China Mobile's memoirs: Do you remember Big Brother?

On April 3, 1973, Motorola invented the world's first mobile phone.

At the beginning of the reform and opening up, mobile phones came to China across the oceans and got a new name on the mainland-"Big Brother". In 1987, Motorola set up an office in Beijing. Since then, Big Brother has been officially brought into China, which also means that China has officially entered the era of mobile communications.

According to media reports, the first Big Brother user was born in China in 1987. At that time, it cost 20,000 yuan to purchase, but also paid an entry fee of 6,000 yuan.

Today, mobile phones are no longer a luxury, but a necessity for people's lives, and the number of mobile phone users is also rising. However, according to Gfk's prediction, China's mobile phone market will enter the era of giant competition in 2018. Small brands are facing a crisis of survival. The Chinese mobile phone market has gradually evolved into a new "T" pattern and is highly centralized. This was a big challenge for the former "Big Brother" Motorola.

China Mobile's memoirs: Do you remember Big Brother?

In 1994, on the train from Shenyang to Dalian, passengers from Big Brother University were hit in the sleeping cars. Wang Fuchun / Visual China

China Mobile's memoirs: Do you remember Big Brother?

In 1996, Guangzhou, Guangdong, a hot "big brother" market. Figure / Visual China

China Mobile's memoirs: Do you remember Big Brother?

Nanjing Mobile Expo 2005: Visitors saw the “Big Brother” style of mobile phones. Figure / Visual China

Big Brother, a symbol of identity and wealth

After 7 years, Big Brother's sales have been opened.

In 1994, at the first mobile phone number auction in Shenzhen, a bidder bought the "Big Brother" phone auspicious number-9088888 for a high price of RMB 655,000. On the same day, Shenzhen Telecom Development Corporation launched 30 "Big Brother" numbers and sold a total of RMB 1.966 million yuan.

Lin Zhaohui, who lives in Guilin, Guangxi, also got his brother at the end of 1994. Lin Zhaohui entrusted his friend to buy this mobile phone at the Post and Telecommunications Bureau. Today, Lin Zhaohui ca n’t remember who was the first person to call after he had Big Brother, but he can still clearly recite the phone number of the year: 9017878-then Big Brother ’s number was already seven digits .

"At that time, Big Brother had already had the function of saving the phone, but we used to write down the phone in a small book and carry it with us." Lin Zhaohui remembered that when he got the mobile phone, he had more than 100 people in his phone book. Colleague and friend's big brother number.

Big Brother is not only an important tool for people's information communication and social interaction, but also a symbol of identity.

In 1999, Zhang Weilin, who lives in a third-tier city, became the second batch of "Big Brother" users. In his eyes, the black brick-like guy is more like a symbol of wealth and identity.

Zhang Weilin told the Beijing News reporter, "In the early 1990s, there was a big brother on the market. The price was about more than 20,000, and then a simulation machine came out. In 1999, I bought it for 5,000 yuan. A simulation machine cost me a month's salary at that time. At that time, there were very few people who used Big Brother, and they had a special face when they took it out. They looked at the envious eyes of others. "

At that time, Big Brother was undoubtedly a tight seller, but its shape design and function are difficult to compare with current mobile phones. Big Brother is thick and bulky, weighing more than 1 kg. It has no other functions except call, and the call quality is not clear and stable enough.

Zhang Weilin told reporters, "Although Big Brother is more convenient than a landline, its reception situation is not particularly good, and you still need to find a signal when you call."

Leading the "first generation of China Mobile"

As the selling price of Big Brother dropped, the sales channels were greatly expanded.

According to Lin Zhaohui's recall, Guilin's tourism industry in 1994 is in a period of rapid development, with a continuous flow of foreign guests. The monthly salary of first-line guides in the tourism industry can already reach 3,000 yuan, and the salary of the leader of the travel agency is higher. From 20,000 yuan to 10,000 yuan, many people in the tourism industry took out three months of salary and followed suit to buy Big Brother.

In fact, Chinese users really remember Motorola is the BP machine. In the 1980s, with the popularity of the BP machine, the advertisement of "Motorola pager, spreading information anytime and anywhere" became well known.

