The once domestic mobile phone brother suddenly "resumed", can the king return?

Good news came from the "mobile phone circle", the former domestic brother suddenly resumed trading, and it was suspected that the king had returned. It once did something, kicked Samsung, and overpowered Apple, and the scenery was infinite......

Ahem... Recently, there have been too many stalks in the "bodybuilding circle", and the fruit has accidentally triggered a combo.

Of course, the "good news" is true, this domestic brand that is trying to "return the king" is - Coolpad mobile phone!

Forehead... How many times has this been the "resumption of trading"? The fruit was checked a little, and it was a little difficult:

In 2014, it cooperated with 360 and resumed trading; In 2015, after an equity dispute with 360, trading resumed; After a 27-month suspension in 2019, trading resumed again...

With such a tortuous life trajectory, you can make a mobile version of "Alive".

Today, Guozi and his friends will review this former king of domestic smartphones!

The rise of Coolpad

For Coolpad mobile phones, some friends may have some misunderstandings: it is not an "Internet brand", and it has been dominant in the era of BP machines.

In 1992, Professor Guo Deying of Shenzhen University decided to start a business, and the company "Yulong Communication" was born;

As a graduate of Xidian and a master's degree in communication from Shanghai Jiaotong University, Professor Guo is simply a "god from heaven" in the communications industry.

At that time, the mobile communications industry was still in the era of BP machines, and his company mass-produced BP machines with domestic operating systems in three years, and was the first company to achieve this feat.

Professor Guo's company became an instant hit and directly jumped to one of the top BP machine manufacturers in China.

In 2002, Professor Guo found that Yulong Communication's biggest competitor "Bird" actually made a real "mobile phone", and its sales volume dominated the list in China for a long time;

More friends are also joining this market, which makes him realize that if he doesn't transform, he is afraid that he will not be able to share the "cake".

In 2003, Yulong Communications relied on its upstream position in BP machines and hit it off with Unicom and launched the "Coolpad 688 mobile phone";

This is also where the Coolpad brand was originally born.

Coolpad's first mobile phone has a very high configuration, and it debuted a color resistive touch screen in China.

For people at the time, this machine could be described as "three-body technology".

However, what friends did not expect was that China Unicom had become their most insurmountable "mountain"!

Because at that time, only Unicom monopolized the market, Coolpad expanded wildly through Unicom's operator channels, and then it became a "nightmare" for friends for several years.

As many mobile phones as Coolpad can produce, Unicom can sell.

What makes friends desperate even more is that Coolpad not only has free production and sales, but also has very fast technology iteration.

In 2004, China Unicom carried out technological innovation and released the dual-SIM and dual-mode technical standard.

And Coolpad also lived up to expectations, and the world's first dual-SIM dual-standby mobile phone "Coolpad 828" was mass-produced for the first time!

At the end of 2004, Coolpad quickly rang the bell and went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Since then, Coolpad has started its own "flying life".

Until 2007, Coolpad and Unicom were close together, with annual sales exceeding the 1 billion mark.

Coolpad's first crisis

In 2007, it was a "turning point in the fate" of Coolpad mobile phones, and the domestic communications industry entered the 3G era.

As a company with top technical strength, Coolpad naturally continued to seize the opportunity and launched the first 3G TD / GSM dual-mode dual-mode dual-standby mobile phone "Coolpad 6260".

Even in the new era, Coolpad is still "strong enough to fly"! Relying on the relationship with Unicom, you can still sell as much as you want.

Friends are speechless in the face of such an opponent... The technology is not as good as others, and after producing mobile phones, you have to worry about not being able to sell them.

However, as the saying goes, "people are popular for three years", and Coolpad has not escaped this "law".

In 2008, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) forced China Unicom, China Telecom, and China Mobile to reshuffle the cards of three operators, in order to prevent a possible "telecommunications monopoly" situation in the future.

The "hard days" of major mobile phone brands are over... Don't you like Coolpad?

Hey~~ I'm looking for telecom and mobile cooperation, you have operator channels, and I also have them!

As the three operators became competitors, the operators asked the mobile phone brand to reduce the price;

The reason is that both operators and mobile phone brands can expand the market at the same time, which is a "win-win" situation.

This reason is very incomprehensible, there is no way... The tide of the times is unstoppable.

The reform of operators is "bad news" for Coolpad.

This year, the company's profits were seriously degraded, and there was negative growth for the first time, with a loss of HK $76 million.

The last glory of the Coolpad

In 2009, Guo Deying stepped forward again and specified a new development path for Coolpad: to fully develop the Android system that had just been commercialized.

This stunned the company's top management, you know: Android was only 4% of the global market at that time, and it didn't even cross the "life and death barrier" of 5%.

