Without gold quality, it can no longer stand tall in the world.

In recent years, changes in smartphones can mainly be divided into two categories: "Functionality" and "Form Factor".

There's no need to go into detail about functionality. After all, brands with even slight software development capabilities have already positioned AI as the future direction of their enterprises. Some brands have even "stopped making phones altogether" and devoted themselves solely to researching "AI devices".

As for changes in hardware, it's undoubtedly foldable screens. With the maturing of foldable screen technology, more and more mobile phone brands have joined the foldable phone camp, and increasingly fierce competition in the industry has also pushed down the prices of foldable phones consecutively. The prices of some "mini-foldables" have even reached the level of mid-range phones from the same brand.

However, the "foldable phone" we're going to talk about today has nothing to do with the "large and small foldables" I just mentioned. A while ago, Xiao Lei was surfing the "second-hand market" looking for any quirky phones that could be bought back for everyone's amusement. Suddenly, a very familiar-looking phone caught Xiao Lei's attention with an incredibly low price.

Take the following "low-resolution large image" as an example. Can everyone recognize what phone this is?

Image source: JD.com

That's right, it's the Gionee V35.

A "mini-foldable" feature phone with "telepathy"

At first glance, the Gionee V35 is indeed very deceiving, with a design that even seems to have "telepathy" with Huawei's foldable phones. But it must be acknowledged that the Gionee V35 has nothing to do with Huawei's Pocket series.

Image source: Gionee

First of all, the Gionee V35 is a keypad phone. When unfolded, the lower half of the phone reveals a huge T9 keypad that reveals one's age, while the actual screen is only on the upper half of the phone. After deducting the double-layered large borders, the screen area is only a mere 2.4 inches.

Image source: JD.com

Some might say, "Xiao Lei, didn't you write in your previous article that Android systems are not suitable for physical button interaction?" Indeed, modern Android apps that rely heavily on clicks, swipes, and drags struggle to function on physical keypad devices. But this has nothing to do with the Gionee V35, because it's not an Android phone at all, not even a light smartphone or "outdated smartphone." It's a full-fledged feature phone.

Image source: JD.com

As for the "external screen," it's actually just three indicator lights used to indicate battery level, messages, and missed calls. Fortunately, the camera on the back of the V35 is not just for decoration; it can actually take photos. However, Xiao Lei scoured Gionee's related pages and couldn't find any information about this camera. The same goes for the V35's "high-capacity battery," which lacks specific parameters. Nevertheless, the V35 does support USB-C charging, and it's recommended that a certain nostalgic phone brand that still insists on MicroUSB charging learn from this.

Image source: JD.com

Actually, Xiao Lei had planned to buy this phone originally. After all, with such an interesting design, it would be fun to buy it and compare it with the Pocket. But seeing its price of up to 469 yuan on JD.com, Xiao Lei ultimately hesitated and decided to check out the reviews from netizens, opting for a "cloud experience" instead.

But in the image comments for the V35, Xiao Lei saw an "old acquaintance": the system interface of the V35 is exactly the same as that of several feature phones I wrote about before. Has Gionee also become a "Nanjiren in the phone world"?

Gionee, "once wealthy ancestors"

Although Gionee now seems to have become a "Nanjiren," 20 years ago, Gionee was actually living a very comfortable life: In 2004, the era of "mobile phone approval system" officially ended, and the mobile phone industry entered the era of "approval system." With the help of the overall environment, the second generation of Chinese mobile phone companies, represented by Gionee, Tianyu, and ZTE, were established.

Gionee's founder Liu Lirong founded Gionee in 2002, mainly focusing on contract manufacturing of mobile phones, similar to Foxconn, and owning its own factories. Two years after the establishment of the factory, the mobile phone approval system was introduced, and Gionee successfully obtained the "mobile phone manufacturing qualification" in 2005, beginning to produce its own mobile phones.

Image source: Gionee

Unlike other mobile phone brands, "marketing" or "knowing how to advertise" has always been Gionee's corporate tag. During its heyday, Gionee not only invited Andy Lau, one of the "Four Heavenly Kings," at a heavy cost but also had Feng Xiaogang personally shoot an advertisement, and then spent a huge amount of money on 24-hour brainwashing-style loops on CCTV.

