Rebirth of the Wild Age

October 1st, National Day.

This year is another trough in China's real estate industry, and it is getting lower every year.

The highest housing price in Shencheng fell from over 10,000 yuan per square meter in 1993 to less than 8,000 yuan in 1997. Generally, properties can only be sold for more than 6,000 yuan. People who bought houses in the past few years have lost a lot, especially with the collapse of the property market in Hong Kong City, Shenzhen City will continue to fall.

Hu Deming is a college student who graduated last year. Although the monthly salary is as high as 2,600 yuan, and the company also provides free lunch, it is still far away from buying a house in Shencheng.

The most painful thing is that the monthly phone bill is more than 200, because his girlfriend is in the capital.

Although today is the National Day, Hu Deming still has to go to work, and the seven-day long holiday has not yet been born.

When he came to the station with his buns in his mouth, Hu Deming suddenly found that today's bus was very bright. A bus stopped in front of him, the entire body was painted dark red, and the huge Coca-Cola logo was particularly conspicuous.

Another bus came over, the whole body was painted sky blue. The photo of Faye Wong, the queen of Chinese music, occupies a quarter of the car. She holds a red mobile phone in her hand, and there is a line next to her head: I use PHS to make calls.

In addition, there are other contents on the body: PHS, the Chinese own mobile phone, the national unified price is 5888 yuan. Telecom monthly rent is 20 yuan, only 20 cents per minute, and there is no charge for answering the phone!

Many passers-by are curious about it, because the overall body advertisement is too rare.

Body advertisements have appeared as early as 1995, but they are all painted on wooden boards or fiberglass and fixed on both sides of the bus. The advertisements can be disassembled at any time when they expire.

Why not just spray paint the entire car with the ad?

Because it is too expensive.

In the early 1990s, when inkjet technology first entered China, the production cost per square meter was more than 1,000 yuan. Until 1997, the inkjet painting fee per square meter still required 200-300 yuan, which was pure inkjet painting fee, excluding advertising design and other expenses.

In addition, the bus company does not allow spraying on the car body. The leader thinks it is gimmicky and only allows detachable advertising boards to be fixed on both sides of the bus.

This year, it is finally possible to spray the whole body advertisement, but there are not many bidders. Coca-Cola voted for about one-fifth, and PHS voted for two-fifths, all of which were on the main bus lines.

Facts have proved that PHS phone calls in the city are very suitable for body advertising, and the revenue is far greater than that of Coca-Cola.

"More than 5,000 mobile phones? It's too cheap!"

"It's a fake."

"Would you buy a fake one? It must be real."

"It is estimated that the sellers of mobile phones are also engaged in price wars. In the past two years, when there was a price war for color TVs, the price of TVs dropped by almost half."

"Play well, preferably up to 1000."

"Dream! It's a mobile phone, a high-tech product. If you sell it for more than 5,000 yuan, you're making a loss. Didn't the newspaper say that Changhong sold it at a loss when the price was lowered? I guess the PHS is also losing money." Sell."

"Then you have to buy one quickly, what if the price goes back?"

"The phone bill is still cheap, and there is a one-way charge for 20 cents."

"..."

Hearing these passers-by's comments, Hu Deming was equally moved. He had already saved nearly ten thousand yuan, and he could easily buy a PHS mobile phone.

Three years ago, the price of a mobile phone was 20,000 to 30,000. Two years ago, the price of the Motorola 8900 was 30,000 to 40,000.

A year ago, the price of mobile phones generally fell below 10,000 yuan, but at least 7,000 to 8,000 yuan must be sold.

This PHS phone actually only sells for 5888!

So cheap and so conscientious!

When he came to the company, Hu Deming had just sat down when he heard his colleague say: "I'm going to buy a PHS, whoever wants to buy it, let's go to the telecommunications office together at noon. Maybe there will be a discount if you buy more."

"Let's go together at noon!" Hu Deming said hastily.

"I'll go too." Several colleagues said.

The people who work here are all white-collar workers, 5888 is really not a big amount, and saving for three to five months is enough.

Yes, saving for three to five months is not expensive.

Mobile phones are big items for people at this time, and it is acceptable to save money for a year, just like people buy a car more than ten years later.

After finally staying up until noon, Hu Deming didn't even have time to eat, so he ran to the telecommunications office with a few colleagues.

Well, there's already a queue at that shitty place, and this is the first day of PHS's launch!

Hu Deming was the eighth in line. When it was his turn, he quickly handed in the counted money: "I want the blue one!"

The staff said: "The purchase price is 5,888 yuan, and the monthly rent is 20 yuan. If you prepay the monthly rent for a whole year, you can get a 5% discount. Do I need to pay in advance?"

Hu Deming asked: "How much monthly rent can I save a year with a 50% discount?"

"It can save 12 yuan." The staff said.

"I paid in advance for one year!" Hu Deming felt that it was a good deal, and asked again, "By the way, you charge one-way, only 20 cents per minute?"

"Yes," the staff member said with a smile, "you can call anytime in the first three minutes, and it only costs 20 cents. After three minutes, there will be an additional call fee."

Hu Deming said pleasantly: "It's a good deal, even more cost-effective than a landline phone!"

Hu Deming, who had taken advantage of it, wished he could hug PHS and kiss him a few times. He walked out with the phone in his hand, and said to his colleagues who were still in line: "I'll go out and call my girlfriend first, and we'll have dinner together at the old place later!"

Walking on the street, Hu Deming took out his mobile phone and made a call under the envious eyes of passers-by: "Hey, Lily. It's me, A Ming, this is my phone... Mobile phone, of course it's a mobile phone, I just bought it after saving money , I’ll give you the number, write it down quickly... By the way, try to call me in the future, I don’t need money to answer the phone, and the money I save will buy you good things... Really, one-way charging, PHS , 2 cents per minute...you hurry up and buy one too...hey, can you hear me?"

Before he knew it, Hu Deming had walked into the underground passage.

"Hey, hey... Fuck, there's no signal!"

Hu Deming quickly came out of the underground passage and dialed again: "Hey, dear, there was no signal just now...Okay, don't worry, I won't spend money randomly...Okay, I will go to the capital to see you next month...Hey, hey, Damn, what a broken phone!"

It was Hu Deming who thought the street was too hot, so he walked to the shade of a corner of a building.

There is a PHS signal antenna on the roof of the building. The so-called dark under the lights, this is the place where the signal is the weakest. When Song Weiyang held a press conference, the signal antennas were installed lying on his stomach, and they were specially aimed at the venue of the press conference.

Hu Deming stopped calling, just stared at the phone screen and walked around, and quickly figured out the PHS signal pattern.

The signal of this thing is weak, and the penetration is not strong. It can be used casually in open areas, and it will become weaker when there are more obstacles such as walls.

Walking back to the telecommunications office, Hu Deming found that his colleagues were all on the phone, and there were at least dozens of people in that place who called relatives and friends to leave their numbers. And everyone is very shrewd. They only need 20 cents for the first three minutes, and each of them hangs up for more than 2 minutes and 50 seconds. They are so happy that they have taken advantage of the telecom bureau.

In Shencheng alone, PHS sold more than 300 mobile phones on its first day of listing.

The price of each unit is 5888 yuan, and the manufacturing cost is less than 500 yuan... The main reason is that the purchase price of chips and motherboards is quite expensive. If the production scale continues to expand, the cost will continue to fall.

Profits!

No wonder in history, UTStarcom can become one of the top ten telecommunications companies in the world in just a few years only by relying on the PHS business, and set a myth of breaking Wall Street's expectations for 17 consecutive quarters. It surpassed Cisco.