As it turned out, Professor Guo's vision beyond ordinary people once again saved the declining Coolpad mobile phone.

In 2010, Coolpad launched its first 3G Android smartphone, the Coolpad N930.

In addition, Coolpad may have been in contact with operators for many years and knew the news of "contract phones", and N930 has also joined the ranks of "charging phone bills and sending mobile phones";

Because of its excellent 3G performance and low price, this phone can no longer be described as a "hot model".

In 2010, Coolpad's financial report changed from last year's loss to a net profit of 450 million yuan, and such a rapid realizability made friends dumbfounded!

Coolpad ushered in its own "second spring" until 2013, when the four-legged situation of "China Cool Federation" was formed.

These four domestic mobile phone brands are all "ruthless characters" who started with self-developed technology.

Coolpad withered

In 2014, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology ordered the three major operators to cut marketing expenses to control the gradually uncontrolled market, and eliminated subsidies for the purchase of aircraft;

This makes all high-profile smartphones lose the eligibility of "charge and send away". The "China Cool Alliance" suffered a serious setback and could only make a living on their own.

Coolpad's new solution is: online and offline. The "Cool God" brand was launched online, and the "IVVI" brand was launched offline;

This IVVI is more "abstract", and I didn't do it myself, but it is a copycat machine that is still in the limelight.

Coolpad God is the company's main new brand, and it is also known to many young people as "Coolpad".

The first machine, the "Okami F1", quickly exploded as soon as it was launched; Subsequently, classic models such as the Dashen F2 were launched, and the price of 800 yuan quickly increased.

In May 2014, Coolpad surpassed Apple and Samsung in the domestic 4G mobile phone market and became the first brand of domestic mobile phones.

However, before Coolpad was Johnson & Johnson, the accident struck again: Lei Jun broke through with his "Redmi phone";

It actually stopped the momentum of Coolpad's expansion, which made the company very jealous.

To this end, Guo Deying came forward again and cooperated with the network security company 360 in 2015 to establish a joint venture brand "Qiku mobile phone", with Coolpad holding 55% of the shares.

However, Professor Guo made a big mistake in this cooperation and actually transferred the Dashen brand to 360.

The consequence is that the products of the two brands of Qiku and Dashen are controlled by Zhou Hongyi, and he has become a "hands-off shopkeeper".

Facts have proved that Xiaomi mobile phones are invincible in the Internet, and Zhou Hongyi has been defeated one after another.

At this moment, Guo Deying has no choice, and a "chip" in his hand is gone.

Therefore, he secretly sold 16% of Coolpad's equity to LeTV's Jia Yueting;

Zhou Hongyi was furious when he found out, accusing Coolpad of violating the equity contract and demanding compensation;

Guo Deying eventually lost some of his Coolpad shares to 360, which increased its stake to 75%.

Since then, Coolpad mobile phones have "existed in name only"......

And it all happened in 2015, so it could be described as overnight.

In 2016, Guo Deying seemed to "see through the red dust" and sold the remaining shares of Coolpad to "Boss Jia", so that Coolpad completely changed hands;

In 2017, LeTV was saddled with huge debts, and Boss Jia "run" to the United States at the speed of light, and Coolpad's equity was gone;

In 2018, after several years of "confrontation" between Zhou Hongyi and Lei Jun, he admitted his defeat and finally disbanded the mobile phone team and withdrew.

Can Coolpad come back?

In 2017, after LeTV's employees "ran away", Coolpad's veteran employee "Jiang Chao" took over Coolpad's mess.

He actively attracted investment, and accumulated strength in the overseas low-end market, and it was rumored on the Internet that Coolpad finally accumulated 2 billion capital to return.

However, the capital side was very strong, and bought more than half of the shares at a high price, and the helmsman was replaced by Chen Jiajun in the real estate industry.

In 2021, Coolpad returned to the domestic market, but the machines on the market were all low-end phones such as MediaTek G85 and Dimensity 900.

Later, in 2023, Coolpad announced that it would return again, and the machine would still be an "antique", and it would even start the business of "feature phones" again.

Chen Jiajun knows that there is no possibility of recovery in the mobile phone business, and will increase the digital currency business in the second half of 2023.

To put it simply: lending and mining.

As of the first half of 2024, the company's cryptocurrency business income and rental income were HK$41.24 million and HK$43.4 million, respectively, accounting for 16.3% and 17.2% of the company's revenue.

This should be regarded as a "resurrection", right?

Today, it is already 2025, although Coolpad is profitable again, it has the opportunity to "resume" listing;

But it's a pity that Coolpad doesn't sell phones anymore......