Under constant advertising bombardment, the slogan "Gold quality, standing tall in the world" spread from Andy Lau's mouth to every corner of the country, comparable to BrainGold's "No gifts this New Year, only BrainGold for gifts." Gionee became an overnight sensation, with mobile phone sales soaring year after year, eventually ranking first among domestic brands, second only to Samsung and Nokia in the same year.

Of course, we all know what happened next—after the relevant industry thresholds were removed, the domestic mobile phone market underwent rapid reshuffling: low-cost Nokia, Samsung, LG, and Sony (then called Sony Ericsson) quickly occupied the domestic high-end mobile phone market; the era of smartphones created by Google, Apple, Samsung, and HTC wiped out the domestic and foreign brands mentioned earlier; Xiaomi rewrote the stereotype that domestic brands could only make low-end customized phones with its flagship configuration and ultra-high cost-effectiveness, in a momentum that was unstoppable...

Image source: Xiaomi

Under Liu Lirong's leadership, Gionee lost all its chips in the repeated reshuffling of the domestic mobile phone market. Coupled with some off-field factors unrelated to the mobile phone market, it was predictable that Gionee would reach its end, launching "public mold phones" or directly selling brand licenses. After all, for today's Gionee, the only valuable asset left in its hands is the "brand" it fought for during the feature phone era and the early days of the smartphone era.

OEM is difficult to become big and strong

However, this approach of "opening brand licenses" and allowing other brands to OEM is clearly not a long-term solution.

Opening the brand to other manufacturers for product production can bring certain economic benefits in the short term, but in the long run, this approach is obviously more harmful than beneficial. Putting aside the dilution of brand value, opening licenses will blur the overall brand image and reduce consumer trust. Brand reputation will also suffer as a result, especially when authorized products have quality issues, consumers tend to blame the brand, making it difficult to repair brand reputation.

Relying on brand licenses for short-term gains will also lead to neglect of the brand's own innovation and research and development, weakening the brand's core competitiveness. Over time, the brand's position in the market will gradually decline, making it difficult to regain consumer recognition.

In addition, after the brand is opened, the brand owner's control over the product is weakened, making it difficult to ensure that all products meet the brand's quality standards and design concepts. This lack of control will not only affect product quality but may also cause the brand image to deviate from its original intentions. Once a brand relies heavily on the licensing model for a long time, it will become extremely difficult to re-establish brand independence.

Moreover, the uncertainty of OEM is always higher than that of self-owned brands. Examples from Wanglaoji and Jiaduobao, as well as Huabin and Austrian RedBull, tell us that the reputation earned through OEM ultimately belongs to the original brand. To avoid the situation of "working hard for others" from recurring, almost all OEM brands will not operate these purchased "brands" with care. The ultimate result of doing so is naturally that the phones produced are "just getting by," and consumers are "indifferent."

Image source: Gionee

Taking Gionee as an example, before launching the "mini-foldable," Gionee did launch quite a few Android phones, such as the Gionee F1 Plus and Gionee F3 Pro. However, both of these phones look like crude imitations of the iPhone.

The "Era of Large OEM" is History

In fact, besides Gionee, many brands that were once popular in the domestic mobile phone market but were "eliminated" by mobile phone giants around 2018 chose the OEM approach to "extract the remaining value of the brand," such as Xiaolajiao, Kubi, Duowei, and NOKIA, which may be more familiar to everyone.

Due to the dismal performance of the Windows Phone plan, Microsoft "squeezed out" Nokia's mobile device services department and sold Nokia's (Nokia Mobile) smartphone business to HMD Global, a partner of Foxconn, in 2016. Simply put, HMD designs the phones, Foxconn manufactures them, and they are finally sold under the NOKIA brand.

In the domestic market, the phenomenon of mobile phone OEM is even more prevalent. Some might think that the domestic Android mobile phone market is now very "competitive," but little do they know that the domestic Android market is already experiencing a rare period of calm after the bloody battles of the past. During the transition from feature phones to smartphones from 2011 to 2014, countless domestic mobile phone brands fought tooth and nail in the Android market, and internet mobile phone brands, unlike traditional offline mobile phone brands, emerged in the market like mushrooms after rain. Well-known brands from that era include Dakele, Droidoo, Xiaolajiao, and IUNI.

Of course, we all know the outcome of these brands. After all, looking back now, Dakele, Xiaolajiao, and today's protagonist, Gionee mobile phones, are nothing more than insignificant "sacrifices" in the process of contract manufacturers filling the low-end mobile phone market space.

Source: Leitech