MediaTek $100 Android Phone is Coming, Game-Changing for Shanzhai Phone Market?

By Gang Lu on August 28, 2010 · Filed Under China, Mobile 2.0


On 12nd July, MediaTek whose phone chips  and “Turn-key”  (from chips to software design) solution has enabled hundreds of Chinese Shanzhai phone manufacturers to make phones easily, made an announcement saying that it joined the Open Handset Alliance and decided to play with Android market.

One month later, in a talk with a friend from MediaTek, I have been told that MediaTek has finished the development of its Android-powered 3G phone chip. “This will drag the Android phone price down to $100 or even less”, he said.

Interesting enough, yesterday the first MediaTek’s Android phone (T3333a) was spotted in Shenzhen’s Shanzhai market. The rumor also revealed its specs, Android 2.1, Dual-Sim supported, RAM 256M+ROM 512M.

With the strong connection with Shanzhai phone manufacturers, will we see MediaTek repeats another success in Chinese phone market? and will Android eventually become the replacement of Shangzhai’s phone OS? There is possibility, but we have to note that the Chinese mobile market is changing rapidly.

1. The smart phone market has been re-defined. Nokia is still there, together with the ‘closed’ Apple’s iPhone and the tens of ‘open’ Android supporters (brands include Lenova, HTC etc).

2. Educating the millions of Shanzhan users could be challenging? Touch screen and multi-threads are fancy, but are they for geeks only? Would low-education and low-income Shanzhan users like it? Is Android too advanced beyond those users’ need?

3. Like Nokia, Motorola etc, most likely MediaTek will soon spend effort on its own Android application market. It would be a good news for Android application developers, but as a late comer in the hyped Chinese app store market and every app market operator is hungry for good applications and developers, MediaTek is mission might not be easy.

4. App store is also a game-changing strategy in mobile phone market. The strategy to operate the app stores will be the key to succeed. And whether the users could quickly accept the new ways of playing with apps is another question.

But one thing is for sure, Android phone market is growing superb fast and it will be the No.1 target for any parties in Chinese market.

[image via Gigjets]

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Breaking! Tencent Acquires Comsenz and Becomes the Dominator of Chinese BBS

By Gang Lu on August 22, 2010 · Filed Under China Web2


Soon, you would see million of Chinese sites are Powered by Tencent (instead of Powered by Discuz!). Although the news has not been confirmed by both parties, it is today proved by the Whois information of Comsenz’s two domain: Comsenz.com and Discuz.net. Both domains are now registered under the name of Tencent Technology (Beijing) Company Limited.

If you do not know Comsenz, the development company of the most popular Chinese BBS system, Discuz, please read our previous coverage for more details. It is reported that ~80% Chinese sites are running its BBS and ~70% of the BBSs are built on Discuz system. Comsenz also developed some other free social software, such as UCHome with which you can easily set up a Facebook-like social network.

Tencent acquires Comsenz, in other words, Tencent is now officially connected with millions of local site owners which are in fact the core group of Chinese web market. Months ago, Alibaba acquired Comsenz’s competitor PHPWind to enter Chinese BBS space. Tencent’s movement on Comsenz does make sense.

What could we expect from this acquisition?

1. Soon, you would see million of Chinese sites are Powered by Tencent (instead of Powered by Discuz!)

2. All the search engine of the BBSs built on Discuz system will be powered by SOSO, Tencent’s search service.

3. BBS is always the most important social media channel, Tencent is now the ‘owner’ and might integrate its services such as QZone and even its microblogging service into the Discuz! platform;

4. All Discuz powered BBS can be login with QQ number; Technically, it might be a huge mission, but eventually, QQ number might become the truly ‘OpenID’ in Chinese web;

5. BBS where people always look for and exchange information about product, plays a very important part in Chinese e-commerce market. Will Tencent take advantage of Discuz! to promote its Paipai e-commerce platform, competing with Alibaba? Why not.

The rumor says the deal is valued at >$10million. It is definitely the highlight of China web 2010!

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