Rebirth of England

Even so, because in 2005, smartphones were only in their infancy. Taking the Chinese market as an example, so far this year, smartphones account for less than 5% of the entire mobile phone market...

Even in Europe and the United States, smartphones are used more, but because their mobile phone user base is large, the share of smartphones is not high.

It should be noted that the smartphones currently manufactured by HTC are still based on Windows Mobile system.

At this time, in the smartphone market, the main operating systems include Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm and Linux. Among them, the Symbian system has the largest market share. Although the Windows Mobile system relies on Microsoft's technology and financial resources, its market share is also It is gradually rising, but it is still far from the Saipan system.

Therefore, even in the entire field of smartphones, HTC's market share is not high. In the end, they still need to launch the first Android phone after the launch of the IPHone, leading the era of touch-screen smartphones, to enter the mainstream. among the ranks of mobile phone brands.

HTC is now listed on the securities market of Bayan Province, with a market value of less than US$800 million. It can be said that under such circumstances, the biggest obstacle to GII Fund's acquisition of this company is Wang Xuehong, the chairman of HTC.

If we wait for HTC to launch Android phones before acquiring it, it may be really difficult to win. After all, after seeing the dawn of the brand and having the support of his family, Wang Xuehong will definitely not let go.

But now...

After the GII Fund raised the acquisition price to US$1 billion and gave a 20% premium to a company mainly engaged in foundry manufacturing, it first convinced the other two investors of HTC. In the end, Wang Xuehong was also in the same situation. At the end of the day, HTC’s board of directors approved GII Fund’s acquisition offer for them, and will exit the company after GII Fund fully acquires them...

In fact, HTC at this time did not have its own brand. Some people may have heard of this brand, which is "Dopod".

On July 1, 2002, Hongda International Electronics and VIA Electronics jointly invested in the establishment of Dopod International Co., Ltd., with its headquarters in Bayan Province and its factory in Hsinchu.

The company's main business projects are product design, marketing business and customer service for mobile phones and handheld devices. Its business covers China Bay Province, Mainland China, China HK and Southeast Asia.

Later, in order to cooperate with the brand layout of HTC International Electronics in mainland China, Wang Xuehong invested and founded Dopod Communications Co., Ltd. in his own name. The headquarters was established in Shanghai, and the production base was located in Jiangcheng. The products were specially sold for the mainland market in China.

Subsequently, Dopod obtained a mobile phone license in mainland China and officially sold Dopod's own brand of smart phone products.

After acquiring HTC, GII Fund recovered all the shares of Dopod Bay Provincial Company and Dopod Company in Mainland China, as well as sales channel assets, for a price of US$50 million, and integrated them into HTC.

After the acquisition, GII Fund renamed HTC Honor Electronics, and Dopod will continue to operate as their subsidiary.

Uh, I'm sorry Huawei, you'd better think of another name for your mobile phone sub-brand in the future...

At this time, investors of Honor Electronics, including Wang Xuehong, had left the company, while Zhou Yongming, the original CEO of the company, continued to serve as CEO of Honor Electronics. GII Fund also hired Dick Clayton, an executive from Motorola, to serve as COO of Honor Electronics...

Honor Electronics is currently undergoing company integration after the acquisition, and GII Fund CEO Finn Hudson came to Yanjing with another mission.

"I have made an appointment with the chairman of China Electronics (CEC) and will discuss with him the joint acquisition of Philips..."

Finn Hudson said:

"Huaxia Electronics is indeed very interested in this proposal, and in the face of its increasingly lower share in the mobile phone market, Philips also intends to sell its mobile phone business..."

Yes, GII Fund’s next plan is to acquire Philips’ mobile phone business.

But they are not the ones making the acquisition alone. Although the market share of Philips mobile phones is getting lower and lower, now, the only thing worth boasting about is their "ultra-long standby" concept...

But even so, if you want to acquire Philips' entire mobile phone business, you will need at least US$2.5-3 billion in funds...

In fact, Barron, who knows the future development of Philips mobile phones, has little interest in Philips' mobile phone business, whether it is their "Philips" brand or its R\u0026D and production department.

The only thing that prompted him to make this acquisition was the nearly 20,000 mobile phone-related patents owned by Philips.

You know, in Barron's previous life, why did HTC, which was the first to launch Android phones and become popular, later decline?

The reasons for this are complicated, but one of the main reasons is that HTC, which entered the market later, was involved in many lengthy patent infringement lawsuits.

This includes the patent infringement lawsuit filed by Apple against it in 2010. This lawsuit can be said to have greatly damaged HTC's vitality!

It is worth mentioning that HTC, which became the "vanguard" of the Android camp at that time, also turned to Google, the owner of the original Android company, for help when facing Apple's patent war.

After all, when faced with this kind of patent war, in addition to facing the lawsuit directly, there is another way, which is to find the other party's "pain points" from one's own patent library, and then conduct an off-site settlement by exchanging patents - many established brands When mobile phone manufacturers entered the field of later touch-screen smartphones, they used this method to obtain Apple-related patent authorization.

Because Apple was also a "new player" in the mobile phone market at that time, it might have enough patents for smartphones, but they couldn't get around some patents on traditional mobile phones, and they often exchanged the rights to use patents with those manufacturers.

At that time, HTC thought that Google had very rich patents. Unexpectedly, Google, as a "new player" at that time, only had more than 200 American patents...

It is also for this reason that the Google Group later began to purchase patents everywhere in order to expand the Android camp. For example, when they acquired Motorola in 2011, they focused on the more than 18,000 patent assets owned by the other party.

HTC originally started out as an OEM and does not hold many related patents. This time it acquired Philips' mobile phone business to prepare to use the massive mobile phone-related patents owned by Philips, an "old player", to reserve ammunition for future Honor Electronics.

The reason for cooperation with Huaxia Electronics is that Huaxia Electronics is an important partner of Philips' mobile phone business.