone manufacturers occupy 7 seats.
The technology level of China's mobile phone industry has improved significantly, and the supporting capacity of the industry chain has improved. LCD screen domestic enterprise technology is mature. More than 85% of mobile phone LCD screens in domestic market come from domestic brand panel companies; OLED has established multiple production lines, BOE, and Huiguang The existing OLED products are shipped; the camera module field is Haoyu, Oufeiguang, and Qiutai Technology ranks among the top three in the domestic market; in the field of fingerprint modules, Oufeiguang owns many domestic and foreign customer resources such as Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi; In the field of cover materials, Apple and Samsung's glass cover are basically from Berne Optics and Lansi Technology; in the field of antennas, Xinwei Communication is one of Apple's core suppliers.
However, we must also clearly understand that in terms of mobile phone core components, China's dependence on foreign companies is still obvious.
'As the world's largest consumer of integrated circuits, China is in a 'home-made rate' situation on some core components. ' Said Li Wei, vice president of CCID Consulting, in an interview with the Communications Industry News. .
This situation is especially manifested in the mobile phone memory chip industry.
Mobile phone storage is a short board
The storage chip industry, one of the shortcomings of China's mobile phone industry, is ushering in a new round of baptism.
Recently, Fujian Jinhua and Taiwan Unicom issued separate statements stating that the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court issued a 'temporary ban' for alleged patent infringement, requiring Micron to stop selling some DRAM and NAND products in China.
Prior to this, the media disclosed that due to alleged manipulation of memory prices, the three major international storage giants Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron were subject to China's anti-monopoly investigation, or were fined 8-8 billion yuan.
Earlier, in December last year, Micron Technology filed a civil lawsuit in California, accusing Taiwan UMC and Fujian Jinhua of violating DRAM's business secrets.
From the prosecution to the counter-claimer, from the counter-claimer to the prosecution, and the involvement of the relevant institutions, behind the interests of the parties, there is hidden in the life chain of the industry chain, the helplessness of the demanders, the pride of the leaders, the introverts Lost, the alert of the regulator.
However, it is exposed to the lack of 'core' status in China's memory chip industry.
In fact, every time the mobile phone conference was held by the manufacturer's focus on the ink chip, China has always relied on imports.
Statistics show that China's annual chip import volume exceeds 200 billion US dollars, of which storage chips account for nearly 50%. In 2017, China imported memory chips of 88.921 billion US dollars, an increase of 39.56% compared with 2016's 63.714 billion US dollars.
Helplessness under the monopoly of the giant
The memory chips used in smart phones are divided into two categories, dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and flash memory NAND Flash. In short, the 4GB memory promoted by mobile phone manufacturers corresponds to DRAM, and 32GB or 64GB memory corresponds to NAND Flash. The two major memory chip markets have long been monopolized by several giants.
In the DRAM market, Samsung, Hynix, and Micron have market shares of 44%, 27%, and 22%, respectively, accounting for more than 90% of the total; in the NAND Flash market, Samsung, Toshiba, Western Digital, Micron, Hynix's market The share is 39%, 16.8%, 15.1%, 11.3%, 10.5%, and the five companies also account for more than 90%.
The monopoly also means that they have the right to speak on the pricing of memory chips. It is reported that since 2016, the price of DRAM has increased several times, and the price increase in 2017 is as high as 40%. From the beginning of this year to the present, the price of DRAM has increased. It started to decline, less than 10%, but it is under tremendous pressure on the Chinese mobile phone brand factory, which has a small profit margin.
In contrast, Samsung, in 2017, the global DRAM market grew by 74%, the scale reached 72.2 billion US dollars, 'head business' Samsung, Hynix, Micron became the biggest beneficiary, sales revenue also rose. Shipais 2017 annual report shows, camp It received 30.1094 trillion won (about 179.6 billion yuan), a year-on-year increase of 75%; net profit was 13.7271 trillion won, a year-on-year increase of 319 percent.
Breakthrough from patent
'The three giants can so unscrupulously raise prices, does it also reveal that our core technology is subject to people's dilemma?' Li Yi said the key to the problem.
Therefore, for the situation where technology is subject to people, experts bluntly, we can't avoid it. We can only learn from and absorb foreign advanced technology, take the initiative to attack, and achieve a broken situation.
At present, China's memory chip industry map has taken shape. There are both Yangtze River storage in the NAND Flash market, Hefei Changxin, which focuses on mobile memory, and Fujian Jinhua, which is dedicated to niche memory.
According to the information disclosed by the three manufacturers, their products have entered the countdown phase of mass production. The trial production time is expected to be in the second half of 2018, and the mass production time may be concentrated in the first half of 2019.
When the domestic memory chip research and development is still in the climbing stage, it should be pointed out that, regardless of DRAM or NAND Flash, in addition to advanced technology and scale, more important is the patent problem.
This is because, for the memory industry, a small component has strict patent protection. These patents are often in the hands of giants, and the market share of giants is very large. Therefore, all existing patents should be avoided. For development, the challenge is very big.
Wang Lei, a researcher at the Intellectual Property Development Research Center of the State Intellectual Property Office, told the Communications Industry News (NET) that traditional DRAM products were protected by a large number of patents.
'Even if Chinese manufacturers make breakthroughs in DRAM technology research and development, it is likely that they have not yet operated to the mass production stage, and they have received patent complaints from giants. ' Wang Lei pointed out.
Therefore, in addition to technical research, building a patent moat is also an important means for domestic enterprises to enter the market. Industry analyst Fu Liang told the "Communication Industry News" (net) reporter that the only thing that can be done for new entrants is to expand themselves. Patent pool. Only grow its own strength to do a good job, always insist on independent research and development, when everyone is a core patent, it is qualified to negotiate with his factory, take the patent mutual authorization route.
The patent infringement lawsuit filed by Fujian Jinhua and Taiwan Unicom is a good testimony to Fu Liang's view. Only by doing a good job of his own patent pool can he defend against the big factory while safeguarding his own interests.
Wang Lei also said that in addition to the huge capital investment, enterprises should not only simply catch up with the current new situation, but should pay more attention to technology and market innovation; they should make long-term reserves and ensure continuous funding. Investing; more importantly, we must pursue the world's leading level based on the characteristics of our own market.
China's storage chip industry is breaking through from the edge, forming a technological advantage, and thus entering the market access threshold, optimistic estimates, within 5-10 years will rewrite the storage chip market is monopolized by international manufacturers.