Compared with Big Brother, BP machine can only receive, not send messages. The user needs to dial the number of the paging station through the phone, and tells the paging BP number and his name and phone number. According to reports, the monthly salary of Miss Paging at that time could reach 800 yuan, comparable to the income level of university graduates at that time.

In order to meet the needs of different users, a variety of BP machines have been launched on the market. According to media reports, in the four years from 1995 to 1998, there were more than 15.93 million new paging users in the country each year. In 2000, the paging industry reached its peak.

Motorola not only brought the first mobile phone to China, but also introduced the first Motorola CD928 +, which supports Chinese input in 1999. Not only can this phone use Chinese input to edit text messages, but the phone book can also input Chinese names. In the process of mobile phone localization, it played a landmark role.

After setting up the Beijing office, Motorola registered Motorola (China) Electronics Co., Ltd. in Tianjin in 1992 and set up a factory. Cai Guoxiong, former senior global vice president of Motorola, told the media, "The calculation I started in 1992 was a loss. I did not expect to make money in the first year of the pager, and I made a lot of money and got the first pot of gold It also proves that China's huge demand for communication products after the reform and opening up. "The Chinese market has pushed Motorola to a new height, once occupying more than 80% of the pager market share.

Motorola China Product Director Gao Feng experienced the stage of the rise of the mobile phone industry in China and witnessed the rapid development of mobile phones in the Chinese market and the profound changes in people's lives. At the same time, it also witnessed the process of the Motorola brand training talents in the Chinese mobile phone industry.

In 1996, the peak just after entering Motorola was sent to the Motorola factory in Scotland to learn new technology for mobile phone product manufacturing. In the next 6 years, he took the product and technology team of the supply chain and transferred the technology and products of the company's original factories in the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Mexico to China.

Gradually away from the focus of sight

As a former arcade brand, Motorola gradually moved away from the focus of attention when the smartphone's air vent came.

It has been 45 years since Motorola invented the first mobile phone. While Chinese society has undergone tremendous changes, mobile phone products are constantly changing. Mobile phones are no longer just communication tools, but people's closest "partners" and can serve as mobile office tools and entertainment tools. The glory of BP and Big Brother belongs to the past. Motorola is no longer the absolute overlord of the industry. This old brand has to face the impact and challenges of manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, Huawei, and Xiaomi.

The Chinese smartphone market has become saturated. The “Analysis Report on the Operation of the Domestic Mobile Phone Market in March 2018” released by the China Institute of Information and Communications under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that from January to March 2018, China ’s smartphone shipments were 81.37 million units. A year-on-year decrease of 26.1%. Among them, the shipment of domestic brand mobile phones was 75.864 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 27.8%.

On the other hand, oligarchs have become more apparent. IDC data shows that in the first quarter of this year, the market share of the four head players of Huawei, OPPO, vivo, and Xiaomi totaled 85.8%. Gfk predicts that in 2018, China's mobile phone market will enter the era of giant competition, small brands are facing a crisis of survival, and the Chinese mobile phone market has gradually evolved into a new "T" pattern, highly centralized.

This is a big challenge for Motorola.

Motorola once withdrew from the Chinese market in 2013 and was later acquired by Lenovo. After two years, it returned to the Chinese market. In 2016, Motorola launched the modular mobile phone Moto Z. The modular product concept makes Moto Z unique in the mobile phone industry with serious homogenization.

Gao Feng does not deny that in the Chinese market, Motorola has encountered challenges from all aspects. Gao Feng told reporters that user experience, especially software experience, will become a top priority. He believes that Motorola should start from changing consciousness, starting from the needs of users, develop in line with user habits, and provide an experience that suits the user's usage scenario.

Facing the current status of the Chinese market, Pan Haifan, senior director of China's offline business, believes that before the advent of the mobile Internet era, Motorola's software and ecological layout is not ready and needs to be further strengthened. At the same time, the Chinese market is already the world's largest market, and we need to increase local content to provide more competitive products and services to customers and consumers in China. In addition, he mentioned that the 5G era is coming, which is a new opportunity and outlet for the industry chain.

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