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

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]

August 28, 2010 · Filed Under China, Mobile 2.0

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Breaking: Tencent $300Millions Invested DST, Investor of Facebook

Tencent_QQIf you are still wondering who is going to buy ICQ: Digital Sky Technologies (DST, owner of Russia’s Mail.ru), ProfMedia (owner of Rambler) or Tencent (owner of QQ). Here is the news which might let you re-think: Tencent just invested $300m into DST.

The agreement we just received says:

The Board wishes to announce that on 12 April 2010, the Investor, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company, entered into the Subscription Agreement with DST. Pursuant to the Subscription Agreement, the Investor agreed to subscribe for, and DST agreed to issue and allot to the Investor, up to 8,114 Ordinary Shares for an aggregate consideration of up to US$300,002,113 (approximately HK$2.328 billion).

Upon completion of the subscription of all 8,114 Ordinary Shares, the Company would, through the Investor, hold approximately a 10.26% economic interest in DST.

The most interesting part is, if you did not know the background of DST:

DST was founded in 2005 and is one of the largest Internet companies in the Russian-speaking and Eastern European markets. It is also one of the leading global investment groups primarily focused on Internet-related companies, holding stakes in global Internet companies such as Facebook and Zynga.

What do you think? Tencent’s Penguin is growing….

April 12, 2010 · Filed Under China

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